Three jumbos before lunch

Tags

berries, country life, creativity, dessert, funyarn, garden, relax, summer, wool

Not half bad for a day’s work.

 

Elderberry juice

Tags

berries, cooking, country life, harvest, hyldebær, nature, saft, seasons

8 liters should be enough to see me through the winter storms, served hot with a twist of lemon, honey and fresh ginger! Thanks to this wonderful contraption that my mother gifted me a few years ago. Instead of boiling and straining, you steam the berries. Just add water in the bottom container, 3 kg of berries + 1 kg of sugar in the top, and the juice collects in the middle.

Next week I’ll be back on my usual subject matters, I promise. Spinning wheel is going to get dusted for instance.

Lidt hyldebærkoncentrat takket være den dejlige “saft-Maja” jeg har fået af min mor. Så kan jeg klare vinteren med varme drikke tilsat citron, honning og frisk ingefær, nams!

Næste uge lover jeg at holde mig mere til de sædvanlige emner. 😉 Lidt spinderi bliver det nok til!

Elderberry results 2

Tags

berries, black, chemistry, cold dyeing, colour, mad science, mordant, purple, wool

Washed and dried and staying pretty much the same colour! So far so good… All that remains is a light test.

salt – alkaline – acid – before wash

In the sun after wash in tap water with shampoo

The jar of fleece turned blue, then green after some days, but the fleece then virtually lost all colour when drained. Slight greenish grey left. Whether it’s due to temp, no mordant or just the Dorset that doesn’t take well remains a mystery as usual. But I’m thinking I could have gotten green if I’d used yarn.

≈ Leave a Comment

Hyldebærfarvning 2

Det ser ud som om garnet holder farven, også efter vask! Så mangler blot en lystest….

Elderberry results 1

Tags

berries, black, chemistry, cold dyeing, colour, mad science, mordant, purple, wool

I nearly forgot about these – time to take a look after 10 days. Looks pretty good! Now to dry and cure for about a week, then rinse in rain water.

I then mixed the leftover juice and added some of the unmordanted Dorset fleece, tweaking to a pH of 8. Leaving for a week or more and take it out when I rinse the others for a new report. The suspense is killing me, how about you? Right now it looks blue….

salt – alkaline – acid

Tempted to try a tin mordant if these turn out colourfast. And I’ve read about green. I wonder which pH is needed for that? Like, 13? My strips only go to 11.

It’s been cool weather, not above 20 C, more like 15, so not exactly what I’d call solar dyeing.

≈ Leave a Comment

Hyldebærfarvning

Jeg havde næsten glemt mine garnglas på bryggershylden, men nu var det tid til at åbne efter 10 dage. Jeg lader dem tørre noget tid inden jeg skyller, for at lade farven sidde i så længe som muligt. Jeg har læst et sted at bærfarver holder bedre hvis de er koldfarvet i forhold til simret, så det måtte jeg alligevel prøve, selvom jeg egentlig har opgivet frugt og grønt.

Den resterende saft har jeg blandet og puttet i et nyt glas med ubejset dorset uld. Fortsættelse følger!

Rowan – sorbus aucuparia

Tags

berries, brown, leaves, plants, wool, yellow

This was just a small experiment since my rowan trees on the property are rather measly. And the ones along the main road are too tall for me to reach…. So I just did my usual simmer-soak-simmer-soak 2-day routine to get it out of my hair, like. I threw in a couple of berries because, well, they fell into my sack. Alum/CoT mordant on wool yarn.

Birch left, Rowan right, in my usual Sumak drying tree

I forgot to weigh the leaves…..

One of my books suggests it’s a good base under madder and indigo, another that it gives a brownish yellow. (brown in my head not being great under blue? I could of course be wrong)

The colour did turn out to be a different yellow than birch leaves (more on those in the near future), so quite ok as experiments go. Whether the berries had an influence? Well, it’s always fun to have more mysteries waiting out there.

≈ Leave a Comment

Rønnebær og -blade

Det skulle lige prøves, ingen forventninger andet end “gul”. Men det kan jo bruges til overfarvning. xx g blade (og et par klaser bær fordi de sad der) til 30 g garn, alun/vinsten bejset.

Den gule farve er i øvrigt, mod min forventning, anderledes end den gule fra birkeblade, så det var alligevel ikke et helt tosset eksperiment. Om det er de få bær som har give en lidt varmere tone er svært at vide, det må jeg teste en anden dag. Men det er da en udmærket måde at få variation.

Vidste du, at man kan kommentere min blog uden at være wordpress medlem? Bare udfyld navn er nok. Det er så hyggeligt med dialog fremfor monolog!