Things are hotting up!

I've got two huge dyepots on the go, one full of mares-tail that I am hoping will give me some green though so far there is no indication it is going to give me anything, and one full of walnut leaves that are bound to give a nice brown. Some walnut leaves, rescued from a branch that needed to come out, are being boiled up as one might with any fresh dyeplant, some are soaking to see if the colour is stronger for soaking. Research seems to indicate that it will be, but time will tell.







I have moved one lot of moths from the breeding cage - they have all sacrificed their lives for the future generation as is the way with moths - and put the eggs in a quiet place to hatch. I will have to transfer a bumper population of a.pyrni into the mating cage, though some are already enthusiastically creating the next lot of babies! It never ceases to amaze me how powerful the mating urge is but I suppose if you only metamorphasise in order to produce fertile eggs, it wouldn't be much use to spend your short life with a headache...As the photo shows, the male is in great demand! Not sure if you can see from the photo but he has three ladies in the queue!

Dyehards

Not a spelling error - a group of us went to Maristow today to begin clearing the dye garden. I suggested to Jenny, whose gardens they are, that she should apply to hold the national collection of perennial and annual weeds! Nevertheless, a stout hearted gang of us: Philippa, Janet, Sue, Paddy, Jill and I, spent the day pulling out bindweed, bramble, giant hogweed, groundsel, nettles, docks and other sundry unwanted plants. I know that nettles are good for dye, but there are plenty in other places in the gardens. We cleared about a third of the ground and were joined by my husband, Mike, for the afternoon.

We moved a smoke bush, cotinus, from its rather unhappy position outside the walls and into our dye patch, marked out two beds and sowed safflower, coreopsis tinctoria and woad. We planted hollyhocks and edged one of the beds with Lady's Mantle. There is a small elder already in situ, and when we have cleared some more space, we will move two small New Zealand flax plants into the dye garden in order to give us some fibre!

Though we may be rather late in sowing, we hope that we will get something to use this year to show for all our hard work, and we have made a start - probably the single most important thing.

The photo shows the progress we have made - the whole bed looked the area you can see behind us. Sadly, I forgot to take one as we finished for the day, so you can't see the beginnings of the beds!

ISEND

My brain is still overloaded with all the information that bombarded us in La Rochelle but I am still experiencing the warm glow of hope offered by the Symposium - a machine developed in Taiwan that can dye fabric in natural colours in industrially sensible quantities; the high quality extracts being produced in Europe as well as Asia; the coming together of all manner of people from 80 countries in pursuit of the goal of making natural dyeing culturally and commercially viable and forging new relationships. If you want the ultimate networking format, ISEND is it!

Delegates ranged from university professors to practioners, via dye producers to retailers, fashion designers, textile students, chemists, anthropologists, historians, botanists and individuals who like to 'play.' Friendships were forged - and a sense of community created, particularly necessary for those of us who sometimes feel we are a lone, eccentric voice preaching to the uninterested.

And there is more moth mating today - so if only the weather would improve so the dye plants can go out, all would absolutely perfect. The rain is much needed, though the bees aren't terribly keen and I am going to Maristow Gardens tomorrow to help Jenny Tunley Price start the dye garden - sh e has been using a digger this weekend, so I hope we are not going to be drowned in mud! If you don't know about Maristow, look at www.maristowwalledgardens.co.uk

I am off to my land guild, Peter Tavy, to talk about Isend with my travelling companion, Paddy Younge, then this afternoon I must start potting on the Japanese indigo before they all expire from overcrowding.

ISEND, or Dyed and Gone to Heaven

Well, not sure where to start really when reporting back on the International Symposium and Exhibition of Natural Dyes! It was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my textile life and I came away feeling much more hopeful for the future of this vital way of creating colour from the resources provided by nature. The photo above shows me on the left and Alison Daykin, under the huge sign that advertises what is happening inside Espace Encon.

450 people attended, from 60 different countries, all bringing their expertise and enthusiasm for natural dyes and with a willingness to share what they knew. We understand that this knowledge, some of which is still confined to very small populations in remote areas of the world, must be preserved before it is too late.

There is so much to say that I think it will gradually emerge over the next few postings, but I had the opportunity to meet two of my dye extract suppliers, Andi from Renaissence Dyes and Patrick from Coleurs de Plantes, and even better, to go to Coleurs de Plantes premises and see for myself the care that is taken in producing these extracts - no synthetics used, just plant material and drying techniques. I watched Yoshika Wada make resist paste from rice bran, tried to see Michel Garcia's indigo vat but the crowd was too deep (got the recipe, though!), have a tiny piece of silk dyed with shellfish purple extract during a demonstration with Dr Takako Terada from Kwassui Women's University in Japan, made a piece of marbled indigo on silk...some much to do and so nice to meet up with friends old and new, and put faces to people only known up to now online.

La Rochelle, the venue, is a beautiful old town and I have taken dozens of photos of the buildings - just my style, late medieval and early modern. Wish I'd popped across when doing my degree as my essays would have been far more interesting! Eating fresh strawberries from Provence, bought in the market, in the gardens of the Natural History Museum, in the sun - April doesn't get much better than that!

Then to get home and find moths emerging and mating taking place made the perfect end to the perfect week. More soon...

Swarm

Well, it's a couple of hours later than my post and I now have a picture or two, though it is another swarm! We are running out of space, and desperate bee-keepers all around us are in the same predicament. It will be absolutely wonderful if we can keep all these casts that are developing - it will increase the bee population dramatically. At this exact moment, at least three bee-keepers I know are frantically trying to rearrange their hives, build more supers and generally keep up with this population explosion, the like of which, we can't remember!

Just a Quickie!

Well, it's been some time since I posted and a lot has happened. Some good, some not so good but I am gradually getting back into the swing of things.

Our trip to the Netherlands was great and we produced some fabulous yarns in the Whacky Fibres workshop in The Hague. There are lots of pix and information on the Creative Spinning blog, www.creativespinning.wordpress.com, should you wish to have a peep. In Zeeland, Alison and I had the opportunity to do some design work with Helen Melvin's landscape felters and we all thoroughly enjoyed both the process and the outcomes. As usual, it was lovely to meet old friends and make new ones, and I was particularly delighted to see that two of my students from last year had really made use of those workshops to create some wonderful items - their development was also evident in the yarns the created this year. I am not going to name names - look at the blog and see if you can tell who they are!

This morning the first two silkmoths of the year, a. pernyi, have appeared, a male and a female. So I am hoping for a positive outcome, although they are not yet making any great effort to mate! They are very close though, so fingers crossed. Might have some baby caterpillars when I return from France next Sunday - there is someone at home to do the necessary feeding should they get on with it.

France - ISEND, the International Symposium and Exhibition of Natural Dyeing. This is something I have been looking forward to for about six months. If you want to see why, go to www.isend2011.com. The only downside is that in order to catch the plane to La Rochelle, we need to get up at 4 am on Sunday morning - still, we should miss any bank holiday traffic!

I was hoping to add a photo of a swarm of bees in our garden - my husband is a beekeeper, so insects are a bit of an obssession in our household. Whilst writing about ISEND, I saw him put on his hat and veil and he said one of the hives had swarmed and were in the medlar tree - this is the third time this week, despite him checking twice a day for any emerging queens. By the time I got the camera - on my desk next to the computer - and out into the garden, about 2 mins, literally, they had gone. There are a few stragglers circling the tree but where the bulk have disappeared to who knows where. I daresay there'll be a phone call from a neighbour any minute now! It is very, very hot for April and we are hoping that the weather doesn't repeat last year's performance when the bees were active very early in the season but then came the rain, the flowers were either knocked down by the heavy showers or never came to anything and the poor old bees suffered. The poor things are under enough pressure from disease, climate change and lack of awareness of how crucial they are to the survival of human life on this planet - they deserve to have a great year. All our hives are in fine condition at the moment, hence the populations swarming to start new colonies and some we have on a nearby farm are producing a wonderful honey flow already.

I expect this is the last you'll hear from me until after ISEND.

Have a fantastic Easter - be sure I will!

Who says natural dyes are boring?!

I stock some yummy fat yarn, a single so I suppose really it is a giant pencil roving, that I dye and sell to knitters and weavers who want a fast result! I am often asked what it looks like knitted up and began a blanket, in log cabin style, to have as a sample on display. As I was making it, a friend fell in love with it and so I finished it to fit her when she was lying down, toes covered at one end and reaching generously to her chin at the other. Friends and colleagues at Duchy Square began referring to this project as 'Blankie,' and progress was watched with interest. Blankie is pictured above with some dyed yarns

Moving on a year, I had a burning desire to try weaving Blankie 2 - the warp is on the loom now, slightly more progress than you will see in the photo of the warp raddled. The dyes are cutch, madder, dhak and a mix based on weld extract. I hope to have some woven fabric to show later this week but realistically I have very little time as I will also be preparing for the annual teaching trip to The Netherlands with my good friends Alison Daykin, Amanda Hannaford and Helen Melvin. We are all getting excited now, and I think I can speak for all of us when I say that these visits are inspiring, exciting and all round positive experiences. Can't wait!