June lovely June, beautifies the ground and metamorphoses the dye garden from potential to actual dye palette. Here you can take a peek at some of the plants in the dye garden at the moment. These radiant woad seeds will not only give next years woad crop but also give that beautiful deep purple to wool or cloth.

I try to manage the dye garden so that it is in top condition for the natural dye workshop at the end of August, the weather makes this an interesting challenge. I am about to harvest all the Garland Chrysanthemum flowers and then cut the plants right down so that they will bloom again later. Well that is the theory.

This years natural dyeing workshop is full but I will be giving a shorter course, also in English, at the beginning of August as part of The Colour Week at Montbrun Bocage, an atmospheric village with a famous Sunday market near here. There people will learn how to dye using the one-bath method and use the fructose indigo vat. The students will dye 20 different colours using 3 plants. Do have a look at their web-site and don't hesitate to contact them as English is spoken fluently.

Preparation for le Lot et La Laine, 22-23 July is in full swing. At shows I often need to talk to people about actually making a kit so I have set myself the task of making as many of our kits as time allows, and at the moment I am crocheting the Kaleidoscope throw and hope to have it ready for LOT, 43 squares to go!

French designer Hélène Marcy will once again be with us at Le Lot et La Laine, and we will be launching the fourth in the series of Fall in Creuse shawls. This one is named 'Summer in Lot' and the main colours will be Hélène's favourite. So what is Hélène's favourite colour? As a fun COMPETITION to celebrate this wonderful French wooly event in Lot we are inviting you to leave a comment below telling us what you think Hélène's fave colour is.It is mentioned in a blog posted in 2015 or you can simply guess. It has something to do with the city in which she lives.

'Summer in Lot' is now available on the web-site,

and 'I love Indigo' shown below, also by Hélène, an intriguing geometric patterned shawl using three indigo dyed hanks of the wonderfully soft Merinos d'Arles will be available from the June 21st.

We have five pairs of free entries to give away to the correct answers we will draw from a hat at the end of June. To enter, leave a comment below.

In Lot, as well as our growing range of colours and kits we will have some good value mixed packs of BFL and other wools for sale. See you there.