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Ooooh the Seventies! Fleetwood Mac's Rumours; Queen's A Day at the Races; glam rock; punk rock; and funk! Chic; Village People; the Bee Gees; and the Bay City Rollers! And then there were the films: The Godfather; The Deer Hunter; Star Wars; and Grease! What was on the telly in the UK? Pennies from Heaven; Dixon of Dock Green; and The Good Life. What were we wearing? Ripped black jeans; safety pins; band t-shirts! Bell-bottoms; tabards; Night Fever suits; culottes; platform boots; and granny shoes! Plus I had a fetching pair of knee high Jaws socks! Don't ask! It was...

As a plant dyer, I am very interested in the mordanting process which can help the dye material better attach to the yarn fibres. However, there are many options available so which one should I use? I decided to carry out an experiment to determine how a range of possible mordants might affect the resulting colour, here in my dye studio in Edinburgh using Scottish water! I scoured five 25g mini skeins of Jamieson’s of Shetland undyed natural white Shetland wool and set one aside as a control. Next, I mordanted the other four skeins as follows: alder cone solution heated...

Last week, I attended an amazing "Make Your Own Zine" course run by Typewronger Books in Edinburgh. In case you're wondering, Zine is short for fanzine or magazine. Typewronger have a Risograph electronic screenprinting machine called Lyra that uses ecologically friendly bran oil based inks to print onto uncoated A3 paper which is then folded and cut into an A6 booklet. I carefully planned my zine in advance as I wanted to create a wee pamphlet with some of my urban dyeing recipes that I have been slowly formulating over the last three years during my various dyeing experiments and with my medical herbalist hat on. Making the zine was...

In advance of Yorkshire Yarn Festival on 4th & 5th March, my first event of the year, I have carried out a review of my prices. I have tried to keep my prices at 2021/22 levels but unfortunately most of my costs have risen by more than 10% since last year. And plant dyeing my yarns takes more time than buying in pre-dyed wool that uses acid dyes.  So, I have come up with a two-tier pricing structure: one for my Woolly bags which are knit in undyed yarns; and one for my bags which have one plant dyed yarn and one...