Friday, April 23, 2010

Vegetable dyed yarns by Renaissance dyeing

I first came across Andie of Renaissance dyeing sometime ago when I was seeking advice on dyeing vintage linen with vegetable dyes.

Andie is passionate about using plants to create the most wonderful coloured yarns

Andie and her Dutch husband Adrian have settled in the foothills of the Pyrenees, enabling Andie to indulge her life long passion for natural vegetable dyeing and colour.

Her atelier in is packed full of plants, wool and lots and lots of wonderful colour. Blues from woad and indigo, reds from madder, cochineal and brazilwood, yellows from weld, fustic and onion skins. Add oak bark, oak galls and logwood and you have a palette that produces over 150 different naturally dyed shades.

The dye-house and winding machinery are housed in a converted barn in an ancient hilltop village. In this traditional textile area amid wild dye plants and newly cultivated woad fields.