A different perspective

I went to the last Guild meeting expecting to be mildly interested in the solar dyeing session that was on offer.  I don't do "natural"dyeing; if I must dye I prefer "chemicals" so there are no surprises, good or bad, and I'd sent apologies to our chair person for my lack of interest....

Having fought through pouring rain to get to the meeting there was a reward in the shape of weaving samples from Angela and Brenda who had done a weekend course in advanced techniques, much gnashing of teeth here, I was booked to do it but was dragged away for the weekend instead!

Meanwhile Maggie had set up two tables with enticing things on them:

As you can see from the basket, she has a range of samples dyed with plants from the garden, and the stand up card shows how some of them look when treated afterwards with modifiers such as citric acid.  The range of colours was a surprise to some of us!

She demonstrated how to set up a solar dyeing jar using pomegranate skin (it's very warm in her garden!!!) and to our amazement it began to work immediately.  I was so impressed that I immediately dashed off to the supermarket  to buy 2 pomegranates, and my solar dyeing jar is now set up  -  in the pouring rain.

I have since discovered however that I am missing a major ingredient for solar dyeing, at least in our climate, and that is patience.  I am itching to get my fingers on that wool to see how it looks, but I suspect I have at least 2 weeks more to wait - I'll keep you posted!