The new Thanksgiving shawl kit, designed by Sharon Miller of Heirloom Knitting with naturally dyed wool from Renaissance Dyeing will be on sale by the end of the week.

The kit will include a printed pattern by Sharon Miller with written and charted instructions plus seven 250m hanks of naturally dyed wool in indigo.

As you can see in the picture on the right the design was inspired by the delicate feathering of a birds wing, the different nuances of our naturally dyed lace-weight wool perfectly lend themselves to the creation of this feather light shawl.

The kit is now ...

Some of you may have noticed that I was away from the dye-house in October. I was in Marlborough, England where I met with David and Margaret Redpath. It was so lovely to see them again and even in a short lunch time meeting there was so much to glean from their vast knowledge of natural dyeing.

After lunch we met with Susan Pearson of the Merchant's House in Marlborough with whom we had come to discuss the natural dyeing of wool for their 12 sixteenth century chairs that are being renovated by a group of volunteer embroiderers.

Here ...

Arriving in a day or two, ready for autumn and those even chillier winter days, the new Renaissance Dyeing harlequin shawl kit.

It is a simple neckerchief size shawl measuring 120 cm / 48 ins across the top and it is 60 cm / 24 ins long. Harlequin is fine and light and is designed for everyday wear.

It is the combination of an easy traditional pattern and an intarsia technique motive which calls for a bit of experience or a lot of patience to give it a try.

The main body of the shawl is worked in a self decreasing traditional ...

For those of you interested in Mediaeval Embroidery, here is an inspiring challenge.

The Something to Keep you Warm Embroidery Challenge II

It is the daughter of the Walling Hanging Challenge being completed by Racaire and Anya.

There are some very interesting links on these sites, have a look around.

The challenge will run from September 2007 - September 2008.

In their own words:

"This time around we decided on a more ahem useful theme for the project! Embroidered items can include hats, gloves, blankets, stockings, cloaks, anything that you use to keep you warm. These and the embroidery on them ...

Yes they are here. Ready for the the run up to Christmas and the chilly weather, when it finally arrives! Two wonderful designs by up-and-coming young American designer Miriam Felton.

Riverwide Scarf

Even I was amazed at the softness, lightness and drape of the Riverwide scarf. It is knitted sideways with 2 strands and the garter lace stream and delta pattern are both written and charted.

It is also possible for you to e-mail me and change the colours in the kit to those of your choice. Tongues of fire through asphalt? Flower beds in between a box hedge?

Lightweight ...

The wonderful news is that it is raining! For the first time since Christmas. Tap, spring and even river water (I've tried them all) in our part of the Pyrénées are very very hard. While some natural dyes positively glow in this, dyes such as brazil-wood, logwood and cochineal do not and these we usually dye in rain water. We are running very low in shades produced with these natural dyes, so we are very relieved to see the rain.

As always at this time of year demand is increasing and I have had my fingers crossed ...

This madder is only a few months old, in 2-3 years it will have covered all the ground and the roots will be ready to harvest that Autumn.

Madder seems to grow well in this area of France, where the summers are hot but not too dry. There has been a recent attempt to grow it in Provence which was abandoned, I think because of lack of water.

However in Holland where madder was grown traditionally, a new company was launched last month called Rubia. If you are looking for madder extract it is worth looking at their site.

Sorghum was one of the dye plants I grew last year. It grew very well on our dry southern slope. One night the wild boar came to invest it and pulled some down.

They neither ate it or returned, no doubt knowing at the first sniff that it is poisonous. Unfortunately, this year I didn't have time to work with this fascinating plant, but I have kept some seed and plan to sew it this year as a combined dye crop, shade and wind break. It is very drought resistant, its leaves contract around the stem conserving moisture as ...

Two more wonderful samplers from the creative needle of Irene Dunn, here described in her own words.

"The sampler which I made for Marguerite and Malcolm I think is rather similar to the one I made for you, which can be viewed in the gallery on the main Renaissance web-site. Many of the patterns are similar but the wording comes from COLBY Averil-Samplers (published in the 1960's)"

"The unframed sampler I am very pleased with. It is a 'band sampler', very popular in the 16-17th centuries. Called a band sampler as the patterns are worked across.

The needlewoman would ...

In our coffee breaks, Fleur, our border colley and I go walnut-hunting in the garden and surrounding meadows. This is the time of year that the slowly ripening nuts fall one by one from the already yellowing trees. Leaving the green husked youngsters on the trees we collect the black wizened ones from the dappled shade beneath. The walnuts in the photo are fully ripe and ready to harvest for dyeing purposes.

Once collected I leave them to dry and then wearing rubber gloves unless I want to sport very tanned hands for a week or two, I separate the ...