Bundles are weighted down in the dye pot with some of Penny’s stones.

Visiting Annapolis Royal is always a treat, especially to visit Penny and Diane. I’d asked if I could come to one of their regular dye days to learn more about my new fascination with the alchemy of the dye pot.

Penny had three dye pots going outdoors. One with black walnut, one with sumac and one with tea and rust. I’d prepared  linen, Dorr wool and Thai silk by washing and boiling the fabrics, which is called scouring. I then soaked the fabrics in various mordants: alum, dyer’s polypore fungus and sumac leaves. Mordants help the dye take.

Diane and Penny showed me India Flint‘s method of spreading laves and wrapping fabric around sticks. They’d taken a workshop with India several years ago. Thank you for sharing your dye pots with me, Penny and Diane. I’ll share the results soon.

We trussed up bundles of fabric with fresh leaves and then simmered and soaked it in the dye pots for up to a week.

Penny’s lovely old rusted cast iron pot, which adds intense greys to fabrics, and a jar of rust water.

Penny and Diane are cutting the strings of one of their dye bundles that had been drying for over a week. On the grass to the left is one of the cloths that had just been unwrapped.