New Natural Dyeing Course at Ditchling Museum

 

I am delighted to announce that I will be starting a new natural dyeing course in April at Ditchling Museum in Sussex. The details of the course are below and applications are now open at the museum.

For more details and to apply, go to the museum website and click on “Learning”

www.ditchlingmuseumartcraft.org.uk

Natural Dyeing Course with Jenny Dean – 2022

 12 sessions over six months from April – September, with 6 in-person whole day sessions at the Museum on a Sunday and 6 sessions via Zoom (or similar), also on a Sunday, of 2 to 3 hours each.

The aim of this comprehensive course is to teach participants how to prepare and use dyes from natural materials to dye both animal and vegetable fibres. You will learn how to follow best practices to produce a full spectrum of consistent, reliable colours and how to test dyed samples for light- and wash-fastness. We will cover a wide range of mordanting and dyeing techniques and the use of colour modifiers; the dyes used will include all the classic traditional dyes, such as madder, weld, cochineal and indigo. Participants will learn how to grow, harvest, prepare and use plants for dyeing, using the Museum’s dye garden as a resource.

The course will also feature tuition in surface dyeing techniques from creative artists Ross Belton, who will be assisting Jenny on the course and demonstrating contact dyeing, and printmaker Jacqui Symons who will lead a session on printmaking with natural dyes.

This will be a hands-on course and the emphasis throughout will be on reliable, safe, environmentally friendly methods. All materials required for the taught components of the course will be provided, including some for personal experiments between sessions. Participants will also be able to bring some of their own materials for small samples.

 

Apologies

I have been very seriously ill for the last two months and this has meant I’ve been unable to post on my blog. I am now at home starting the long road to what I hope will be a full recovery, so I should be able to start to write posts again soon. The following post on soya milk solution was prepared before my illness.

My garden in Summer

Each year my garden seems to be different, with some old favourites returning and some new arrivals bringing fresh joys.

Below is a rose (Wedding Day, I think), which comes over from our neighbour’s garden. It rambles through the branches of the eucalyptus in the front garden and fills the air with delicious perfume that penetrates through the open windows to fill the bedrooms with fragrance. The bees love it.

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I don’t know the name of the lovely pink climbing rose shown below. It was in the garden when we moved in six years ago and has beautiful delicate flowers, which sadly have little perfume. It looks so attractive rambling through the ivy and this is the corner of the garden where we often photograph the dyed skeins of South Downs Yarn.

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Each year I look forward to the annual pelargoniums, with their brilliant reds. (I always seem to choose the reds, rarely the pink or white ones.) Another bonus is that they are rarely attacked by slugs and snails.

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How I love the combination of the brilliant orange from the calendula and the blue of this hardy geranium.

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Every year I look forward to the return of the hot reds and oranges of the helenium flowers.

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Below are the yellow spires of lysimachia punctata with feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium) in the foreground.

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My small dye garden continues to flourish, as the photos below show.

Here dyer’s broom (Genista tinctoria) is just coming into flower on the left, with hedge bedstraw (Galium mollugo) on the right and in the foreground climbing through the obelisk

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This year my wild madder (Rubia peregrina) is producing tiny flowers, which I hope will later produce some seeds.

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Just visible below on the lower left are the yellow flowers of lady’s bedstraw (Galium verum) with saw-wort (Serratula tinctoria) in bud on the right.

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Snow!

 

Snow is a  relatively rare occurrence here in West Sussex and we have about 3 inches at the moment but I know this will not impress those of you who live in countries where there is “proper” snowfall. In a news item on the radio about the cancellation of flights at Heathrow airport yesterday, I heard a Canadian say: “I don’t know what the problem is. This is just like a lovely spring day where I live in Canada.”

 

Today we have enjoyed watching some intrepid goldfinches feeding on the seeds left on our teasel heads. Although our garden is small, I like to grow teasels to give some structure to the garden, especially in the winter. As added bonuses, the flowers attract bees and butterflies and the seed heads provide interest in the autumn and winter and food for goldfinches.

 

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HAPPY NEW YEAR

 

Warm good wishes for a very Happy New Year!

 

My thanks for all your support, which I really appreciate and value.  I am continuing to work on my new book but I will try to write posts more regularly in 2013.

 

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The beach near Worthing in West Sussex in winter

 

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Looking towards Findon village on a winter’s morning

 

Back by Popular Demand!

So many people have asked me to put my website back, that I have given in to popular demand and asked my website designer (right) if he could rebuild it just as it was – and here it is!

Thank you, Colin.