9th August Recipe #6

So today is the final recipe from Helen Melvin’s Colours of the Earth. 4 recipes, 1 dyebath quite impressive.

To complete the story of my City and Guilds, I took Part 1 only, Part 2 did not appeal as it was doing more and more artistic and distorted work and I wanted to produce 17th Century embroidery – Swete bags and sewing boxes, coifs and collars. It wasn’t going to take me down the road I wanted to go. After the initial shock I had enjoyed part 1 and met some fabulously artistic and textiley people, am really glad I did it. But it was time to move on. I had a business to concentrate on and 2 boys needing some time…

2 of my final pieces were a silk scarf decorated for the Sealed Knot and a part of a screen for my bedroom (imaginary, it never got made up into a screen) the scarf being the sort of work I wanted to be able to do and the screen what the City and Guilds examiners like! (Sadly no madder was used in any of this work, but Indigo was used in the batik for the felt screen)

This final recipe follows straight on from Recipe #5 as the fibres are placed into the pan with the madder chips then they are boiled for at least an hour to give madder brown.

Results at the top of the page as usual, again the same selection of fibres mordanted with alum and cream of tartar for protein and tannin and alum/washing soda for cellulose.