Eyes to the Soul of a Welsh Woollen History

This is the 3rd blog about my trip to the National Wool Museum of Wales, last week. I was totally inspired by it in so many ways. I want to show you these wonderful window panes from the old part of the mill, upstairs. They are completely shot through but there is something about them that really touches me. 

If we take that windows are the eyes to the soul of a building, what do these windows tell us about the soul of the mill and those that worked within her in during times gone by?

Interestingly in this window above, someone has replaced a broken pane with clear glass and we see the welsh green grass calling. Perhaps this is why the old mill glass is textured, to stop workers from gazing at grazing sheep? It really made me think about the Industrial Revolution, how it focused on speed and standardisation almost stripping the human joy from it.

To my mind, these fractured panes are pieces of art in their own right. Stressed and broken but still holding together creating a landscape of what has been.

        

And this is the window that lit the room where the bobbin carriers, the cardroomers, the doublers, the draw boys, the fettlers  the heck makers & so many more, will have spent their lives as they set about weaving our history.

Forgotten Corners : National Wool Museum of Wales

When I visit museums, it gives me great joy to see what we expect to see. At the National Wool Museum of Wales, we would expect to see a plethora of fabulous blankets and off course a water wheel.

But what really makes my heart sing in a museum, is a glimpse of how life was; the simple beauty in the seemingly ordinary. The nooks and crannies that have stayed untouched.

There is a romance in the way that the sun dances with yarn on the fading window sills ...

A humanness about the wooden joints so carefully crafted into benches ...

A joy in rows of spun wool ...

A thrill in the knots of old wood ...

against woollen remnants ...

a magic that today's perfection driven culture tidies up or clears away. A reminder, a truth, an authenticity that touches me.

Because it evokes the past ...

inviting me tell part of the story for myself. 

And that's what I loved the most about my visit to the museum, the stories that were intimated in the forgotten corners.

Natural Dye Garden at The National Wool Museum of Wales

When my speech therapist told me about the natural dye garden she had been part of creating at the National Wool Museum of Wales, I couldn't wait to visit. 

Based in Drefach, it took me only 20 minutes to get there in my car. It was such a lovely visit and I felt totally inspired.

So, I thought I would do a series of blogs about my time there, this being the first. 

These pictures are of all the flowers in the Natural Dye Garden that is sited just outside the Museum building itself.

The funny thing is that although some plants look one colour, when prepared for natural dying, they come out a completely different one.

Sometimes it is the leaves that are used and other times it is the flower heads.

I love that these recipes are ancient. Take Woad for instance, the Celts used to use the indigo dye from the leaves to paint onto their faces.

Flowers are so beautiful to look at. They lift the soul. They give us wonderful aromas and their essential oils can help to give us a sense of healing. I am already deeply living the healing aroma of flowers with my essential oils, infusing my wool with them throughout the process of washing to weaving my fleeces but now I feel totally inspired to make my own natural dyes.

Except I would like to experiment using the flowers of my garden, of the woods across the road from my little weaver's cottage. What colours are in the flora and fauna of my village?

Living with a chronic illness is at times traumatic. At first, I drowned in how small my world had become. So, I made the decision that although my world is small, I would dig deeper into it and the joy of this is beyond words. If you had told me that I would be visiting flower beds at the National Wool Museum to become inspired to make natural dyes from the flowers in my village, undoubtedly I would have laughed because although I would have thought that it sounded like a perfectly beautiful thing to do, I wouldn't have had the time.

Make the time, my friends, make the time to ground yourself in the magic of small. It is humans that have placed a value judgement on size, not nature.