Pure Tinctoria Website

Hi All

I just wanted to update you about the Pure Tinctoria website, which is undergoing changes.  The company, Startershop, I have my e-commerce website with has decided they don't want to manage e-commerce sites anymore, so I am having to look for a new website and host.

I thought I'd found one as good as Startershop, but sadly  they have let me down, in fact, on more than one occasion.  What should have taken less than a week is still ongoing and therefore I am still with the old site, but having taken our an advert in a couple of magazines, to promote my new domain name, some new or potential customers will find that they can't access the new site, which appears as under construction and it feeds them to the wrong old site!

Please bear with me, I'm finding it very, very stressful, but will full fill all orders as speedily as usual.  If you hear of anyone who has tried to access either site and not succeeded, please direct them to my email address or telephone number and I will deal with their order that way in my usual efficient manner!

I hope to get a new site up and running before Wonderwool Wales, but am holding my breathe!

Best wishes

Alison

More Places to buy Pure Tinctoria Extracts

You can buy Pure Tinctoria Dyes from the following places:

Eco-Haberdashery Shop

Unit 1.10 OXO Tower Wharf, facing the river.

Opening hours: 12pm-6pm, Tues-Sat.

http://www.anniesherburne.co.uk/shop.html

Jane Deane

Duchy Square Centre For Creativity

Tavistock Road

Princetown

Devon

PL20 6QF

Tel: 01822 612338

Email: jane@janedeane.co.uk

http://www.janedeane.co.uk/puretinctoria.html

We will be having a stockist in the Netherlands soon, so watch this space!

Summer School

Jane and I have still not heard whether or not our Creative Spinning Course will be running at Summer School this year. We suspect it won't, but have to wait until the end of this month!
It's very sad it's not likely to run, as we've had several people contact us at Fairs and at Jane's Studio, who really wanted it to run, but have been transfered to their second choice.

We have to remain philosophical! We were selected. We didn't change our brief, (as I understand some of the other selected tutors did, when asked to supply information of advertising). And offered to share the tutor's fee between us.

I suspect the poor convenor was coerced into doing the job, as it must be a thankless task, but I hope I'll be able to take Pure Tinctoria dyes to the Summer School Trade Fair instead.

Gift Ideas for Christmas

Hi all

I've been putting some thought to Christmas gifts this year and have put some ideas on the Pure Tinctoria blog. Why don't you have a look at the blog and see what we've come up with so far!

Sunday Dyeing!

I've just had a lovely day dyeing with a friend. We had pre-mordanted 2 kilo's of Blue Faced Leicester Chunky yarn the previous week and spend the whole of Sunday dyeing it!

I set to work starting an indigo hydrosulphine vat ready to dip some pre-dyed hanks.

My friend, Lorraine, got the dyeing started by half filling a stainless steel meat tin with one of my Pure Tinctoria dyes and put in 5 100g pre-mordanted and wetted "centre-pull" balls. This gives a nice effect because it only dyes the part of the ball in the dye and that is shaded as the dye penetrates towards the centre of the ball. She simmered the balls in the dye for 40 to 45 minutes, then washed and rinsed them.

Lorraine dyed 2 kilo's of Blue Face Leicester Chunky yarn in this way. As each batch was wash, rinsed and re-hanked, I folded them in half and dipped the ends in the indigo vat.


Here are the Red Lac and indigo dipped hanks hanging from my Sumach tree.
This batch of yarn is dyed with Myrobalan and then dipped in the indigo vat.

A bit of a dark picture, but this is 1 kilo of Purple Lac which had its hank ends dipped in the indio vat!

We had a great day and managed to dye 2 Kilo's of yarn, dip 3 kilo's of yarn and mordant 400g of yarn, have lunch and a good natter!

Pure Tinctoria Workshop

I had a great time on Saturday at my local guild of weavers, spinners and dyers, in Derbyshire. I ran a natural dye extracts workshop with my Pure Tinctoria Dyes. Each participant dyed three small hanks with one of the dyes, then modified them with iron water, copper water, citric acid and washing soda. They all went home with 70 colour swatches!

See them on the right.

The only colour we didn't have was blue. I use a fermentation vat for indigo, which takes about 48 hours to work and it doesn't travel too well. As you can see the range of colours is fantastic, I just have to add the indigo range to the swatches, so watch this space for the results!