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Sunday 17 July 2016

The demise of the St John's Wort Dyeing

Remember this :-


This was the colour I got from my recent dye session using St John's Wort flowers.  After it had dried I put this Falkland fleece into a bag in my craft room to await carding and eventual spinning in the Tour de Fleece.

When I retrieved it for carding, I noticed the colour had dulled and didn't look quite so pink any more.  This was in a darkened room as I normally keep the shutters closed when I'm not in there.


Nevertheless, I carded it up and spun it.  At all stages the colour was changing, whether it was in the sun or not.


This was my spun single made into a centre-pull plying ball.


Here it is after plying, waiting for it's wash.  The lower skein is made up of the 2nd and 3rd dips into this dye bath.

And here it is after washing and drying on the washing line in the sun :-


Not a trace of pink left!  Very disappointing.  In future I think I'll leave these flowers by the roadside where they look more beautiful!

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing this! Info on the not so spectacular experiences need to come out too imho if we want to learn from each other.

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  2. Yes, you're right. Maybe yours would turn out differently, but in my opinion, it was not worth the 3-4 hours picking off individual flowers!

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  3. How disappointing! Good to know though, as you say, things that don't go as expected are often more interesting than those that do.

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    Replies
    1. It was rather. I definitely won't be repeating this one!

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