Hamble Campbell's Home Page

An occasional window on Hamble Campbell's world.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Atavistic strawberries


The strawberries I planted years ago and whose fruits I once enjoyed, have generally gone or are on their way out. In their place are these tiny little wild strawberries. Presumably they have grown from seed from the cultivated parent, or what, I don't know how these things work.

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Good dye to you all.


I had a thoroughly action- packed Saturday at my weaving teacher, learning to dye wool and silk.

Here are the skeins hanging over my loom, while I decide what to do with them.

The long one is a silk warp that I dabbed with fibre reactive dyes while it was lying in a gutter (that'll teach it to stay sober). This is called random dyeing and it used cold water. There is its green silk weft hanging next to it.

The other hanks, in pinks and mauves, are different types of wool and were dyed using acid dyes in hot water.

My plan is to dye thick berber rug wool so I can weave more individual rugs in colours I have chosen, rather than in the colours that happen to be available. We shall see. A rug does use up a lot of yarn. I've got a bit of rug wool that is already dyed to use up first and then I'll see what I can do.

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