Madder
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The Dyehouse is on the move
Firstly I would like to wish all my readers, followers, customers and friends a Happy New Year – may it bring peace and happiness and what you desire. “The time has come”, the Walrus said or actually I am saying – it’s a New Year better continue with the changes. You probably remember I had a pacemaker fitted in 2019, I was warned then not to lift anything really heavy – it could cause serious damage to my heart if the leads get pulled out – so the decision has been made not to dye cloth or large hanks of wool any longer. They are just too heavy! Combine this…
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A few changes coming
I’ve been very lax about writing posts here, sorry, that doesn’t mean that nothing is happening! So here’s an update! – We intend to start running online courses “live” these are currently in the planning stage, but will be listed here soon. There are so many ” introduction to” “beginner” “learn to” type courses – maybe you’d like to suggest some topics that would be interesting to cover? Due to the changes in VAT selling in / to Europe the shop will be temporarily closed before the end of the month until we have sorted how we can deal with this. As we are a small British business we do…
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Turkey Red (Part 1)
The term Turkey Red can be quite confusing – it is often used to describe a colour (particularly in modern parlance) – but it is actually an historical method for producing a very fast red colour on cotton cloth using the dyestuff madder. As a collector of historical dye books and Journals it always thrills me to find one I’ve been particularly looking for. At the Antique Textile Fair in Manchester in the early noughties I found one of particular importance – The Art of Dyeing Wool, Silk and Cotton by Hellot, Macquer and M le Pileur d’Apligny. It is said to contain the first (European) written record of how…
