8th August – Recipe #5

This is the third bath following Helen’s recipe, I don’t know of anyone else giving you these options with a single bath.

Once I started with the spinning and dyeing I was totally hooked, used to drive my son’s mad I think – certainly embarrassed one of them by taking my spinning wheel along to sports day and sitting spinning my silk merrily whilst all the running was going on – I did cheer at the relevant points of course!

I have a Wee Peggy wheel, she’s lovely and very easy to transport around. Although not designed as a “portable” wheel, she’s a castle so will sit on the car seat with safety belt round her quite happily! When I started spinning my teacher wanted me to learn with wool first – kept telling me that I would find it much easier if I started with wool and then went on to silk, but I was adamant, silk was what I needed, wool was not getting a look in!

I love spinning almost as much as I love dyeing – it is so relaxing, quite often John will say “go and spin” if I’m getting stressed about something!

So the instructions for today were to soak the madder overnight again but this time they were to be heated slightly higher – by around 10 degrees – then the liquor strained off, fibres put in but the chips were to go back in too and the whole reheated for an hour.

If in hard water expect bricky reds and if soft oranges …

Results as usual the top image.