I had an amazing morning on the farm, being pretty useless, and standing around looking sheepish (excuse the pun!), not knowing what I could do (they seemed pretty organised and sorted to me!) Watching how fast and skillfully they sheared a huge amount of sheep (there were over 2000 to get through over all!!). It was great to see how they actually do it - I don't know how I imagined it would be done, but it was nothing like I thought! After being taught how to wrap a fleece correctly (by a very patient daughter who didn't appear to mind my stupidity!) I was then allowed to try my hand at shearing - when up close and having to control them - those sheep were massive!! So plucking up the courage and trying not to show my fear I had a sheeps head between my legs and was let loose to shear the last bit of fleece off - after a very scared first try (not wanting to get too close to the skin!) I got to try a second one - which went on the escape from my legs and had to be caught by four of them - oops! I think a lot more practice would be needed to make me as good as them - but all the same it's great to say I actually contributed to shearing some of the sheep's fleece I will then be using in my knitwear!

Although it looks like I have just been concentrating on natural dyes - I have also been researching into synthetic alternatives and the positive and negative factors associated with them - this has proved to be very tricky as I have been torn between settling for British dye companies who get ingredients from all over the globe - but then again are in fact a 'British company' or using natural dyes that can be grown in Britain, thus are fully traceable back to the root it came from. At the moment I am having so much fun experimenting with the variety I can achieve from nature that I am going to see where this leads, as I personally feel at the moment that it be better to use a more water which can then be used to water the plants etc, than to use less but which then needs treatment to make it safe again! I will however continue to research into synthetic alternatives and the benefits of these...

Day 2 of dyeing - the Weld is ready to dye so after a final simmer I set about creating some bright yellows - some not to my taste but when over dyed with Woad created some vibrant greens.

I also made another pot of woad to over dye samples of weld and madder - these created some interesting results - it was amazing to see how using woad then weld created completely different colours to dyeing with weld then woad!

After getting such beautiful colours from the Madder, I came home bursting to start experimenting with the Woad and Weld I got from Norfolk. Yarn being dyed with woad does not need to be mordanted before beginning to dye. Weld needs to be soaked and simmered for 24 hours before commencing dyeing - so my timings were set around how long each one would take! I got some interesting results - I think my beginning ones turned out better than my later ones sometimes as I was very cautious about being exact and timing everything permanently - although when I played around with timings and colour changes I got some unexpected and lovely results!

On day one I started with Woad and Onion skins!

The woad gave me a great variety of colours form pale egg-shell blue to quite a deep denim colour!

The onion skins gave an amazing array of golden yellows to mustard tones, which turned out a lot better than I thought they would!

I also tried a small amount of madder dipped in Woad towards the end of the dye cycle which turned a lovely deep purple and mauvey!







 

Through researching on the internet I came across an amazing lady who uses her allotment space to grow dye plants, she has also been growing a crop of flax (after a long time trying to find seeds and getting them to germinate!), a cotton plant in her conservatory, along with amazing vegetables and silk worms in her kitchen! I do not know how she finds the time to tend to her allotment, design a huge array of beautiful craft pieces, run a number of websites and tend to her silk worms!







The allotment has transformed a lot of peoples lives in Birmingham - it started half empty, and now has a waiting list! Teresinha grows onions, madder, woad, flax, lavender, an amazing array of plants with magical properties (to name a few!) - she was so patient with us and talked us through what certain plants could be used for before setting us to work digging up some madder roots to replenish the stock we would use this afternoon (she even very kindly gave Beth and I a root each to take home to see if we could grow some ourselves...only time will tell!)

So we set to work digging up the roots...

 

 We then washed them and cut into small chunks!

We then had a lovely look around the rest of the plots (with a few stops along the way to admire the beautifully made scarecrows - one Scarecrow Smith - has his own facebook page!), before heading to the Custard Factory where Teresinha has her studio.

I learnt so much valuable knowledge for being involved in a practical workshop like this and it was amazing to see the wool change from natural beige to bright vibrant oranges before my eyes - 





 After such an amazing day I came out with four beautiful shades of orangey red tones, a brain full of new information and appreciation of natural dyes and the powerful colours we can get from them and a happy smile from spending the day with the lovely Beth and making a new friend!

Having received my yarns I was raring to get started on experimenting with different ways to use them and the first thing on my to do list was to test out colour options, for this I needed to mordant my yarns. The traditional way of doing this once involved using copper (poisonous), tin (expensive to get hold of and not as capable as some other alternatives) or urine (not 100% and i'm not sure how I - or the consumers- would feel about me weeing on their clothing!). I decided on alum, as it is the least invasive to us (there is a percentage of alum in drinking water etc - so it is already all around us - despite scepticism after reading articles about it being connected to altzheimer's when near skin, the positives for it far outweighed the potential cons). So I mordanted my yarns (split into quarters as I didn't have big enough pans!) in a mixture of alum, cream of tartar and hot water - simmering it for a number of hours and leaving to soak overnight in preparation for the dye workshop the next day!

After an amazing sunny relaxing break (which was desperately needed!) with my lovely boyfriend, sister and her boyfriend - if a little shorter than intended, I am back in a nearly as equally sunny England, and have been travelling quite a bit up and down the country travelling to lots of interesting places! So heres my round up of information i've found - which is helping shape my project quite nicely (if a little slower than I intended!!)...

I just received my first bag full of sample yarns - from my local farmers sheep, processed and spun at a local small mill...I'M SO EXCITED...and so relieved i've jumped head first into this final project! Its beautiful, soft and perfect for what I wanted! I'm so happy with it and can't wait to experiment with it!! And I got lots more than I was expecting - 14 cones to be exact - whoo!

I also went to a UAL sustainability meeting held in conjunction with Fashioning an Ethical Industry who are doing research into how to make UAL more sustainable in the future - it was an eye opening experience - to see it from a tutors perspective as well as learning what limits them and how they think things can and need to be changed, hopefully they also saw the potential for more student involvement as I really believe that building a community within the student body will really help move things forward! So lots was learnt and lots more needs to be done to put UAL at the forefront of the fashion industry if they want to live up to LCF's motto - "Fashioning the Future"!!

On the project front its full steam ahead - lots of research still to be done, i seem to have only scratched the surface of possibilities within the British industry sector and how I can relate these to the fashion industry once more!

My sample yarns from Halifax Spinning Mill are arriving soon which I am really excited about seeing and playing with!

And progression on the design front is my next challenge - I want to create something that people will cherish and see as a classic - that they can wear in many different ways and to many different occasions - whether it be such a simple shape that it is open to interpretation or that it will go with a multitude of things - balancing this on my passion for wanting to create something that pushes the boundaries of peoples perceptions of British wool and shows them just how desirable and multi-seasonal it can be!

Pictures will follow soon...

That was too good a title to pass up on!

This week has been full of mammoth library sessions followed by fun trips out and lots of learning, so I haven't been very close to a computer for a while!

So updates at the ready...

I'm going to do it in a slightly backwards order as my memory works in funny ways!

On Friday I travelled to Beetley in Norwich/Norfolk to visit an amazing company called Woad Inc, set up by Ian and Bernadette Howard - they are now cultivating the first commercially viable crop of Woad in Britain for over 70 years!

They have opened a visitors centre with a really interesting and detailed exhibition space showing the history and tradition of woad and also showing how it is being used in a more contemporary and modern society. 

Ian let me shadow him in the workshop and showed me the best ways to get the most vibrant colours - it was an amazing experience and I learnt so much in such a short space of time (although the highly detailed sheets of instructions beat my messy hand written memory scrawl anyday!)

He also let me dye my own silk scarf - which was not a patch on his own designs but i'm pretty proud of its dottyness and uniqueness none the less!

I learnt so many interesting things about Woad and Weld and the importance of the White stage!!

So hopefully when I come to do a little experimenting of my own in the near future i'll have some good results...watch this space!!