I have been missing for a while. My twitter account has remained dormant. That is because my Father died two weeks ago after a long illness. He had been in and out of hospital for 9 months, and just returned home for the first time, before becoming ill again, and this time it was too much. He had bounced back so many times, that I think we thought this was another occasion where he would do so, therefore I was in fact, not prepared. There will be lots to do in the coming months, which will keep me busy, but I have not spent much time at home in the last nine months, so I also now need to look forward and get back to The Spinning Shed, something that has kept me going through some of the dark times.
I adore fleece, sheep, fluff, spinning, dyeing and learning. I now feel I can crack on with my passion, knowing that Dad would want me to be happy and work hard. I shall try to acheive both, with his voice encouraging me on! Our love for you will not falter, even though you have stepped into another room. As I experiment with natural dyes more, I thought I should share what I have been up to. I like to use little energy, so the whole process takes rather a long time, which means I don't produce that much! However, here are a few piccies of the end results. As I build up, these things will hit the website with a shop, but all in good time, as this is slow production! This is merino dyed with madder. I use an Alum mordant, but there are no other modifiers. It is salmony in reality and very pretty. Here are three cakes being logwood purple (my goodness it is hard to exhaust that dye bath), valonia oak, and lac. Five colours on the drum carder making a mixed batt of the above three plus madder and goldenrod The mixed batt off the carder.
I am trying a method that is more environmentally friendly, to cut down on energy and water. I filled a plastic box with rainwater from the butt (up here in Scotland, we are not short of water!) and then soaked the Portland fleece in the water. I then left the box out in the sun (I use the word loosely, as we are having a terrible summer, but hopefully even a little goes a long way). I must admit, that I wanted to get the next fleece in the dirty water, before removing the first one, and it took a long time to come, so the first fleece was left in there a little too long. How do I know this? Not from the smell, which I expected to be bad, but because I think it may have been going a little moldy - there were green colours going on in the water. This was after direct and very warm sun one day, which is what has lead me to that conclusion. But all in all, the Portland was in the water for about 2 weeks. This is the resultant water Now, this water is full of dirt eating bacteria, from what I understand, so should clean sheep's fleece more quickly than the 2 weeks I left the first one in there. The next to go in this water was 1kg of texel. And this is the Portland after the "dirty" wash, before rinsing (which is another box of rainwater). The experiment continues, but so far so good. And if you were wondering, the fleece is destined for a peg loom rug/throw/cover. Can't wait for it to be ready to have a go!
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