I just got back from Glasgow where I spent the weekend with the West of Scotland Guild of Spinners, Dyers and Weavers. The guild meet once a month in Milngavie and I was asked to come and give a talk and run a felting workshop well in advance. Infact Jill from the Guild had asked … read more…
Until the end of March we are offering £50 off our May Craft Retreat! May 19th-26th 2018 Join us for natural dyeing, wet felting, needle felting and a little bit of spinning… Watch Alex hand-shear one of our lovely Shetland sheep, then sort and wash fleece. Enjoy foraging in the woods for dye plants, including; … read more…
Natural Dyeing Outdoors It really feels like Spring arrived today, although we had a pretty frozen morning, we had beautiful sunshine all day, which meant I was able to do my first lot of outdoor natural dyeing for 2016. I have been dyeing fleece ready for the Country Living Magazine Spring Fair in March- where … read more…
Wild Rose Makes We have just finished, washing, dyeing and drying the wool for our new needle felting kits. They will contain our own naturally dyed wool, Shetland, Hebridian, Cheviot fleece, two felting needles, a sponge and instructions. We are starting off with Blue-tit and Robin kits. The kits contain everything needed to make a … read more…
Today was day one of our June Natural Dyeing course. We seemed to have every sort of weather, but we kept the fires going and foraged for dye plants including, Bracken, Broom flowers and tree lichen. We managed to chop, sort, mix and make 4 lovely dyes, but will end up with about eight different … read more…
We had a fantastic weekend of natural dyeing, creating nearly 30 different shades, a complete rainbow of beautiful hues. Over the weekend we dyed with; Gorse flowers, elderberries, tree lichen (small amounts from fallen branches), madder, cochineal, indigo, turmeric and and onion skins. We had eight dye pots on the go at different times, two … read more…
Spring is here -it is time to start natural dyeing! The Gorse flowers are now out in the Highlands and that is always a good sign, Gorse is always one of my first flower dyes of the year. Gorse makes a lovely creamy yellow dye. I also dye with barks and fir cones this time … read more…
I thought it might be quite handy to have a few instructions in case anyone wants to try this method at home! Part of the finished wall hanging! If you have watched the short film below, it gives you some idea of how we did it. We started by washing a dyeing local fleece. … read more…
For the last few weeks Alex and I have been getting ready for the season. Our friends Ele and Craig have lent us thier Mongolian Ger (Yurt), which we put up with the help of Julie last weekend. It was a last minute decision, as it looked like the weather was going to turn for the rest … read more…
At last we have our Polytunnel and it’s going up. It is amazing how many parts it came in. Luckily Alex neatly laid them all out in the barn and has systematically put it all together, adding his own little bits and bobs here and there. Before the skin was on Our soil has only … read more…
