Greetings from Julian

Thank you Jahanarabanu for inviting me to join this group!

Currently I have lots of unfinished projects, all textile, some costume sewing, some mundane cross stitch.

On the fibre arts side....

At the very beginning of the month I spent a week at Kentwell Hall in Suffolk, spinning on the great wheel. Some of the yarn I spun was dyed at Kentwell and some I brought home and dyed with madder (alum mordant).

I am currently preparing some fleece as I am going to offer spinning tuition at Raglan in the A&S tent this year. (For people taking part in the event and for members of the public). In the evenings I hope to be able to do some natural dying too.

I have an ambition to spin enough yarn to weave a piece of cloth big enough to make a Tudor bodice out of. I have a small Ashford table top loom that I bought second hand a couple of years ago and I spun several large skeins of yarn but when I tried weaving with them I found that they were too fine for the purpose.

When I discovered this I decided to use the yarn for experimenting with natural dyes and Ed used some of it to embroider his tunic for Hastings 2006.


Left - some of my natural dyed balls of hand and wheel spun wool .

Left to right - Turmeric, Logwood, Sage, Madder, Brazilwood and stronger Madder, all with Alum.










Maredudd (Ed's) Anglosaxon Tunic.