Spinning... Not the bicycle type....

Last weekend I cycled off into Oxford to a wonderful little yarn shop, the Oxford Yarn Store to take part in a wool spinning workshop. It is something I've wanted to try my hand at for a while now and when my lovely sister stumbled upon this shop and its list of workshops I couldn't resist signing up as soon as I realised they were holding a spinning workshop. I think being able to spin my own yarns would fit in with my natural dyeing plan perfectly as I could dye wool, then spin it myself to create some exciting and varied wools.

It was a long day sitting in a hard wooden chair, pulling at clumps of raw sheep's fleece in an attempt to create something that looked like a ball of wool. By the end of the day I proudly carried home my very own ball of fluff that I may never knit with but will forever cherish!

The course was run by the owner of the Oxford Yarn Store and two women from the Oxford Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers. Their combined knowledge of spinning and many years of experience was brilliant, I don't think there was a question they couldn't answer or a technique they couldn't show us to help us with our spinning.

My lovely ball of fluff was spun with two different shades of green wool roving to add a little something else to the ball, which I'm loving. Spinning is a fairly simple concept, but really quite tricky to master so my ball of wool really is quite rustic and uneven but I think that adds to its charm!

This weekend however something rather unexpected happened.... I may have accidentally bought a spinning wheel of my very own....! It is so very beautiful, moves so smoothly and was a total bargain! I found it in a local antiques shop and realised that I couldn't pass it by without seeing if I could barter the price down a little and success! I'm now the proud owner of my very own spinning wheel!

The wonderful thing about this wheel is that it was created in my home town by a local carpenter. I really hope it will stand the test of time, and wherever I may end up in life I'll have a wonderful piece of history that connects me to my home town for ever.

Its just so beautiful! Now I just need to convince my family to buy me a sheep/alpaca or two!

Natural Dye Garden

I've been intrigued by the idea of growing my own plant dyes for some time now, since I undertook a project using natural dyes during my art foundation course in early 2012. I've read some wonderful books about natural plant dyes, growing them, using them and the slow textiles movement, and having successfully dyed fabrics with dyes sourced from the vegetable isles in supermarkets, I really wanted to start growing my own plants and ultimately making my own dyes. 

Last weekend we had our last blast of warm weather for the foreseeable future and I took the opportunity to get outside and get my garden going. As the seasons change over and autumn settles in, it was also a great time to hit up the garden centres for some bargain plant sales.

The raised planters have been built using old cement manholes stacked up on top of each other.

French Lavender

 Yellow Onions, these will be harvested for their skins as well as then being eaten!

Camomile, another plant which can be used for dyes as well as an edible source.

St Johns Wort

It'll be another year perhaps before these are ready to harvest for dye purposes and it won't be until then before they flower again but I'm already excited for this prospect! I've taken a lot of my inspiration in this field from India Flint, she has really created an amazing collection of naturally dyes textiles exploring not only colour but pattern. For me however, being a Brit, I found a lot of the plants she used aren't native to little old England and this was something I was quite interested in, whilst this book by Sasha Duerr provided some really great information and inspiration about growing your own native plant dyes, a book I would highly recommend.

Before you point it out, I'm aware French Lavender isn't native to Britain but we already have some lavender growing in our garden and I thought it would be interesting to compare the two types to see whether their colours would vary.