shades of summer

Here are my final dye experiments for this summer
I've cheated a bit, because I placed the dye vats next to the wood burner this last couple of weeks
to keep them fermenting.
Which works fine :)

The yarn is Poll Dorset from Renaissance Dyeing

Here's another photo. The exact colours are difficult to capture, they look more like this.

from left to right - dyed with:

 Brambles (Rubus fructicosus) - Yellow Iris (Iris pseudacorus) - St Johns wort (Hypericum perforatum)

Madder (Rubia tinctorum) - Elderberries (Sambucus nigra) :basic vat  - Elderberries :acidic vat 

...

the yellow Irisses were harvested in my own garden. They grow in abundance close to the river

I would never take the wild ones as they are quite rare

and they were replanted after taking away only a part of the root

sliced roots Iris pseudacorus

The roots hold a reddish colour which apparently gives a bluish grey dye 

with promises of more blues or maybe even some purples, if I had used more roots

I'm definitely going to try it again next year !

My conclusion is that the colours you get with the fermentation method are quite different from the bright colours of the synthetic dyes, much softer, but they are what I would like to call "vibrantly alive" and frankly I prefer these soft tones to the ones we are so used to see on clothing and yarn these days.

And, once you get used to work with these natural colours, it's not easy to return to the synthetic colours again. 

Well, I won't, anyway !

I think I will make a crochet wrap or maybe a cardigan, with these six colours

:)