In this Issue

The fee for the day was minimal, involving only the purchase of wool yarns at cost and a financial contribution for anything that had to be purchased, such as madder, mordants and wood for burning. The person in charge, a member of the committee organising these events, charged nothing for herself.

There was an air of ominous quiet as we approached, but as we rounded a corner we could see that a number of metal pots, mostly aluminium, but also a few of iron, had been set up on fireplaces built from bricks on a grassy area by a dam. Before long, the other three participants arrived. They appeared to know what they were doing, but for us, this was all new.

My first task was to water the ground to prevent any fires spreading, while my daughter's was to start the fires with a match, some birch bark and bits of wood. She got some much needed help from the instructor. It has been a long time since she was in Woodcraft Folk.

We then prepared the wool, using alum and cream of tartar as mordants. We soaked the wool, and put it in water taken from the dam in buckets. The mordants were added and held for one hour at no more than 90 degrees C. If it went hotter one needed to lift a heavy pot off the fire without burning oneself—an interesting task! Then back on the fire again as soon as it cooled a little, simple enough, but hot and smoky work.

After this procedure, the real fun began, and waiting for us were dye pots already prepared with a number of different plant materials: logwood for a purple colour, brazil wood for shades of soft reds and pinks and madder for a more brick-coloured red. These dyes had been purchased, but the mountain birch, the "scrubby" birch found where the tree line ends in the mountains, was not. My daughter had to strip all the small leaves off the twigs and throw them into a pot for boiling. This procedure eventually produced a soft, pleasing, slightly greenish-yellow colour. Onionskins, brushed out of a shop bin and placed in an old stocking, produced the usual bright orange-yellow colours. The heather and meadowsweet also worked well.

Photograph Copyright by Tanya Jane-Patomore

If we found that some colors were too pale, either we added them to the onionskin pot or added iron to their pot. Some dye pots failed entirely, although they held plants that normally provide a good colour. Some thought this might be due to the severe drought in northern Sweden at the time.

Wool dyed using heather (either Calluna vulgaris or Erica tetralix) in an iron pot

Photograph Copyright by Tanya Jane-Patomore

Whereas the purchased dyes were carefully adjusted to the amount of yarn to be dyed, the other materials gathered from the north Swedish wilderness were not. In that case it was a matter of fully utilizing the materials by filling the pot with as much material as possible, adding more water, and then more plant material as it reduced while simmering. Though given some basic rules, between the number of pots and my lack of experience, I lost track of the time each of the pots had been simmering. It became a matter of trusting my instinct. (Note to myself for the future: make sure I carefully record times for each pot.)

Stewing meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria)

Photograph Copyright by Tanya Jane-Patomore

The madder was used in a very simple but effective manner: the roots were left to soak overnight, then added to the pot with water from the dam and heated for one hour to 60 degrees C. The wool that had been mordanted with alum and cream of tartar, along with all the wool, was then added and left in for an hour. This produced a very pleasing bright red, with just a hint of brick. I have since used madder in several ways, both on the stove at home, as in the above method, and, adding calcium to the wool, soaking it in a cold dye-pot for a week or more. However, the red produced on that day is still the best. Perhaps there was something in the water that made the difference. The water in lakes and streams of that area are particularly soft, with a slightly golden tinge, possibly from iron or from the trees and other plants that fall into the lakes. Was this is the secret ingredient that gave us such a good, bright red?

Comparing madder: One on light grey wool and one on white. Here they look very orange, but in reality some came out very bright red.

Photograph Copyright by Tanya Jane-Patomore

Once the dyeing was complete, it was a matter of washing the yarns, off a small jetty in the dam. The wobble of the jetty was rather unnerving, and I think we all anticipated a quick, unintended, but refreshing dip on this incredibly hot day. There was also the matter of picking out bits of plant from the wool, which proved remarkably simple. After the wool had been dipped in a final acetic acid bath to fix the dyes, and been subjected to the "human spin dryer" action of us swinging it in the air, came the best part—admiring the increasing number of colours and shades on the line strung between the birches. Using shades of grey wool in addition to natural white added to the number of colours obtained. We enjoyed comparing the outcomes, which were varied even though the conditions appeared to be identical. This left us wondering if distance from the side of the iron pot might not have an impact on colour.

Rinsing the yarns

Photograph Copyright by Tanya Jane-Patomore

It was the best day of my summer. Since then, I simmer any prunings from my garden in the UK to see if anything comes of it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but because of that day, I'm now hooked!

*A brief description of Brynge Cultural Heritage Site in English can be found at www.ornskoldsvik.se/miniligoen/seedo/museumsculturalenvironm.4.efeff81018bdc185a8000242.html. A list, in Swedish, of their 2007 activities can be seen at http://brynge.nu. Some pictures of it can be found at http://hem.passagen.se/christina_sundqvist/index.html. If you then click on Brynge Kulturområde you will get a photomontage of the area. In that picture, you can click on the red house for a view of the house which holds the mangle, although there is no picture of the mangle itself.