A while ago I put various fabrics and threads into a new madder dyepot, took them out after a couple of days, then forgot to write a post about them. Here is a photo of the result.

The bright pinkish- red material is fine wool. Beneath it, the cotton is much paler and much less pink. The silk thread in the foreground has emerged from the pot as a relatively pale brown, whereas the cotton is pale mauve. It’s always interesting to me to see what comes out. Unpredictable….

I’ve been very busy with the day job over the last three or four weeks and it’s been hard to find any time at all for dyeing, sewing, drawing or just keeping up with blogposts. And now I have the RSI in my right hand which has slowed me up.  But I can still look at things. Today, Friday, I am in London and will be going to the Paul Klee exhibition. More on that next week.

I love the range of pinks, reds and browns you can get with the natural dye madder. While it would be nice to grow my own madder roots, and I may get round to it someday, for the moment I’ve been using the powdered extract. Here are some of the results:

One of the things I’m finding unpredictable about natural dyeing is the way dyes respond to different types of fabric. I’ve tried out several madder dye baths and I’m finding that cotton tends to produce  a more purplish-pink, whereas silk yields a more brown/apricot shade. The central strip of fabric in this picture is silk velvet which dyes beautifully. I really love this shade.

I’ve produced several skeins of thread – cotton, wool and silk. This photo shows some of the silks:

As with the fabrics, silk thread tends to take on a brown/apricot hue. Very attractive, but what if I want to dye cotton the same colour?  I know already that it will come out pink. I suppose my overall aim with natural dyeing is to produce a full spectrum of colours in cotton, silk, linen, wool… I’ll keep posting about my success – or failure – in doing this.