It has been a beautiful, sunny day here - warm enough to sit outside after a week of grey, damp weather.
The sunshine reminded me that I have not updated you on the results of my solar dyeing. You may remember that
here I told you about the book I had been reading called 'Slow Stitch' which included instructions for slow/solar dyeing.
It's been a lovely, sunny autumn overall so I was able to play with lots of jars of fibres and natural dye.
Each jar contains a half a teaspoon of alum, to help the dyes take, the matter I am using to take the dye from plus an A4 piece of linen or cotton fabric, a skein of cotton or linen thread, some lace and some ricrac. The contents were covered with hot water, given a good stir and then left in the sun for at least two weeks.
I have had some really good results which I have documented in a little record book.
It is interesting to see how the different fibres take the dye.
So here is my collection of fabric and threads - a pleasing variety of colours.
These are my lace's and ricrac.
I plan to start again in the spring trying some different ingredients, in the meant time I want to make a start on slow stitching my collection so far.
