Anna Roe

I was inspired by 2 archive samples, one photo had inspiring geometric shapes and another had interesting shading.

I dyed 4 different breeds of sheep wool at the 2024 Guild workshop on Solar Dying, using red onion skins, for a month. I then divided the wool up and modified some using acid and alkali modifiers to achieve further colour changes.  I spun the wool samples using the Long Draw spinning technique I learned from the 2024 guild workshop.

I created a wall-hanging using a weft facing tapestry weaving technique, the first time I had tried this. I chose the stepped diamond pattern to show the colour variation achievable using the same dye but different wool breeds, and to highlight changes using dye modifiers can make. The wall hanging also has a variety of textures due to the different breeds of sheep wool used.

The top and bottom half diamond shapes are the unmodified red onion skin dyed wool. The middle diamond bottom half was modified with Soda Ash (alkali) and the top half with Lemon Juice (acid). The side diamonds are woven from undyed natural brown and cream wool.

Materials

Fleece dyed with red onion skins and modifiers

The breeds of sheep wool used are:

• Dark Brown – Jacob (undyed)
• Brown – Shetland (dyed)
• Dark Grey – Herdwick (dyed)
• Light Grey – Swaledale (dyed)
• White – 18.5 mc Merino (dyed)
• White background – 16mc
• Merino (undyed)
• Creamy White – 23mc
• Merino (undyed)

Inspiration

Geometric shapes and interesting shading on samples by James Ives company.

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