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

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

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

And so it begins…..

“We know better where we are going if we understand where we have been” J. N. Liles Niles, J. N. (1990). The art and craft of natural dying: Traditional recipes for modern use. University of Tennessee Press (2010 reprint), Knoxville, TN, pp. v. Greetings! Thank you for following along on our journey. Several months ago,

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