At the beginning of May I went along to a day’s workshop on natural dyeing with Judy Hardman, organised by the West Surrey Guild of Spinners, Weavers, and Dyers. It was an excellent day, Judy was very well organised and informative, and we dyed an enormous number of different colours.

At the end of the day it was all hands on deck to create 6 different shade cards for each participant showing the colours we had created, and how we had got them.

Unfortunately the weather had been pretty rubbish so most of our dyeing was done with dried material rather than fresh. We are hoping to have Judy back again for a summer dyeing session next year, if we can find a date she is free.

It was wonderful to see the range of colours you can get with natural dyes, I think my favourites were the madders, though indigo is always magical too, and I like the golden onion skin colours too. I may even have a go at a bit of natural dyeing at home, though I might wait til the weather is more co-operative for doing it outside.