Steamed or Roasted Madam?

“After bluing sprinkle the wool with ashes and trample it down with them in a convenient manner. Then press the liquid out of potter’s clay and wash off the blued wool therein. Rinse it in salt water and mordant it. You will know if it is sufficiently mordanted when it sinks down in the kettle

Expecting To Fail With Mulberries

By Tonya Pettit – New York, USA I decided to take part in this collaboration as something I could do as a homeschooling project with my kiddo. We probably could have chosen a better or more promising dye recipe, but the mystery of creating a “fine excellent purple” from mulberries was such a curiosity that

Sheep Urine Shenanigans

I like to keep life simple. With 4 home educated kids and a flock of sheep, it can get complicated enough some days. So when reading through the papyri methods, I decided I would choose less complicated sounding ones, and when I spotted one using sheep urine, I was sold. We have a flock of

Ash and clay makes clean?

I have long been fascinated by the permutations and combinations, twists and turns and variations that can be coaxed out of madder (Rubia sp.) and when the opportunity came up to explore madder as mentioned in the Stockholm papyrus, it was an easy choice. The papyrus was a familiar source to me. I am part

Foraging & Finding Ingredients

This first stage of the Stockholm and Leyden Papyri Dye Project was a lot of fun to find and collect the ingredients for the methods that I plan on testing for this project. There were adventures and outings that I did not imagine that I would experience in order to acquire them. Here is an

“Woad Is Me” & Dyeing With Herbs?

By Jackie Bush – Norfolk, England Diary of a Saxon Weaver You can rely on the UK weather……..?  What an awful Spring we had this year.  Everything got off to a very late start including my woad which I am relying on to use in some of the dye recipes from the Stockholm Papyrus. I

Talking Orchil

Isabella Whitworth, Devon, South West England The Leeds Archive Thirteen years ago, close friends living nearby decided they were going to up sticks and move house. I didn’t realise at the time, but I was about to embark on rather a different journey. The friends asked me if I could look at some family papers

And the Answer Is…..Or Is It?

My previous blog post ended with more questions than answers. There is a lot to ponder and research with the Stockholm & Leyden Papyrus ancient dye recipes. I initially chose two recipes to try to replicate primarily because I thought I had access to the ingredients. Today, I’ll focus on recipe #118 – Gold Color.

Preparation Is Everything… I Hope!

By Sue Crook – Hampshire, UK Sue Crook Textile Artist / HapticArt Textile Artist As someone fairly new to natural dyes – I have (almost) completed Mel Sweetnam’s/ Mamies Schoolhouse’s Guilded, Modules 1 & 2 – the chance of trying out some third century Egyptian dye recipes was very appealing. I settled on 3 from

Welcome!

Welcome to our collaborative blog! I’m Mel Sweetnam, of Mamie’s Schoolhouse. I am privileged to be working with the marvellous group of global dyers who have decided to join me on this adventure to recreate the 1,800 year old dye methods found in the Leyden and Stockholm Papyri (learn about the papyri here, and about