So Easter has been and gone, there are lambs in the fields, enough wild garlic growing along the river that I won’t need buy garlic bulbs for another month at least, and I’m even starting to see the odd bluebell. Bluebells are probably my favourite seasonal ubiquitous wildflower, so I’m delighted about this.

But this post is about daffodils, which (whispers) I don’t actually like that much, or at least not their identikit municipal planting schemes versions, which are a bit brash and garish for my taste. That said, I love daffodils as splashes of brightness when viewed from a distance, and how a few scattered here and there allows their architectural qualities to come to the fore.

I’ve been paying attention to both these aspects in my attempts at woolcrafting daffodils over the last month. (Even if I don’t like them that much, I have an awful lot of naturally dyed yellow fibre to do something with).

After making my mum a (hastily-photographed, above) Mothers Day daffodil card (on Harris tweed, fibres dyed with onion skins and weld+indigo), I had a go at a large free-standing one. I started it on a beautifully sunny and warm day, so I was sitting outside while working on it, making reference to this example from the garden.

My muses were also hard at work…

It took ages, and uses wool dyed with hawthorn and pineapple weed. I don’t love it, but it’s jolly at least.

I had rather more instant gratification, and preferred results, felting more daffodils onto tweed, this time rather tinier ones that could be used as bookmarks.

Then the daffodils in garden started looking rather tired, so I decided to put them to another woolly use: as dyestuff! Deadheads shredded, soaked and simmered.

Alum-mordanted BFL yarn made a deliciously daffodil-y yellow once modified with alkaline.

Shown here with my favourite of my daffodil-related experiments, felted onto some new Harris Tweed I got specially with the gift voucher that was my leaving present from my last job. It’s made using with fibres dyed with onion skins, dock root, hawthorn, pineapple weed, rosebay willowherb + iron and weld+indigo.

In other dyeing news, I finally have the weather and the gas cannister to get dyeing on my portable stove out in the shed. First dyebath has been from some brazilwood – I added some chalk to it that’s bringing out some lovely pinks. Just now adding some fibre previously dyed with indigo – fingers crossed I’ll get some purples for felting bluebells!