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Sunday, 5 May 2013

Natural Dyes

Lucky lucky me .. I spent yesterday dying threads, with natural dyes, in the studio of the very talented Claire Wellesley-Smith. Picture a cellar studio with an old range and numerous Kilner jars filled with: unidentified floaty organic things, rusty nails and even a bit of copper piping. I now have the most beautiful stash of naturally dyed threads and a brain bubbling over with ideas for new books ... oh and a new appreciation of the lengthy process and skill required to make these dyes ... off to plant some woad!

Linen thread for my books: 



... and my stash of assorted threads: silk, coarse linen and cotton


7 comments:

  1. So thrilled with the books Kate. Such meticulous detail.

    love the dyed threads...

    Happy Book Making

    Jill

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    1. Hi Jill, I'm delighted that you like your books and hope you get lots of use out of them. Can't wait to use these threads on a new batch of books
      Kate

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  2. Thanks for the lovely review of the day. Gorgeous photos and love the thread storage you've created! x

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    1. Claire you are more than welcome ... I had a super day and found it so inspiring! Have planted my Woad seeds and am willing them to grow quickly. K x

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  3. Oh how fabulous!! Why oh why did Aidan have to be born on May 4th - I would have so loved this! Thanks for the wonderful blogpost Kate, ladies - I'll be sharing on Craft Soup this morning pxxxxx

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    1. Morning Paula! You missed a good one, but babes must come first (note to self: stop hiding from my own sprogs and take them to the Gala) ... but I'm sure we could persuade Claire to do another :) K x

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    2. Good god yes! Posting on CS now pxxxxxxx

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