Sunday, September 19, 2010

Sagnlandet Lejre, plant dyeing, lighting fires, peaceful fun.

Last week I had the most wonderful day.
A big wish for an in debth and long day with other weavers and fibre persons came true. I went to Sagnlandet Lejre, close to Roskilde and although it wasn't planned to be a full day excursion, that is exactly what happened. I left home at 9am and was back at my sister's in the borrowed car close to 8pm.


I spent the day in the weaving house with Anne and Ida, the two women who show people many of the different processes involved in making yarn, dyeing yarn, weaving, growing dye plants, safety issues etc.
Oh, i forgot to mention that Ida last year was involved in reproducing an indigo dyed woven outfit of a perticular kind to a small museum somewhere in Spain, she brought it down there earlier this summer.


I lit this fire under one of the big 'cauldrons', the one on the left of the top photo. This dyeing facility was built about five years ago, lots of volunteer hands and a few public funds made this building possible.


Yarn and fabric indigo dyed - blue over yellow makes the most magnificent greens.


One of the dye gardens. Both Danish Goldenrod and Canadian Goldenrod was planted in this bed. Unfortunately the native Danish Goldenrod wasn't doing so well, but the Canadian variety was thriving. This is sad if one is concerned with preserving the original plants, for the woman working with the dyeplants however it was a wonderful thing since the Canadian Goldenrod yields much more dye than its Danish counterpart.


The indigo dyepot, with skeins of white and yellow yarn.


A large piece of fabric which prior to the bath in the indigo pot was rather mottled and yellowish, now after a thorough blue dip it turned most wonderfully green.


The cochenille pot being exhausted, it had yielded rather nice reds the previous day and on this day when we got the fire lit under the smaller pot the yarns slowly took the colour of old dusty rose as the water temp went up.


Wool from the previous day's cochenille pot being wrung out.


Yarns hung with lables to view and enjoy for anyone willing to stop and take a moment to ask questions and explore.


Leftover dye in madder pot.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

1 comment:

  1. Beautiful pictures Pia, can't wait to see the ones that haven't made it to the blog when you return.
    Take care...missing you.

    ReplyDelete