Natural Dyeing at Kentwell Hall

Every year I participate in a recreation of tudor life at Kentwell Hall in Suffolk. It is wonderful way to learn about history and the fashions of the time. I play the role of a dyer and spend my time transforming wool into a rainbow of colours, using natural dyes made from plants. 

There is something so satisfying about the colours that can be obtained from plants, they all have a resonance with each other and blend beautifully. It is rather a magical process to start with something as simple as a plant and end up with such brilliant colours. My two favourite dyes to use are weld, which gives a luminous yellow, and woad, which produces blue. If you want to try out natural dyeing yourself then the books Wild Colour by Jenny Dean and A Dyer's Manual by Jill Goodwin are a good start. 

Here is the lovely array of dyed wool I brought back with me. The green is made by dyeing first with weld for yellow and then overdyeing in a blue woad vat. 

I failed to get anyone to take a picture of me in my full tudor outfit, but here is my latest hand felted and dyed addition to it. You know I am never able to resist a silly hat! 

So that is what I got up to on my holiday. I hope you've been enjoying the summer too! 

Sophie x

p.s. I can't resist sharing this lovely sunrise and sunset that I captured, aren't they just beautiful....