More from the one-year course at Ditchling Museum

As we are following a similar programme to last year, much of the information will be available in earlier posts. So I will just outline our activities and only give more details of anything that is different from last year.

In October we started with substantive dyes and used rhubarb root (Rheum spp.), buckthorn bark (Rhamnus spp.) and walnut hulls (Juglans spp.). These were used without a mordant and with all four colour modifiers: acid (clear vinegar), alkali (soda ash), copper (copper water), iron (iron water). We used home-made copper and iron waters as I had them conveniently to hand but we could have made solutions from copper sulphate and ferrous sulphate as alternatives.

We used dried walnut hulls rather than the fresh green ones and, as the dried hulls tend to give paler browns, we added clear vinegar to pH4.5 to the dye solution in order to achieve deeper shades of brown. This is something I learned from Helen Melvin of Fiery Felts and it certainly results in deeper browns, so many thanks to Helen for the tip.

We also removed some of the samples from the solar dye pots we had set up at the first session in September.

Modifier pots with samples (photo by Fiona Eastwood)

Making copper water by soaking copper pipe in vinegar and water (Photo by Ali Rabjohns)

Rhubarb root and buckthorn bark samples drying outside (Photo by Fiona Eastwood)

Walnut hull samples drying (Photo by Fiona Eastwood)

The dyed samples are ready for assembling Left to right: buckthorn bark, walnut hulls, rhubarb root

(Photo by Jacqui Symonds)

Samples on various fibres from a solar dye pot using Coreopsis tinctoria with alum mordant (Photo by Kendall Clarke)