I thought I should get some pictures of the naturally dyed quills. All the quills were pre-mordanted with alum. Various things could have been used eg, roots from the female dock or something very tanin rich eg, oak galls. I have not used these before so can not say how successful they are!
Above are the quills dyed with madder. There is a range of lovely shades. From orange through to red.
I am really made up with the colours I got with the madder. To get the red I added a modifier. I used washing powder! The middle ones match the old orange quills I have seen very well.
Here are the quills dyed with onion skins
The yellow is lovely and bright. It gives a glimpse of how bright the original early quill work may have been. Yellow is the most common colour achieved from vegetation. To achieve yellow the wood from the oregon grape could be used. When I get hold of some of this I may give that a try.
To the right of the onion Skin dyed quills are the ones dyed with oak galls and iron along with walnut husks. Most of the quills came out grey.
The quills here were dyed with walnut husks.
And this is the quill work in progress.
I am very out of practise with quill work. That and my blurry drugged up eyes have made it quite scruffy. I am still not very good a quill work. But practise makes perfect. I have been practising for years now!
I have taken all the stretch out of the hide. I wetted the hide after I had sewn it all together then pinned it to a board to dry. That makes it quite thin and stiff. I have found this easer to quill on. Although I do not know what may happen if the hide gets wet again. I am worried that it may shrink back to it's actual size.
No comments:
Post a Comment