August!

Tags

autumn, garden, life, orange, summer, texture, weather

How has summer been treating you so far? Here in DK, children will be starting school again soon, in other countries I know August is the big holiday month. Do you have plans or did they already happen?

New favourite colours

Tags

acrylics, colour, colourways, creativity, inspiration, job hunting, multipassionate, multipotentiality, orange, paint

Do you have a favourite colour combination, just recently, or one that you keep returning to?

Lately I’m a bit obsessed with the colours “Transparent Red Iron Oxide” and “Alizarin Crimson Hue” from Golden. They look great together and make a nice burnt orange too when mixed. I’m making up swatches and samples when I’m not just adding them directly to various projects.

https://colourcottage.wordpress.com/mini-weather/

Sparse

Show and Tell Week: Handspun shawl

Tags

clothing, colourways, FO, orange, silk, wool, yellow

Another month gone by, and no, I haven’t been very busy. At the moment I can’t even weave although I have projects started on both looms and more warps waiting. It’s driving me batty! But using my left leg aggravates my “whateverthehellisgoingonwithmybuttock”. So I do stretches, self-massages and some of that sitting down finishing work that I’m usually too lazy to get done.

Marigold – Morgenfrue 2015

Tags

dyeing, flowers, orange, plantefarvning, plants, summer, wool

I know I said not to bother with Calendula officinalis, but as I was ridding my sadly very small weld patch from a

Spring colours

Tags

colour, colourways, cotton, flowers, garden, green, orange, pink, seasons, spring, sun, weather

Aaaand once more the garden is waking up, bit by bit. Another step up in temperature and I think it’s ok for my one forced rhubarb to come out of hiding.

I hope there’s going to be a very special photo project for me the next few months, but more about that later.

Orange Cosmos dye

Tags

colour, cotton, dyeing, flowers, garden, orange, wool, yarn

– and possibly an epiphany.

Little green wonders: Carrots

Tags

country life, garden, gardening, life, little green wonders, orange, plants, seasons

I remember sowing some carrots this summer, but then the dry, hot weather, my back and other issues, my laissez-faire attitude about growing what can grow and not spend too much paid water, simply made me forget because for a long time nothing much happened. And we all know how thistles and such will thrive under any weather conditions, so I’d given up on them.

Sample spinning

Tags

art yarn, colour, colourways, fiber friday, funyarn, merino, orange, plying, wool

Remember the fiber I bought at the sheep market? I’ve been wondering how I wanted to spin the variegated top on the right, so I decided to get all scientific about it and at least try out all the usual varieties (knowing full well that perhaps in the end I’d have 50g of samples….)

So a split lenghtwise 2-ply, a chainply, a fatter single and a 2×2 cable for starters. As well as knitted swatches!! Then afterwards, depending on the results, I might look into new to me spinning methods…

Well, I got as far a 2×2 cable, real thin, as I thought it might emulate a thicker, longer yarn using the whole top. And realized that all the plying would just make me an orange yarn. (of course I could try 3×3 chain ply, but no, not this time)

Then I thought I was real clever, and brave too, deciding to waste all my yarn on something really different (to me). Never mind all that sampling!

I split it in half, then one half split into a thick rope and a thin. The idea was to try and match the lenghts/colours when plying the two. Well, it works in theory. Except I haven’t spun for ages and I’m prone to underspinning – even when I think I’ve added extra twist. The fiber is superwash. Can you see where this is going? Yes, everything pretty much drifted apart when I tried to ply. Some bits are looking really good, but it’s definitely not the same type of yarn at both ends! I will however try this again some other time as I think it could be a really cool feature in a woven item of some sort.

The other half I spun fairly thin, and then I wanted to make a coiled yarn. Well, duh. After 20 cm or so plying, I learned that to make coils, your single should probably be somewhat thicker than your core unless you want serious corkscrews as well! I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on how to make the coils though, I just have to figure out what to do with a thin, variegated, orange single now….

Testspinding

Jeg har gået længe og funderet på, hvad jeg skulle spinde af mit orange fiber fra fåredagen. Spekulerede i mange nye eksperimenter som jeg ikke har prøvet før, lavede en lillebitte test med kabeltvinding, som bare gjorde det hele ensfarvet orange og kedeligt.

Så jeg endte med at finde på noget for mig rigtig vildt og uvant. Og selvfølgelig mislykkes med begge dele, men til gengæld har jeg lært lidt af hvert. Det er lidt ærgerligt, at jeg ikke fik noget direkte brugbart ud af de fine fibre, men sådan er der så meget….

Den ene halvdel splittede jeg op på langs i en tyk og en tynd tot, som jeg så forsøgte at spinde lige lange, så det, når det var tvundet, ville være en tyk og en tynd som fulgte samme farveforløb.

Det virkede også rimeligt i teorien, bortset fra jeg ikke har spundet meget længe og har en tendens til at underspinde. Fibrene er desuden superwash og meget glatte og kan ikke filtes hvis det kniber med sammenholdet! Og ja, det hele skred jo fra hinanden gang på gang da jeg begyndte at sno det den anden vej, ikke?

Godt så, næste lektion bestod i at lave “coils”, kan vi kalde det fjedergarn på dansk? Jeg spandt en tynd single, for så tænkte jeg at det færdige garn ikke blev så massivt. Efter 20 cm tvinding fandt jeg så ud af, at det ikke er en smart ide at kernen er samme tykkelse som garnet, men skal være meget tyndere, ellers kommer der så meget sno på at det ikke bare ligner en fjeder på den ene led, men at selve garnet også er en grisehale. Så nu har jeg en lang tynd single i orange nuancer jeg skal have fundet på et eller andet sjovt til!

Cheating?

Tags

blue, fiber, intention, knitting, merino, orange, postcard, puppy, spinning, ufo, weaving, wip, wool

I was going to talk about spinning today. And possibly knitting. But I’ve just been too knackered to do either…. Here’s (some of) my wip collection! Not telling how long they’ve been in there….

Do daily photos count as postcards? Go check out my new blog if you’re bored. It’s just for laughs, something I can also do when I’m tired and foggybrained but refuse to give up. (yes, yes, I know what I said last Thursday but if I’m having fun it’s ok, right?) And, well, I did say I was going to do more Photoshopping in the future! I’ve been doing a bit of an experiment – how often do readers look at my menu? Answer according to wp stats is: Virtually never! 😀 (it also says nobody clicked the music video in my last post. Next time perhaps I’ll embed it. On autoplay. See how many subscribers I turn away or something *EG*)

If that’s not enough, here’s some cuteness for you, last Saturday I was babysitting. Meet Peanut the poddle puppy:

Monday, we’ll talk about oak leaves. I already dun that post, so I can go take a nap. 😉

Actually I’m ok today, I just thought I’d like to write ahead a bit and you know, hang out someplace away from a keyboard and actually do stuff. Perhaps.

Er det snyd?

…hvis man uploader daglige fotos istedet for at lave rigtige postkort? Jeg har lavet en ny blog for sjov, til når jeg trænger til at fedte med et eller andet men ikke orker snakke eller tænke. Og så har jeg testet, hvor mange der kigger i min menu, sandsynligvis ingen. 😉

Jeg ville have snakket om at spinde og strikke i dag, men jeg har været for træt til nogen af delene, så det bliver en anden gang. Masser af projekter i kø, men man skal jo kunne holde øjnene åbne til den slags.

Og så har jeg babysittet en pudelhvalp, hvis I trænger til noget sødt.

Fun with coreopsis

Tags

dyeing, flowers, modifier, orange, red, silk, wool, yellow

Last time I tried to grow these, I got a few spindly stalks with hardly anything on them. Which means, this year I totally underestimated how far apart I should plant and now I have a waist high jungle of thick, thick plants with hardly a size 5 footprint anywhere for me to reach the middle for picking flowers. I’ve taken to wearing my Fivefingers, to make the footprint smaller than a pair of Crocs (I apologize to those of you who are fashion conscious, but they DO work well for zipping in and out of the house all day).

I know they work really well frozen, so this year I’ll try drying some and see if that works, because it’s easier to store anywhere. Whereas steak and peas don’t survive for very long on a wardrobe shelf…

And I’ll have enough to conduct a series of tests, as I’ve heard a rumour they are pH sensitive. If you just want a regular yellow, you need less than half your yarnweight in flowers, or you can start with plenty and dye one skein at a time from orange over turmeric to sunny yellow until it exhausts. It also doesn’t need a lot of heat once the dye is extracted from the flowers, it’s excellent for solar dyeing and on silk.

So the plan would be:

1. alkaline for reds
2. acid for yellows
3. test skeins in neutral
4. amounts – work my way from strong dyebath to an exhausted one
5. if the reds come out – test them with tin, to see if it gets even redder
6. iron and copper possibly

You can get a lot of different yellows from the exhaust, depending on amount of yarn, plants, temperature, how long you let each skein remain in the bath etc. Here’s the 2011 batch with some cold dyed Japanese Indigo:

Skønhedsøje

Coreopsis tinctoria er rigtig god at lege med fordi man kan få så mange forskellige nuancer. Hvis man starter med et kraftigt farvebad og kommer 1 fed i af gangen, kan man få fra kraftig orange over gurkemeje-gylden til frisk solgul.

I år ville jeg så også lige teste påstande om at den er pH følsom, rød fra basisk farvebad og gul fra surt. Det blev en helt anden slags gul end ellers, og pga en fejl fra min side (manglende base) lavede jeg også lige en variant med kobber.

Der skal meget lidt blomst til, til alm gul behøver man mindre end halvdelen af garnvægten. Også flot på silke og god at solfarve med.

Det fungerer også rigtig godt at fryse blomsterne, men i år vil jeg også forsøge at tørre, da det er lidt nemmere at opbevare. Bøf og ærter holder knap så godt i et garderobeskab. 😉