A colourful week….

Well, I certainly didn’t intent to go for a whole week without posting (sorry!) but time has been slipping through my fingers recently. I’ve got quite a few projects on the go – preparing for the craft fair, developing some designs for sale, working on some commissions – so there hasn’t been much time for playing on the interweb!

Anyhow, I’ve also been doing plenty of dyeing and thought you might like to take a peek…..

The oranges are from sorghum. I’m not sure how well it shows up in the photo, but after dyeing I soaked one skein in a weak alkaline solution (soapy water) and the other in a slightly acidic bath (lemon juice) to alter the shades slightly.

The alkaline seemed to bring out the pinker tones (bottom), whilst the acid made the colour brighter and more clear (top). I also used the dyebath exhaust to get a paler, more pinky shade (far right in photo below).

The yellow skein was dyed with kamala extract. I love the lemony colour it gives but plan on switching to weld, broom and coreopsis for yellows as these can be grown in the UK whereas Kamala cannot.

Finally I used some walnut hulls to get browns and tans. I soaked the chopped hulls for 3 weeks prior to dyeing. The dark brown skeins came from the first dyebath and had been previously mordanted with alum. For the paler tan shades I used unmordanted wool in the dyebath exhaust to which I had added a small amount of powdered oak galls.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little burst of (natural) colour. I’ll try to be a better blogger from now on!

Barter

Last week I managed to exchange a gallon of our Elderflower Champagne for these….

The fleece on the left is from a Whitefaced Woodland and the one on the right came off a Jacob Sheep. I think I got a pretty good deal!

Other woolly goings-on this week have involved a spot of natural dyeing with Kamala extract….

and a spot of spinning……

This was some jacob ‘humbug’ roving that was a dream to spin. I can see why Jacob is recommended to beginner spinners – it’s the easiest thing I’ve spun and, although not the softest fibre out there, it makes up for it by being wonderfully light and airy.

Fibre-fueled Friday

Well, I’ve finally finished spinning up my experimental madder dyed roving and thought you might like to see…

I’m pleased with how it’s turned out – I wanted a sort of semi-solid effect with subtle colour shifts and I think that’s pretty much what I got.

In between ‘play dates’, cake baking (it’s someone special’s birthday party tomorrow) and jam-making, I also squeezed in a spot more dyeing. This time I used sanderswood and oak galls and ended up with this….

Again, a subtle colour but really rather lovely. One of the things I love about natural dyeing is how all the colours seem to compliment each other so well. See:

Some of these you’ve seen before but, in case you need a reminder, from left to right we have:

nettle, oak galls plus sanderswood, acacia gum first dyebath, acacia gum exhaust, experimental madder, madder.

I love this picture – it makes me feel immensely proud. As well as being dyed by me, all the skeins except the sanderswood one were handspun by me. It makes me realise how far I’ve come with the whole spininng and dyeing lark…. which brings me on to an Annoucement …… drumroll please….. I’ve just booked a place at a craft fair – my first as a spinner/dyer/crocheter – so I’m excited and nervous in equal measure. The fair I’ve booked isn’t until the autumn so that should give me plenty of time to build up some stock. Although rather apprehensive as to whether my stuff is good enough to sell, I’m really keen to get back into the whole craft fair ‘scene’. I did a few fairs pre-baby (selling papercrafts) and I really loved getting to meet customers face-to-face – online selling certainly has it’s advantages but I get a real buzz from chatting to people about my items, explaining how they were made and being able to share my enthusiasm. Craft fairs are also great as you get to meet other craftspeople who are exhibiting, have a chin-wag and admire their work. I must admit though, I often ended up spending more than I earned as I found it impossible to resist all the lovely items on offer! Anyhow, enough gushing about all that…on to gushing about something else. Take a look at what landed on my doorstep today….

It’s some lovely raw Zwartbles fleece, sent by a fellow blogger, Colour it Green. I’m really touched by her generosity and am looking forward to having a go at spinning it. One more breed to cross off my list of fleeces to try….. and yes, I really do have such a list……..

Hubble Bubble….

…more dyeing. My kitchen is starting to resemble a mad scientist’s laboratory!

First off we have some bluefaced leciester dyed with weld. I must confess that I was expecting a much bolder colour but the pale lemony shade I ended up with is quite pretty so I’m not too disappointed.

Next we have some more madder-dyed roving. I love spinning hand-painted rovings but as you can’t really hand-paint using natural dyes (unless you use extracts) I decided to experiment a bit to see if I could achieve different colours by other methods. The colour variations in this lot of wool were achieved by tightly packing the roving into the dyebath so that the wool was dyed unevenly. Although I like the effect, the method is rather hit and miss so next off I tried some dip-dyeing which resulted in this…

To dip-dye I looped the wool around a stick and suspended the wool over the dyepot so  that half of each loop was submerged in my madder exhaust. I then simmering for 45 minutes or so before suspending the undyed parts in another dyebath made using some kamala extract and simmering for another 45 minutes. The wool used was some beautifully glossy teeswater and I love how it turned out. I can’t wait to spin it! I think I’ll definitely be repeating the dip-dyeing!

Natural Dyeing: Acacia Gum

This is the Shetland wool I dyed using Acacia Gum extract all spun and navajo plyed. I’m rather pleased with it – it’s a lovely unusual shade – not quite pink but not fully beige – I’ve dubbed it cafe au lait for now and think it’s a perfect shade for baby items. It’s feminine enough for a little girl whilst still having an earthiness about it – plus any alternative to the ubiquitous baby pink is good in my books! 

I must confess, after some only partially successful natural dyeing with plant material this weekend (more on that in a future post), I’m starting to be seduced by the natural dye extracts. I think part of the reason is that I’m about to book a place at a craft show in autumn so the ability to repeat colours more accurately and speed up the dyeing process suddenly seem a lot more appealing!

Of course there’s absolutely no reason why I need choose one method over the other and I imagine I’ll end up doing a bit of both – at least until I have room to grow my own dyeplants. 

More Spinning and Dyeing (now there’s a surprise…)

Lets start with the spinning. I haven’t managed too much this week as I’m trying to spin some very fine yarn and it’s taking a lot longer than usual. I did manage to squeeze in time for a couple more navajo plyed yarns though. First off, this is the BFL roving I bought from Spindlefrog at Wonderwool spun and navajo plyed.

I’m very proud of this yarn – it’s my best to date – so here’s another picture of it….

and one more for good measure…

I’ve set this aside for now as I might offer it for sale once I’ve got a few more saleable yarns to go with it. I’m thinking of booking a place at a craft fair in September but I’m not sure my current level of output is enough to fill a stall – we’ll see, I need to mull it over a bit more first. 

Anyhow, buoyed by the success of the previous yarn, I then decided to get a bit experimental and try spinning a thick and thin very softly spun yarn which resulted in this:

Less pleased with this one but it was good practice and I’m sure it’ll be ok crocheted up – when I can think of something to make from it that is….

Finally, I also managed a bit of dyeing – this time using Acacia Gum extract. This was my first time using extracts and I’m not sure I’m a fan yet – I can see the advantages (repeatable colours, longer shelf-life, ease of mixing, time saving etc) but to me it feels less natural somehow. I have no idea how the dyes are extracted for one thing or their provenance. A good deal of extracts do seem to be from quite exotic dyestuffs and I’ve mentioned before that my ideal dyestuffs are things I can either grow myself or forage for locally. Well, I’m pretty sure Acacia Gum doesn’t fall into either of those categories. Plus, although extracts are heralded as being much more convenient, I like the process of boiling up vats of plants – there’s a part of me that wants to mutter ‘hubble bubble” as I dye….

Still, I am very pleased with the colour so perhaps I shouldn’t complain too much. Here’s what the wool looks like in the process of being spun fairly finely:

I’m planning on navajo plying it eventually but must confess to being a wee bit nervous about it breaking during plying. I guess I’ll just have to give it a go and hope for the best!

mellow yellow

I’ve finally managed to make something with some of my handspun – yay! Remember my onion dyed wool? Well it’s been transformed into this:

For the main panel of the headscarf, I used the stitch pattern from Amy O’Neill Houck’s Alpine Frost Scarf (ravelry link) which was published in the Winter 2008 issue of Interweave Crochet. I worked up the panel until it was the right length to go from ear to ear on my then blocked it to open open the stitch pattern. After that, I rejoined the yarn and worked a row of double crochet followed by 8 rows of double crochet (US sc) reducing by 2 stitches per row (one at either end). I then switched to treble crochet for the narrow part of the scarf (purely because I find double crochet mind-numbingly slow) and continued until the scarf was almost long enough to go around my head. I then switched back to double crochet and started increasing by 2 stitches per row until the scarf matched the width of the panel again. I then joined the two ends with a row of double crochet.

I really like the stitch I used. It’s beautiful and simple and I’ll definitely be making the scarf at some point – perhaps as a christmas present for someone… I’ve learnt that it’s never too early to start making christmas presents!

a bit more about my nettle-dyed wool…

Just a quickie today as it’s been a busy weekend. We visited the Smallholder Show at the Royal Welsh Showground yesterday and I was in sheep heaven! More about that soon….

Anyhow, I just wanted to show you what the nettle-dyed wensleydale looks like now it’s all been spun….

I’m really pleased with how it turned out – pleased and also quite surprised. I didn’t enjoy spinning the wensleydale as much as usual – I found it difficult and was certain that the end result would be a right-off. Wensleydale wool has quite a long staple length – up to 30cm – much longer than I’m used to and I think that’s why I found it more of a challenge. I’m sure with practice it would become easier and given the lovely lustre of the wool, I think it’s certainly worth spending time practicing. Wensleydale sheep are classed as ‘At Risk’ by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust and, as I’m keen support the conservation of rare breeds via my spinning, that’s another reason for me to persevere.

Natural Dyeing: Madder

When I first got interested in natural dyeing, there were two dye plants that held a particular fascination for me. One of these was woad, due to it’s association with the ancient britons, and the other was madder. As my background is in archaeology and archives, both of these plants were familiar to me from historical and classical writings and I was very keen to try them out. 

Dyeing with woad is a very different process to my usual dyeing method so I decided to start off with madder. Although native to Africa and Asia, Madder has become naturalized in many parts of Europe and can be successfully grown in the UK. It has a long history as a dyeplant with evidence for its use dating as far back as c. 3000 BC. References to it appear in classical texts and medieval writings. More recently, it was used to dye soldiers uniforms red. You can read more about its historical uses here.

The dyeing: I premordanted the wool with alum and cream of tartar three days prior to dyeing. When the wool was cool, I rinsed it then wrapped it (still damp) in a plastic bag. This is called ‘ageing’ the wool and is supposed to produce better results when using madder.  For the dyebath I used 100% chopped madder root. I placed the madder and pre-mordanted wool in the pan and left them overnight. The next morning I brought the dyepot to simmering point and let in simmer away very slowly for an hour. Well, that was the plan anyhow – I have a very fierce hob and to keep the temperature below boiling, I have to turn off the heat every now and then. I kept doing this for the first half hour but then promptly forgot all about it and when I next checked it, the dyepot was bubbling away. Apparently, higher temperatures bring out browner tones in the dye and this is probably why my wool ended up a rusty orange colour – not that I mind, I love the colour. Next time, I’ll try to keep the temperature low though so I can compare the colours. I’m also keen to start experimenting a bit more with my dyeing and seeing how various additions to the dyebath (such as lemon juice, iron water, oak galls etc) affect the end result.

That said, I’m really pleased with the colour – it’s reminiscent of autumn leaves and puts me in mind of all the vibrant colours we saw when we visited Westonbirt last autumn. I’d love to dye enough wool for a whole cardigan but I haven’t got a big enough dyepan at the moment – something to bear in mind though…..wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a cardigan that was totally handmade – hand-dyed, handspun and (hand)crocheted?!

About the yarn: I opted for a rare breed wool – Whitefaced Woodland - as this is a breed I’m interested in keeping when we’re in a position to buy land – at the moment it’s just part of my ‘fantasy flock’! The wool was lovely to spin. It did feel a tad coarser than some of the other wools I’ve used but still spun up into a nice soft yarn which I think will be soft enough to wear next to the skin. The yarn is fairly fine with a WPI of 26 (which seems to be my default setting!) and is 260m in length and weighs a little over 100g. I’ve had lots of ideas how I’d like to use it – an autumn jumper for baby small is top of the list but I’m not sure if I have enough yardage so it might end up as a bag or hat….. I’ll keep you posted!

Spinnings

Hello folks! I hope you don’t mind but I’d like to share some recent spinnings with you….

First off, I’ve finally got round to plying my onion dyed yarn. It had been sitting on the spindle for ages – forgotten in all the excitement caused by the arrival of my wheel. I couldn’t abandon it completely though as the colour is just so beautiful. Its spun from pure shetland wool and is soft and lofty – just as it should be! There’s not a huge amount though – a mere 77 metres – but I do have more left on the spindle, should I need it. I’m thinking of making a lacy headscarf with it and hope to start playing around with stitch patterns over the weekend (well, as soon as I can tear myself away from my wheel….)

Next up we have my first wheel spun yarn – yay! As I wasn’t expecting anything great from my first attempt I just used some scraps of cheap (and not very nice) merino. The resulting yarn isn’t great but it is useable, which is better than I was expecting for my first go. I also learnt a lot about my wheel as I was making it which was, after all, the purpose of the exercise! The main difficulty I had was judging how much twist to put in – in places the yarn has far too much twist which makes it feel hard rather than soft and squishy. As I went on though, I got better at judging this and found it much easier when I moved onto my next project…

This time the yarn was nice and soft. It’s spun from a merino and silk blend and the silk gives it a really nice sheen. From a distance the yarn looks a solid colour but it’s actually made up of various shades of blue and purple – an effect I love. Again, it wasn’t without it’s problems - I found it much harder to achieve a balanced yarn on the wheel (for non-spinners: a balanced yarn is one with equal amount of clockwise and anti-clockwise twist) which is why the yarn is a bit wild…

Still, a quick dunk in some warm water and being left to dry under tension should tame it and overall I’m very happy with it. It’s nice and fine (26 WPI) and there’s a whopping 371 metres of it so I should have enough for a small project.

So… that’s what I’ve been up to! Thanks for taking a look.

x