This was to be my first Guild event for many a year and I was both a little excited and nervous about meeting everyone again. I needn’t have worried!! Within a minute of our arriving at Sue and Robert’s farm, I felt like I had never been away, such was the warm welcome I received.
If ever there is a dyeing event, I am always eager to join in the fun. Michele had prepared some sock yarn for me and I couldn’t wait to get started. After a cup of coffee and a natter, the dyers gathered around the tables, where Sue had laid out cookers, pans, jam jars, pipettes and, most important of all, some wonderful dyes! On Saturday, 10 July 2021, I put my spinning wheel with Samoyed fur and carders into my car for the first time since 2019! Had I got everything? So long since I had spun anything I had to check everything twice. Where was I going? Ah!! Sue Prior’s farm in Perry Green. OK. Get satnav out and find the way. All new as I had moved to the wilds of Huntingdon. I had a very good, straight forward journey and arrived just before 10am. Sue had cookers and pans already set out on tables in the barn with plenty of jam jars for putting dye stuff in. There was a table with the various coloured dye stuff and pipettes etc At our March meeting, Michele Turner led a fascinating Shibori Resist Dyeing workshop. Shibori is the Japanese word for a variety of ways of embellishing textiles by shaping cloth and securing it before dyeing. The word comes from the verb root shiboru, "to wring, squeeze, press." The result is beautiful, unique fabrics that can be used for just about any purpose. Our workshop used stitches to create hidden areas of the fabric that dye cannot reach (people are generally familiar with Tie-Dyeing; tie-dyeing is a form of Shibori Resist Dyeing.) We started by transferring a sampler template to some cotton fabric using water- or air-soluble pens. This allowed us to see for ourselves how different stitch shapes and combinations produce different effects. John introduced himself as the chairman of the Halstead Historical Society and a man with a long-term connection to Courtauld’s. As a child he moved out of London, when his father took a job at Courtauld’s. The family lived in one of the company’s houses opposite the factory and it was this proximity to work, which persuaded John to find work there rather than leave home and find employment further afield. As an apprentice, John worked in almost every section of the factory, which gave him a first hand understanding of the whole process of silk weaving. When the factory closed, he used that knowledge to set up his own business, which was to commission exclusive fabrics for organisations such as the Royal Palaces and the National Trust. These were such commissions as those with Richard Humphries at Braintree, where he was responsible for organisation the replacement of the textiles lost in the fires at Windsor and Hampton Court. John began his talk with the medieval wool trade, which was well established in East Anglia with strong links to the Low Countries. This accounts for an influx of Dutch weavers settling in the county in 1500. Chelmsford was the hub for London with many of the spinners working in the surrounding villages. Many family names in the region, such as Draper, Fuller, Burrell and Dyer, have their origin in the woollen trade. Woollens were produced in South Suffolk and Essex, and worsteds came from Norfolk and North Suffolk. In the Book of Trades of 1568, it mentions two different weaves, known as Bays (plain weave) and Says (twill weave), which were the speciality of the region. On Saturday 12th April, we were treated to a talk on the Scottish Islands by three of our own members. Chris started the evening telling us how an archaeology trip to Orkney led her and her partner, Mick, to visit North Ronaldsay where her love affair began with the indigenous seaweed eating sheep. Three years later whilst staying in Lewis, Chris bought a drop spindle and learned to spin. In August 2017 she and Mick flew from Kirkwall in an 8 seater plane to spend 6 days at the North Ronaldsay Sheep Festival which brings together volunteers from all walks of life to help rebuild the 13 mile long 6’ high wall which surrounds the island. This wall, built in 1832, restricted the sheep to the shoreline so that the 500 crofters could graze their cattle and grow enough crops inland to keep them in food all year round. The wall now keeps the 3000 plus North Ronaldsay sheep from mixing with other breeds on the island. The rebuilding used to be done by crofters but there are no longer enough of them to keep up the arduous task. Some of the stones are huge, making it a hard day’s work for the visitors but there was NR mutton on the menu every night to help keep up their strength! We learned how the North Ronaldsay’s strange diet has altered their digestive system over the years so that the breed can no longer tolerate copper. When the sheep are moved onto grassland for lambing and shearing or to new homes elsewhere, they need a copper binding lick. Chris was taught how to shear the sheep by 81 year old Maurice using the traditional method of laying the sheep on the ground, binding their legs, and using hand shears. The wool is sent to Yorkshire to be scoured and then back to the mini mill on the island where the double coated fleeces are dehaired and made into rovings or batts and then into yarn or pre-felt. There are several shops in Kirkwall selling knitwear made from North Ronaldsay wool. Chris had lots of impressive samples of her own – skeins of handspun wool and knitted items, including a beautiful blanket showing the various different natural colours of the North Ronaldsays and featuring rows of little sheep. Chris is justifiably smitten with these rare breed, primitive sheep and is looking forward to her own flock lambing later in the month. |
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