Wensleydale yarns

One of the nice ladies from the Guild sold me these yarns.  They are from Wensleydale sheep and have been hand dyed with madder.  There are variations in colour because the dye had been used a few times before.  Nevertheless the colours are still pleasing. 

Fun Dye Day

A group of us met with our pots, pans, gas stoves and dye materials to turn our fleece into a selection of beautiful colours.

This yarn colour was achieved by using logwood natural dye on a piece of yarn which had used alum as a mordant.  A delicate lilac.

The darker purple yarn here was from the same dye pot as the delicate lilac, but had been in the pot for about 2 hours longer.

We also used madder, lichen which had been steeping for 8 months (very smelly), brazilwood, heather, indigo and walnuts.  This time the madder produced apricot, which was not the result we had wanted but was pretty enough.