Speaker Ann Ross

Rotary club of Stirling  meeting of 31st March 2018

President Stewart Wilson welcomed members, Lilian McGeoch guest of Jane Wilson, visiting Rotarian Alistair Morrison and our speaker Ann Ross to our Friday meeting.  Stewart thanked Jane Wilson for organising the Scot's night last week, which was most successful socially, and in raising almost £2000 for our charity fund.  Sandy Leven proposed that we should start our new season planting at Stirling Station next Tuesday.

Our speaker Ann oss, originally from Ireland and trained in textiles, talked about her interest in using natural dyes to colour wool. In her childhood her mother often used material from the countryside to dye fabric, and every Easter to colour eggs yellow for them to roll.  There is a long history in Scotland of using natural dyes. The Gordons from Aberdeen employed only Gaelic speakers in their Glasgow dye works in an attempt to ensure the secrets of the process were kept secure.  Despite the development of chemical dyes, Ann prefers to use natural dyes. Using a variety of processes often surprising colours, which do not fade, can be produced, which she feels reflect the landscape from which they originate, the colours of Scotland. Harris tweed is a good example, the wool being dyed then woven into a remarkably hard-wearing cloth with the original colours intermingled through it. For Ann it is a process of continuing discovery, often surprising new colours appearing, and to demonstrate this, she brought several samples of her dyed wool in many subtle shades. 

The Vote of thanks was given by Peter Mehta.    

Next meeting 6th April Speaker's host Alan Prentice, Visitor's host Peter Mehta.

Ian Richardson