I have been continuing to experiment with natural dyes and Ahimsa Silks. Images and text can be seen last month and in the Sustainability files. Working with a traditional process highlights the luxurious properties and conditions from which I currently benefit with commercially formulated bottled dyes. I decide - I want this sort of greeny blue. So I mix it, paint it, steam it; and the colour won't change. Traditional dyeing using mordants, dye extracts etc means I aim at a colour I want, achieve something else and then wonder what the hell I am going to do with it. This partly reflects my lack of experience because I am not sufficiently familiar with what each dye will do on each fibre. It also defines the sheer skill of traditional dyers.

I am trying to perfect the snowstorm (ro fubuki) technique I learned in March with Betsy Sterling Benjamin.Comparing the first samples I made with the current ones, I have certainly improved in the actual motion of tapping the block with the brush, but have also learned how dense the wax droplets must be close to the edge of the mask. Below is an image half way through making a scarf. The card strips are masks and will prevent the wax hitting the scarf. They are thus resist-resists...!

A sneak preview of latest work, still on the frame but now finished and ready to dewax. This Gozo design scarf is done in the ro-fubuki technique (see previous entry) using paper or card masks. There is a detail below. There are three layers of dye and wax.

It is a repetitive technique and therefore a complete change from a looser discipline of brush-led marks but I am enjoying the way that one can achieve very subtle textures of colour. I also like the crackled edge of the straight lines.

In addition I am taking part in the Craft Focus programme at Riverside Mill, Bovey Tracey, home of the Devon Guild of Craftsmen. For this I need to prepare several pieces which reflect certain techniques and ways of working, and also illustrate the design process from sketch through to silk. Fortunately, I have several photographs from last year which will be useful.

For the Craft Focus I am revisiting the Meadow series, which developed into a final form last year, as this is well documented in photographs and sketches

May 12th

Natural Dyeing update: Colours for old ladies' stockings I can now do (see image on the right). .It's achieving anything else on silk that is the problem. I have been using commercially produced georgette and crêpe for the latest experiments, dyeing backgrounds with dilutions of the dye extract. For a full history of this study, go here. I recently bought a stainless steel bucket, having wondered if the aluminium pan I had used to date was affecting the colours. But results in the steel bucket are the same. Madder is producing a rust or a yellow, without much red. Logwood is making a warm brown when I had hoped for purple. The blue in the logwood dye seems to gather on the pan sides and develops on the floor if I drip there: the unmordanted cotton floor cloth with ideas above its lowly station has some very nice Imperial purple patches on it now it's had a wipe at the mess. But the silk won't take it up.

As well as my venture into Hosiery for the Elderly I have also completed several waxed scarves, dyed 8 clamped scarves, steamed 10 scarves, sewn in several labels, done three despatch notes, delivered work to a gallery etc etc.

The Old Lady Hosiery Range

Imperial hues on a lowly floor cloth. Sigh.

May 16th - 20th

I've done lots of processing in the last few days; ironing out, steaming, scouring, mordanting new scarves. I've also developed a new design from some drawings of rocks I made on Orkney several years ago and which suddenly occurred to me as being suitable for wax drawing / dyeing. I'll post a photo eventually. The idea works with acid dyes. This is useful as I can get to know the design before using natural dyes. Natural dyes are more expensive in working time and money so I am more wary about using them in new work.

The last two pieces I dyed (below) using logwood were made by making the dye-bath more alkaline. This seems to have produced the colours it should, and not the dull browns of previous attempts (see May 12th).

Three other unconnected observations.

1. While doing my wax iron-out I often find myself reading the newspaper pages I use, to offset boredom and subsequent catatonic trance. Today my eye was captured by an item in the Property pages. There was a picture of a neat little lakeside Canadian log cabin, all set about not with Fever-Trees, but by acres of forensically neat pine forest backed by a row of snow-capped peaks. The cabin was being offered as one of a great number of the same, none of which, incidentally, was visible in the photo. The sales headline read, "Just as Nature intended". My bet is that Nature might have intended something else had she / he been asked. Like bears?

2. Do not invite me to your wedding. This isn't (necessarily) because I am a die-hard old cynic that disapproves of such celebrations. It's just that those who wear Birkenstocks welded to their feet should never go anywhere smart where they will require a shoe more than three inches wide.

The pair I bought yesterday, which seemed bearable in the shop, had me replicating the Little Mermaid's dance as I wore them on a try-out today. There just wasn't a Prince to make it all worthwhile. They are going back to the shop. I may yet be barefoot at the wedding, or spray my Birkenstocks gold and hope no-one looks down.

3. There is an exhibition worth travelling across the country, or maybe even several countries, to see. This is Indigo, a Blue to Dye For. This fabulous show started in Manchester at The Whitworth (no relation) Art Gallery. I went to the opening last night at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery and it moves to Brighton Museum and Art Gallery in September. You can listen to a radio broadcast about this show here.

May 21st - 25th

I've been very busy with more de-waxing, steaming and another logwood mordant /dye. The logwood was dyed over some previously indigo-dyed scarves that I had been saving for another session. It's probably more normal to dye with indigo last of all, and not try to put logwood on top. But in fact I was sometimes filling in white or blank spaces on the originals so it worked reasonably well.

I added some soda ash to the dye bath and this seemed to produce the purple colour. Without it the logwood would have dyed brown. I need to learn whether there is something else I should use to make the bath more alkaline. I have heard chalk is sometimes added to a dyebath.

All dyeing was made with Couleurs de Plantes dyes.

Right: scrap of Ahimsa Peace Silk which I solar-dyed in the same jar with the scarf.

Logwood on Japanese Indigo. The Japanese Indigo lost its lovely turquoise colour and turned pale blue, but at least a trace remains

May 26th - 30th

On May 26th I was lucky to attend a Natural Dye workshop run by Jane Deane at our local Community Centre. Lucky for two reasons. One, because it was just what I need at the moment, I learned a lot and Jane had worked really hard to prepare and make the day a success. Two, because I might never have found out about it at all as I never saw it advertised anywhere (which wasn't Jane's fault). I saw it when reading our Parish Pump Magazine where it had a tiny mention and a phone number. Thanks, Parish Pump.

Jane had brought Tinctoria Dyes to the workshop and these were new to me. They look like Couleurs de Plantes powders. They come from India and there is a very large range. She had also pre-mordanted scraps of linen, cotton, wool, cotton velvet and silk throwsters' waste so that we could see the effect of the 4 main dyes we used on each fibre.

Above: the modifiers being prepared

In addition she had prepared four modifiers to use on the fabrics after dyeing. These were copper water, iron water, washing coda and citric acid.

The dyes were Basant / Kamala; Kango / Myrobalan, Madder and Cutch. Tinctoria gives some of the dyes names as opposed to using the true dye name, which I don't like much as I'd rather called a dye a dye.

I now have a very good resource file of 80 fabric samples. I have collated them and there are two images on the right.

At the end of the session Jane made each of us a jar with indigo grains, yeast and sugar so that we could take it home and try to ferment it. I have always wanted to do this.

In addition she had prepared four modifiers to use on the fabrics after dyeing. These were copper water, iron water, washing coda and citric acid.

The dyes were Basant / Kamala; Kango / Myrobalan, Madder and Cutch. Tinctoria gives some of the dyes names as opposed to using the true dye name, which I don't like much as I'd rather called a dye a dye.

I now have a very good resource file of 100 fabric samples. I have collated them and there are two images on the right.

At the end of the session Jane made each of us a jar with indigo grains, yeast and sugar so that we could take it home and try to ferment it. I have always wanted to do this.

Frantic last-minute tying, binding, folding and clamping because I am planning to do an indigo day if the weather holds up.

Above: shows page of Tinctoria Kango / Myrobalan samples modified with copper (above) and iron (below)

Fabric order is linen, cotton, wool, cotton velvet (above) and silk waste in small bag below

Above: shows page of Madder samples modified with copper (above) and iron (below). Fabric order as the image above.

Above: sets of samples ready to share between the students

Jane making up jars of indigo for us to try a fermentation

Indigo Day

And then May 30th was Indigo Day. I have begun to feel a bit of a fraud having the "indigo" title on my homepage as it's a long time since I made up a vat. It's just that my work hasn't been going that particular way. But using natural dyes has been building up to a big blue dye-in, and today was it.

Out came the indigo god a friend gave me and I set up in the garage. I made up a 10 litre vat using caustic soda and hydros. Interestingly, the small jar of indigo Jane Deane made up on Saturday is just beginning to ferment and I could smell it in the garage where I was working. That will be the eventual way to go - but for now it's the hard chemicals.

I put about 15 pieces through the vat and each had between 7 and 10 immersions, depending on the fabric and the resist method.

Above: Wetting out clamped and tied scarves before dipping

Above: waxed Birsay design after a few dips in indigo. I have tried this design with acid dyes altready : see here

I resisted (ha ha) opening all but a few of the pieces in the evening and left them all overnight. Untying the twisted scarves is a picky-tricky process and must be done with care. Impatience can lead to holes, and I was as exhausted as my vat.