Linen Garden

Four cloth sizes, two runner lengths and napkins sold in pairs. Everything is hemmed with a 15 mm turn and pressed once, never starched.

The heavier 240 gsm takes dye deeper and softens over roughly a dozen washes; the 190 is the one to pick if you want the weave to show.

Sheets come in single, double and king, washed twice before they leave so they arrive already relaxed. Slips are envelope-backed rather than zipped.

Bath pieces are woven in a small waffle and left undyed on request — the pale lots fade least in a sunny bathroom.

Measure the drop from the top of the pole to where you want the hem to land, then add nothing — the allowance is already built in. Panels hang from tabs or rings.

Sheer lots move with the window and wash soft; the lined pair is heavier and better for a west-facing room that gets late sun.

Everything that comes off the cutting table goes in the bin: dip ends, test strips, mis-measured hems. Good for patch pockets, quilt backs and practising a new stitch.

Bundles are mixed lots, so expect three or four colours in one bag.

You pick a plant from the bed, prepare the cloth, and take home a metre you dyed yourself. Pots are already hot when you arrive, so the session is all hands.

Six seats because that is how many fit around the table. Wear sleeves you don't mind losing to madder.

One garment or one cloth per person. We look at the damage together, choose between a darn, a patch or a reinforced seam, and you do the sewing while the kettle goes.

Thread and needles are on the table. Worn collars and thin elbows are the usual visitors; moth holes are the most satisfying fix.

The short version of everything asked at dye days: how much plant matter per dry gram of cloth, why alum comes first, and what hard water quietly does to pink.

Written for a kitchen pot and a cheap scale, not a studio. Rewritten each spring as the garden teaches us otherwise.

Coreopsis is on its last heads, which means warm oranges for another fortnight. Madder roots come up this month after three years in the ground — that is the big pot of the year.

Woad is resting and will not be cut again until the new rosettes thicken in late spring.

Dividing the madder bed leaves more crowns than there is room for, so they go to anyone growing dye plants nearby. Coreopsis and dyer's chamomile seed is saved every autumn too.

Still hunting for weld and a hardier woad strain. Swaps happen at the open-door afternoons rather than by post.

Thursdays from early afternoon until the light goes: come and feel the weights, see the current lots on the line and take remnants away with you.

Other days the pots are usually full and the door is shut, so visits are by arrangement at a dye day or a mending clinic.