Every red on our sashes comes from one plant: madder, a scrambling weed with a red root that grows behind the barn.
Three years in the ground
Madder needs three summers before its roots are worth digging. We dig them in October, wash them in the river and dry them in the attic over the winter.
The dye pot
In June the dried roots are ground, soaked overnight and warmed in the copper pot, never boiled: boiling turns the red to brown. The wool goes in for an hour and comes out the colour of a ripe rowan berry.
Madder is patient. It gives a better red to a dyer who is patient too.
Pink, red and rust
A second dip in the same pot gives pink. Wool first dyed with walnut and then with madder turns a deep rust, the colour of the old sashes from Zarasai.
