Monthly Archives: April 2017

My first felt pictures with my new natural dye method are based on the tun house at the Peak Alum works in Ravenscar, UK. Really I should say based on the remains of the tun house. Today this is all you can see. Helpfully a drawing by the National trust gives an idea of what the tun house would have looked like in the 17th century. I choose this place because it is beautiful and today is quiet and peaceful,.  Once the Alum it produced was an essential component of the natural dyeing process and it would have been smelly and dirty.  it a good example of the ability of the earth to recover.   A like the idea of exploited land recovering and also of this natural dyeing chemistry link across the years. I choose this place because today it is beautiful and quiet and peaceful.  Once the Alum it produced…

When I first got into natural dyeing of felt, I wanted to make all white pieces and then dye them as a whole.  Doing this was unique and special as all the different fibres were subtle shade variations.  This process was great and taught me a lot about natural dyeing, but I towards the end of last year I was becoming frustrated with the end results of my l technique. I thought maybe I needed a new natural dyeing technique. Why did I need a new natural dyeing technique? My make it white,  then dye the finished pieces,  made beautiful pieces but they contained only a limited range of colours. This is perfectly obvious as they had all only seen the same dye bath. Special though it was I felt that the pieces were a bit boring as there was not much light and shade or colour variation. I was also frustrated…