Easter Dyed Thread

Good day to ye,
T'is Innes at your service, and we're to be having some fun in the kitchen. Do ye like the idea of makin' your own embroidery thread? Well if you follow my lead, we might make a little collection of our own coloured threads using stuff from your own garden or roadside.

Twill be a simple task of gathering plant matter in or near your home. Carrrots or beetroot fresh, is a good choice for a first botanical venture if you want it to be from your kitchen stores. Gathering some plain ecru thread or wool in want of some colour. Choose leaves or flowers, like Daffodils, or Buddleia, lily or even grass will give pale green.
I will talk of buddleia flowers and leaves, as a dye bath as it is most rewarding and you can get results on your first attempt.

Soak the intended thread in warm soapy water and rinse out.
Take one or two flower heads, those large cone like ones! then cut them up with scissors into chunks. Toss them into a small pot (an empty tin of baked beans sitting in another pot will do). Add water to cover completely and boil them up for one hour. The water should become a bright colour. Depending on the colour flower, but yellow is normal for buddleia. Once the water has boiled for an hour, pour off the liquid through a coffee filter or section of pantyhose, straining into a glass jar. The glass will be hot. Now bring the pot of fresh water to the boil. Once ready, Carefully place the jar into the pot of hot water for the glass jar. The water in the pot ought to come up equal to that of the dye line inside the glass jar. Now add your wet dye stuff into the glass jar, that is the thread you want to dye. It ought to be immersed in the dye liquid. So use an end of a paint brush to push it into the dye liquid. Set the pot with the jar on heat to SIMMER this time only for an hour.
Let the glass jar go cold while sitting in the pot of hot water. Once cold, you may remove the glass jar, and fish out the thread, let the thread drip dry in the shade straight away. Do not rinse yet. Once it is dry, give it a press with the iron on medium, as this will seal the colour strength. Then you may wash the skein in cool water with a dot or two of dishwashing liquid or pure soap. Hang to dry and voila, you have your own dyed thread to embroider as you please. Of course you can do the same exercise with squares of linen or cotton or better still, silk. Just always remember to immerse it well. And ALWAYS dry in the shade.

The swap:

After you have dyed your bits of cloth or thread take a photo to share with your partner and do share on the pinterest board if you are so inclined. We would love to see your variants of colourful or paler shades. There is no right or wrong = if it is pale, that is as wonderful as a bright shade. You will have one partner to send to.

I hope you will enjoy the experience and thrill of the dye pot as I always do. You sometimes never know what the pale liquid in the jar will dye but it will surprise you immensely.

We hope you will enjoy a happy Easter. Please feel free to contact us with any queries. Jane Nicalli and Anna