The Studio Diary

Dyeing wool with hawthorn - five colours from one stick . . . .

I have been dyeing wool with hawthorn prunings this week - the kinds of prunings done when the long wands of thorns catch at you when you pass. I separated out the leaves from the twigs to get a golden yellow and a russet brown, and used the very end of the dye baths - the exhaust - to get a paler colour too. These are for my stripy blanket.

Some details that will help if you want to do this too;

• I was using 20g skeins - 5 in total - and had a two foot length of pruning of which I only used the side shoots.
• The wool was mordanted with aluminium potassium sulphate at 8% weight of fibres.
• I separated the leaves from the pruning and used this for the first and second skeins - there really weren't many leaves. I simmered them for 30 minutes. Then I added the first skein, heating it gently for 30 minutes and leaving overnight gave a golden yellow; then in the morning I took out the first and added in the second skein, didn't heat and left for a couple of hours for a lighter colour.
• I chopped the twigs up and simmered for thirty minutes and left overnight. Again I put the first skein in (actually 2 skeins as I wanted to modify one), heated and left overnight to get a deep colour. Then in the morning I took them out and added in a third skein, left cool for a couple of hours to get a light caramel colour.
• I modified one of the twiggy skeins with a five minute dip in my iron pan - this is rainwater, rust and a bit of ferrous sulphate and just lurks around all summer. The pan stays outside so in winter I have a clean and easily shut plastic tub with ferrous sulphate and water.

Ask in the comments if you have any questions . . . .

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