My first natural dyeing

So I was reading a thread on Phoenix knitters about dyeing hair with henna. I found it fascinating and as I found chemical dyes to be harsh to my scalp I asked if anyone had a little sitting about i could have to patch test myself before taking the plunge and buying enough to cover my hair 9I have a LOT). Well, someone kindly posted me some out, rather a lot actually. I did the bit for patch-testing and so far (21hours in) no reaction, but I need to leave it 48 hours to be certain.

anyhoo, with the rest I said I'd dye a hank of Brigantia I had sitting about. It was natural, unbleached DK weight. So I boil the kettle and let it cool a little, pour into my huge pan and let it cool a little more (I read that boiling water+henna = brown rather than orange/red) Put the hank in and made sure it got covered, flopped it over twice to be certain then put some cling film over and left it for an hour........

Looks interesting...



Hmmm....


Then i put the camera aside and made sure my rinsing water was the same temp. as the wool. three rinses later....


Without camera flash:


So that's drip-drying over the tap at the moment. Once it's a bit drier I'll transfer it to the airer.


Also, this weekend Alison and I went to a talk about natural, eco-friendly fibres in Bradford and we used the Satnav each way. Now, Alison's satnav has a bit of a quirk, it never comes back the route it leaves, there's always some changes. In this case it took us past Cold Spring Mill, a place we had heard lots about but never been to. Well.......we couldn't just go past could we? I owe Alison £11 for this lot:


Each hank is about 300g of pure wool. I'm going to make myself a top-down raglan jumper with it, striping the two yarns.

It's bleedin' well raining AGAIN! honestly, it's done very little apart from rain this week. My work waterproof hasn't really dried out properly for days and the mildew on the inside has infected some eczema patches so I shall have to work up the nerve to ask the boss for a replacement. Same with the baseball cap because at the start of the week I was caught out in a humongous downpour and it has now succumbed to mildew too. Yuck.

Anyhoo, got 20 minutes to cross-post this on Phoenix and check in there.

Later peeps.