The Last Day of 2024

I spent the last day of 2024 like this: walking in the forest, spinning merino wool and then dyeing it with bark I collected from a few of the Mountain Ash trees at the end of our dirt road.

During December and the start of Summer, long ribbons of the bark start trailing and hanging down the tree trunks, and as the weather heats up combined with windy days, a great collection of beautiful bark is strewn below the trees. I’ve noticed after a few days, ants or maybe they’re termites, love using these four to five meter bark ribbons as shortcuts across the twiggy leaf strewn ground.

So I collected a few bark lengths and bundled them along the road, past the paddock of bright yellow dandelions - millions of them tracking the sun across the sky in unison. There was a blackbird having an aerial match with a blue crane - which finally took refuge, landing on the tractor shed beyond the dandelions.

After a coffee, I crumpled the bark ribbons into smallish bits collecting them all into a large laundry bowl, where I left them to soak in water overnight. The next day, bark and water were boiled for an hour or so. I was surprised by the depth of colour, dark red brown, which didn’t shine light through when I tested it in a glass jar against the sun. So now I had a lovely dye, and a house smelling of eucalypt!

I spent the night spinning about 50g white Merino tops, while watching a mindless shoot ups on Binge. I spent this morning spinning another 50g natural coloured grey Exmoor wool outside on the deck in the shade, listening to a very interesting New York Times podcast.

Mountain Ash, Eucalyptus Regnans, starting to shed ribbons of bark in early Summer. Emerald, Victoria.

Take a look at Indigo in the Garden with Friends for how these wool skein colours changed after overdying with indigo.