Bixa Orellana and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome...

Ok, so Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is taking over my life at the minute, I had surgery exactly a year ago yesterday and since about March/April this year, the pain keeps getting worse and worse, I also have a lump on the back of my hand which is worrying me, although it was diagnosed as a Ganglion Cyst two years ago, it doesn't feel like a cyst but a lump of bone?  Hopefully the orthopedic will be able to put my mind to rest when I finally get my referral, in the mean time I have had to take time off from my internship, which means not much dyeing going on at the minute!  However, I realised I did some dyeing in between weaving with fox fibre and dyeing with the tinctoria dyes and stupidly forgot to blog about them!

I have dyed with Bixa orellana aka Annatto seeds before but got a really muggy dull pinky/red colour and this time I wanted some astonishing oranges/terricotta colours.  So, I decided to give it another go and hurrah! it worked!! :)

What do you think of the results?  Hopefully my wrists will be fixed soon so I can get some more dyeing and knitting done!!

Pure-Tinctoria Dyes

Today at work I tried out some powdered natural dyes called 'Pure-Tinctoria', these are dyes we sell at the Handweaver's Studio & Gallery, I wanted to dye with them because the samples we have on display in the shop are really dull.  This is also the first time I have used a mordant when dyeing, the samples produced for each dye bath are one mordanted with alum and one pre-soaked in salt.  I have used Red Lac, Purple Lac, Madder root, Rhubarb root (no mordant used) and Acacida Gum and 100% Wool.

Purple lac

Red Lac

Red Lac

Left to right - Purple Lac pre-soaked with salt, purple lac pre-mordanted with alum, Red Lac pre-soaked with salt, Red Lac pre-mordanted with alum.

Same as above with Madder on the end.

Closer look at Madder Root dyed yarn.

Left to right, Rhubarb root and washing soda, Acacia Gum pre-mordanted with alum, Acacia Gum pre-soaked in salt.