Woolcraft@Galgael on the Riverside Regatta, 16th of July 2011

Heather's display of plant dyed, handspun wool

Woolcraft@GalGael had a stall in GalGael's huge marquee. It was a new event related to the former Riverfest but in a new venue, on the northern side of the river Clyde, just beside the new Riverside Museum.  
The weather was okay and we had crowds of people visiting the woodcraft and woolcraft stalls from Galgael. It's always great to meet new people, who haven't heard about GalGael. Heather and Jaene were spinning on their spinning wheels and the kids could have a shot on the wheels. Proud little faces! Then and now Heather was singing a gaelic spinning song and received standing ovations. Lots of pics were taken.
Jenny did a bit of needle felting and sold Galgaels newly produced CD! Laryna was weaving on the rug loom and a couple of kids had a go in rug weaving. 
We all enjoyed a fantastic day!  
if you couldn't make it this year, we hope to see you there next summer!

Laryna's display of dry and wet felted things

Our rug loom

Workshop in natural dyeing in Galgael in February

10th+24th of February from 5.30 pm
Heather, a member of  
Galgaels woolcraft group offers a workshop in natural dyeing in GalGael. 

Come, watch and get to know more about this ancient and still popular technique!

See post below about a natural dyeing workshop in December last year! 

Magical indigo dyeing

One day before the end of 2010 we had a wonderful evening with the magical process of indigo dyeing. Heather invited us wool craft women in her house where we occupied the kitchen. We were a bunch of 4 women: Heather, Alison, Gillian and me, Laryna. We enjoyed the long preparation of the indigo dye-bath, which took more then 1 hour. For the dyeing afterwards we had many different natural fibers like sheeps wool, handspun lama wool, mashine spun cashmere, bamboo fibers and silk fibers.

The magic in this process is the changing of the colour when the wool after been dyed gets in contact with oxygen: Then it changes from green shades into more and more blueish shades, depending how intense the dye-bath is and how many fibers have allready been dyed in the dye-bath.

Here you see lama wool after been dyed, just in the process of changing its colour.

Heather had some yellow wool dyed with meadowsweet. We dyed it over and a beautiful green appeared..

This photo shows the indigo dyed wool on natural white sheeps wool and the over dyed green sheeps wool.

Thank you Heather for this great experience and the lovely evening in your place.