Dyed in the wool

Long ago, when I was still a child, I went with my parents to the National Eisteddfod of Wales, an annual event with competitions and performances of music and poetry and exhibitions of arts and crafts. We found a stall displaying the work of two women who  dyed, spun and wove woollen cloth. My parents ordered a length of this material and some time later we were summoned to collect it. The two weavers (perhaps they were a couple, who knows?) dwelt in a cottage on the Welsh border and gathered dye plants from the countryside around them, and further afield if necessary. I don't remember if they kept their own sheep or whether the wool came from local flocks but the whole process of creating this fabric was enormously laborious. There are several different dye plants used in this piece  and somewhere I kept a record of them but I can no longer find that. I seem to remember that onion skins, weld, nettles and gorse all featured and probably lichen too, since my father was particularly keen on that, although it was difficult to collect, needing a trip to the mountains. (There is a wealth of wild and  garden plants that can be used for dyeing, see here for instance.)

The cloth was made into a (rather prickly) skirt for me and at a later date I unpicked that and turned it into a large cushion cover. Now it's back to a length and still the colours remain unfaded, a testimony to the skill of the two long-forgotten craftswomen.