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.

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Operation cotton – weld

Tags

cotton, dyeing, fabric, red, strawberries, yarn, yellow

Having promised that I’d do something with my weld and some failed, beige fabrics from last year’s plant printing tests, I wrapped half a sheet around plants, water and more plants on top and the other half sheet loosely crumbled on top, floating. As well as one of the failed cotton skeins that I’ve been going on about forever but never shown yet. (I have just two more than I want to put into some dyebath again, for, like, the 5th time, THEN!)

All that weld

Tags

dyeing, garden, mordant, silk, yellow

…and nothing to do with it. That’s what I’ve been thinking every time I pass by my second year weld, lush, tall and proud. Because as I mentioned in the fennel post A. I don’t have a new dye yarn supply, B. I don’t really want to keep dyeing samples with cheap yarn, C. I don’t have any projects planned that require a large quantity of yellow yarn, and D. I just haven’t felt like it anyway. Which is a shame, because it is one of the plants I want to keep using in the more limited range that I’ve set out to use in the future (rather than try all the things).

Knapweed continued

Tags

green, wool, yellow

Well, that plant dye week, that just hasn’t happened yet. But I’m going to slowly start up the season by actually finishing some of my old halfdone posts from last year and see if that may get me going. At the very least, they’ll be out of my hair!

I’d read about saving the dyebath and use it once a week, first time I dyed with this plant. But couldn’t quite contain myself and did only 3-4 day intervals. This time I waited 3 weeks before dyeing another hank and had another surprise. Much stronger, much warmer in tone. The next one, 10 days later seemed pretty weak, so although the dyebath looked dark, I haven’t done any more.

But I think it’s interesting that it does not exhaust in the same way most plants do, but keep looking much the same after the first. I still have the jar with the leftover dyebath btw! It looks dark brown by now, who knows what’s growing in there! 😀

20th August & 1st September

I wrote last time that I wanted to do one with reeds, but although I had plenty of dye, I simply forgot. Instead one of them went in the Japanese indigo, with the intention of adding #3 to the woad, which I also forgot, having quite a handful of other yellows to try in there. Here they all are in their proper order #1 on the left:

Recently I read in an older book, that another knapweed “Centaurea scabiosa” is a better dye plant. She uses the leaves, not the flowers! Would be interesting to find and test. In fact, I didn’t know there was more than one!

So, googling this one, I’ve come to realise, that these flowers from my garden are also a type of knapweed (Centaurea montana?). Time to investigate!!! And definitely try out the leaves this year…. It has faithfully reproduced itself every year no matter how weedy or crowded that bed is, so I have high hopes for gathering seeds in case it’s good to dye, they should germinate easily in other locations too.

De sidste knopurt

Siden jeg sidst havde gang i gryden, ventede jeg denne gang 3 uger inden jeg farvede igen, og pudsigt nok blev farven meget kraftigere igen og en del varmere i forhold til før. Jeg glemte både at putte et fed ned til tagrørene og til vaiden, det må blive en anden gang. Men det er pudsigt som farvebadet bare bliver ved og ved, hvor andre ret hurtigt bliver trætte.

Så læste jeg pludselig i en farvebog af Esther Nielsen, at STOR knopurt “Centaurea scabiosa” er den hun bruger, og ikke blomsterne men bladene. Da jeg så googlede for billeder, opdagede jeg at ovenstående blomster i min have nok også er en art knopurt (Centaurea montana), så nu skal der researches, og bladene ryger nok også i en gryde i år!!

Centaurea jacea

Winter goldenrod

Tags

cotton, dyeing, plants, silk, wool, yellow

There have been comments about my use of freezer space 😉 so I thought I’d get at least one experiment done “for the books” after I’d seen these puffs in the December sun.

I’d saved a guesstimate of 500 g of heads, no leaves. Enter 25 g of wool, 3 silk, 30 cotton previously dye fail with iron and weld, thought it would be interesting with the high dye ratio (it wasn’t). Careful not to boil and leave it as long as last time. Steeped overnight:

Things to ponder:

What would the same dye ratio look like with fresh plants? I could have put more into this pot to exhaust the bath, as I’m sure there’s plenty left, but I didn’t have the heart to. I have so many yellow skeins and I just don’t use that colour very much.

Is it my temperature or the species of Goldenrod that gives me the bronze colours rather than bright yellow? (as seen elsewhere)

Late dye harvest

Tags

autumn, blue, dorset, garden, green, natural dyeing, seasons, suffolk, vaid, vau, weld, woad, wool, yellow

Eager to try drum carding my Dorset fleeces (with a bit of Suffolk mixed in, they had not been separated) I decided last weekend to make a final raid on the dye garden to make it more fun than just white (I do still have a bag of white from last year of what I think is Suffolk). I know I said I was done, but I got two more fleeces, didn’t I. Same sheep – this time I only kept the best bit, perhaps a third of what I was given rather than 2 thirds. I haven’t weighed it though.

And it turned out both the weld and the woad were still fine to use, green and fresh. I had dried some bundles of tansy hanging them from the stable ceiling – and left them there, so they are now covered in “dust” – mold spores. I decided to boil one bundle anyway and put some fleece in. Giving out colour just fine, but I’m chucking the other three bundles.

The last batch went in with some onion skins that were sitting on the kitchen counter anyway and a few cochineal sprinkles on one side, which oddly enough didn’t do much besides turn the water red.

I used rather a lot of fleece in the woad vat, so apart from the green that didn’t turn out too interesting. But I can always dye the yarn again, or, if we don’t have any frost, go look for more plants in a few weeks.

Earlier this year I handcarded the part of the fleeces that I had acid dyed, and it took me FOREVER. My test bat on the drum carder last week took no time at all, no effort, no tired hands – so I’m very optimistic I can get spinnable fiber relatively easy. I’ll first card each shade on its own to straighten it out a bit, then I may blend.

Sen farvehøst

Jeg har jo længe gerne ville karte alle mine gratishamme, som jeg har plantefarvet gennem de sidste par år i bundter, både fordi de fylder ret meget og fordi det er en stor opgave når de er så fyldt med fnidder og knuder. Og så sagde jeg ja til to hamme mere i år, dog blev de sorteret med ret kræsen hånd.

Det sidste uld ville jeg også lige have farvet, så det er lidt sjovere at arbejde med, så en tur i haven og hente både vaid og vau, som står fine, friske og grønne endnu. Jeg havde hængt bundter af rejnfan under staldloftet til tørring – og derefter ladet dem hænge så de nu i det fugtige vejr er blevet helt dækket af et fint lag støv, eller rettere mugsporer. Jeg proppede det ende bundt i en gryde, og det farver fint, men de andre ryger ud. Og en bunke uld røg i en gryde med gårsdagens løgskaller.

Jeg fik proppet lige lidt rigeligt i gryden med vaid, så bortset fra de grønne nuancer blev det lidt kedeligt – men enten kan jeg jo overfarve garnet eller også venter jeg med at karte den bunke og ser om det evt. holder frostfrit en måneds tid endnu og måske jeg kan finde flere planter? Ellers har jeg faktisk en spandfuld blå farve stående fra sidst.

Tidligere på året håndkartede jeg jo den del af hammene som jeg havde pulverfarvet, og det tog en evighed. Men det testbat jeg kartede på maskine sidste uge gik som en leg, så håber på jeg kan få de her kødfår i hæderlig stand rimelig nemt og hurtigt. Jeg tror jeg først karter hver nuance for sig og så kan jeg blande i anden omgang.

Weld – reseda luteola – farvevau

Tags

cotton, green, wool, yellow

I wasn’t actually sure if my weld plants would grow big enough the first year (my previous batch didn’t), nor whether I could use the leaves from the rosettes, or have to wait for stalks.

Turns out the first year leaves dye just fine. In fact, so well that most of the dyestuff from the first pot ended up on the synthetic tulle that I used to submerge the plant matter! I use a large canner for plants that need a controlled temperature, and it has a hotplate IN the water, so I figured I need to keep the plants away from it.

As you can see in the top and bottom photos, the plants thrive much better in my prepared, watered and weeded patch in the garden than the rough living in my overgrown abandoned veggie garden.

So anyway, the yarn afterwards looked really bleak compared to the tulle, so I ended up picking more leaves and just tossing them in on top. I just did 2 wool skeins with some cotton tests, then did another batch with a strainer over the hot plate instead for the rest of the wool. Much better.

Also a single copper skein, rhubarb, and some in blue pots, one of each type.

Weld likes chalky water and temps below 70 C. Solar dyeing on silk wasn’t that great a succes though, at least not with just the leaves in the jar and no artificial heating.

Big bag of dried weld from last year in my closet, so I may elaborate at some point during the winter, if not I guess it’ll grow back next summer.

Not my most exciting dye adventure to date, I hope to do more with weld in the future.

GUUUL!

Jeg var faktisk ikke klar over, om førsteårs rosetterne var noget at farve med, eller om man skulle vente på blomsterstilke, men det viste sig at gå glimrende. Dog satte det meste af farven sig på den tylpose jeg havde lavet for at holde planterne væk fra kogepladen inden i den henkogningsgryde jeg bruger til planter som ikke må overstige en vis temperatur.

Anden omgang gik lidt bedre og jeg fik checket både rabarber, kobber, jern, vaid og japansk indigo. Et par silkefed blev det også til, jeg viser kun det ene, for det solfarvede kan knap nok kaldes lysegult, snarere tonet hvid….

Rhubarb mordant part 2

Tags

acid, cotton, modifier, mordant, wool, yellow

I have long last concluded my first test of using rhubarb leaves as mordant instead of chemical ones. (even though they are in fact toxic, they are natural. Or, as MotherOwl points out below, even though they are natural, they are in fact toxic!)

And I have to say, it’s not really worth the effort. Not only does it not help the wool take up the dye any more than an unmordanted skein, in fact sometimes I could hardly see the difference. It also doesn’t add to lightfastness, both of which are the whole point of mordanting in the first place.

I tried both wool and cotton and none had better results than the other for me.

Top to bottom and left to right: Alum + rhubarb simmer not boil, boiled rhubarb + iron, boiled rhubarb, rhubarb + madder, rhubarb + weld, rhubarb + french marigold.

The alum mordanted, rhubarb dyed skein was also a handsome yellow in itself for sure, although it has faded a bit in just a month even without light. Without mordant they are a varying shade of beige depending on how hard you heat the dyebath. The madder is also quite alright, although not any kind of red exactly.

It did have one redeeming feature though: I really liked the shade I got from overdyeing with woad. From historical textiles we can see that some yellows fade away, leaving a once green section of fabric blue, but I’m not really expecting anything I make to live for 600 years. I’ll be forgotten and the line will die out when I do. It’s a patchy dye job because the vat had too little water and too much yarn, so I believe the darkest strands are the “truest” had it been done properly.

Check also under comments in my first post for additional info.

Rabarberbejdse

Ikke den helt store gevinst efter min mening, hvilket vi også debatterede under foregående indlæg. Garnet bliver ikke lysægte eller optager farve i samme grad som med alun, de gule farver kan knap nok ses ovenpå selve rabarberfarven som bliver mørk beige hvis man koger den. Det brunlige garn på billedet er krap, og den er vel ok, den grønne er overfarvet med vaid, og blev ret god, bortset fra jeg havde for lidt vand i gryden, så den er lidt skjoldet.

Corn Marigold – Gul okseøje

Tags

autumn, dyeing, silk, yellow

Corn Marigold / Glebionis segetum / gul okseøje

Every year I find just one plant, so now I’m going to leave it alone OR, if it’s not too wet I’ll collect the seeds and hope to cultivate them.

I just wanted to tell, that this is also a very lovely dye plant, here some tussah silk top I dyed a couple of years ago:

Min enlige gule okseøje blomstrer i øjeblikket, så jeg vil prøve at lade den være og evt. samle frø hvis det ikke bliver for vådt derude. Det lykkes mig aldrig at finde mere end den ene, som flytter sig rundt i min overgroede ex-køkkenhave, så jeg kan ikke vise mere end dette bundt silke, men jeg syntes jeg ville fortælle at det også er en udmærket farveplante!

Goldenrod – gyldenris

Tags

green, modifier, red, wool, yellow

Plant dyeing season is coming to an end, at least the urgent part of it trying to use the fresh plants as they appear. I’m beginning to look at my paints and spinning wheel again, but I still have a few experiments to share.

I’m down to making 6 g hanks at the moment, but that also means I can add one more experiment to the log that I had thought to save for next year. It also means I can do more experiments with one single plant. It does not mean I’ll remember to include every single variety there is to try, but I’ll try.

I’ve seen 2 varieties of Goldenrod in the forest that bloomed one after the other, they’re brown now, but the ones in my garden are flowering, so I used those.

Flowers & leaves separately. Alum, alkaline after, iron after, exhaust bath, blue overdye, cochineal overdye.

The colour from the flowers turned out to be a lot more bronzy and dark than I’d anticipated, and I wondered if it was because I accidentally boiled the plants very strongly, then left to steep for quite a long time, THEN managed to also boil the yarn. The day after I scooted over to Riihivilla where I’d saved but not yet read her post on goldenrod, and this is what I was told:

The color may dull if the temp is too hot or the yarns cool in the bath, just like it does with weld.

Well, there you go. 😉 It’s something I’ve noticed happening with some yellow plants, if you leave it in too long, it goes brown. Others, like birch, seem to be able to last for a long time so that you can safely solar dye and still get brilliant colour.

Leaves were more green and not as strong in colour.

Luckily I had more flowers in the garden (I’m saving the ones in the freezer, from the forest, for later). So I did a very careful simmer and did the whole thing on the same day, no steeping.

Nothing extraordinary from this yellow, in fact I like the boiled lot best.

Gyldenris

Sæsonen for friske planter til farvning er ved at være slut og jeg er begyndt at skæve til maling og spinderok igen. Men jeg har lige et par eksperimenter eller 4 jeg gerne vil dele før vi skifter kanal.

Jeg har besluttet at lave mindre bundter end jeg plejer, simpelthen for at kunne lave flere eksperimenter, der er så mange ting jeg finder på at ville prøve med surhed, vandtype, overfarvning og andet halløj. Men så blev der også lige mulighed for et lille ekstra gult indslag, som jeg ellers havde tænkt mig at gemme til næste år.

Jeg startede med at totalkoge blomsterne, derefter kom jeg også til at koge garnet, begge dele stod i øvrigt i badet i over et døgn. Farven blev en del mere gylden end forventet, og det kunne jeg så bagefter læse mig til på en anden blog, at for at få den kølige, klare gule skal det ikke varmes så hårdt og ikke stå for længe. Godt så! Jeg endte jo så med at også lave en portion som simrede ganske forsigtigt. Samt en portion kun med blade, det er de grønlige. Alle fik et dyp i jern, et bundt i cochenille bare for sjov, og et i indigo.