This is a good time of year to sort out the seed harvest and divide them into envelopes to swap or give away.
The dye garden can supply the following seeds to any staff or students who would like to grow their own colour: weld, madder, coreopsis, woad.
Over the summer, we have been collecting plant material to make into ink. The inks are easy to make – plant material is cooked and sieved and reduced and strained again until a strong colour is reached.
The coreopsis appears to have survived the recent stormy weather and is growing on strongly. It will be needed for a Dyelab workshop in July so hoping to see some flower buds soon.
Lots of weld seedlings which will need thinning out. These will provide a harvest for next year. Weld is an essential plant for the dye garden as it produces a strong yellow dye which has good list fastness properties.
June 24th is St John (Baptist) Day and coincides with the midsummer flowering of Hypericum/St John’s Wort.
A harvest of flowers from St John’s Wort for use in the next dye pot. Not sure which colour it will produce on cotton paper…..
Walnut is a dye stuff that can be used on both animal and vegetable fibre without a mordant. Once you have set up the dye bath, add your fibre and leave it to take up the colour. With a solar dye bath, you might leave it for a week say….or longer perhaps.
A friend has sent in some dried walnut husks from her garden. These will leach a lot of colour when rehydrated.
The husks have been mixed with hot water and will be left on a sunny windowsill to encourage the colour into the water.
A new project starting in Blackburn to grow flax and woad and produce a home grown pair of jeans for the British Textile Biennial 2023
New for 2021 is the Dyelab – a space for students to cook up a pot of plants and dye some samples of fabric or paper.
Madder tops just starting to regrow this Spring
The colour is found in the roots of the madder plants. The thicker the roots the better.
The roots are washed and chopped up then cooked to extract colour. This is a sheet of cotton rag paper which will stay in the pot for about 30 minutes.
Samples of paper dyed with the madder root. Most of these had been previously mordanted with oak gall and symplocos.
March 2021
At last, work can restart on the dye garden after a year of absence.
Most of the plants have survived the very dry season last year. But some areas will need replanting and weeding.
A larger patch of comfrey has been planted, teasel and cornflower seed has been sprinkled so hoping for some warm weather and spring rain to see them germinate.
A peacock butterfly was spotted sunbathing near the garden