Fibery stuff this week

Pincushion progress:

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First one felted and stitched up ready to fill, but I want to add icord loops or something to have the option of hanging them from a hook. (if I can find a suitable location away from cat paws) I decided to try out the dye with regular laundry detergent, twice. Original yarn included in the photo. It turned out rather larger than I expected after my blanket adventure, but I liked the fabric the way it was, so didn’t want to give it another go at a higher temp.

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Second one felted and ready to be stitched. Yarn is dyed with madder exhaust and Dyer’s Chamomile. Also washed with the clothes and detergent.

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Third one – yarn chosen but the shape hasn’t presented itself to me yet. Possibly a cube. Originally all three were going to be like the first, but then the second wanted to be different and I obliged. Apparently my inner self does not want to be classy, and for now I’m listening – as long as it’s actually saying something, fine! Even if it means the house will look like a cirkus… Skeins are dyed with Dyer’s Chamomile and Weld (the lighter one).

Suffolk preparation started:

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I’ve decided to just finger pick everything to get rid of the tiny bits of vegetable matter, then loosely blend on hand cards, which I hate but really doesn’t take such a long time as I imagined. To be spun into yarn for the tapestry testing, and when I’m done I have a huge box of Dorset that I’ve plant dyed which needs the same treatment. I thought I said something about not production spinning?!

Sample loom 1 done:

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Seems to be working fairly well, I’ll be testing various widths of warp, how many meters of yarn go into xx cm of weaving etc. I tried at first without nails, just wrapping around, but I think it will work better with nails on the front. Possibly because the frame is so small, pulling the warp up from the back really makes it very taut. As well as being fiddly to adjust the gaps.
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danishUgens fiberprojekter

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Nålepuder af plantefarvet garn undervejs: Første er klar til at blive fyldt, og så skal jeg lige have lavet en løkke i toppen til at hænge den op, inden jeg kan sy den sidste kant. Garnet er farvet med vaid.

Nr. 2 er filtet og klar til at blive syet sammen (kraprod og gåseurt), den sidste er der fundet garn frem til (gåseurt og vau). Jeg har vasket det sammen med tøjet og almindeligt vaskepulver, noget plantefarve kan ikke lide den behandling, men jeg ville lige prøve at se hvordan disse, normalt ret farveægte typer holdt sig.

Jeg er endelig gået i gang med den sidste klargøring af min Suffolk ham som jeg gik og sjatfarvede i sommer. Det bliver pillet fra hinanden med fingrene for at blive fri for plantefnuller og håndkartet løseligt (hvilket jeg er herredårlig til, men det går faktisk hurtigere end antaget.) Ja, og så er der naturligvis den kæmpe kasse Dorset jeg har plantefarvet, som skal samme vej…

Og så har jeg lavet en miniature væveramme til at lave lidt garn- og tekniktest på.

16 thoughts on “Fibery stuff this week

  1. De er bare flotte. og dine sekskanter er så … sekskantede 😉 hovrdan gør du? Jeg elsker sekskanter og har forsøgt at strikke nogen i det uendelige, men de bliver skæve. Og så er de oven i købet allerede vasket. Hvordan så de ud inden?

    1. De var også sekskantede inden.

      Slå xx masker op. Tag 1 ud i hver side på hver retside pind (hvor opslagspinden er retside), bliv ved indtil du har dobbelte antal masker, tag ind på samme måde igen. Det virker dog kun med glatstrikning, ved retstrikning trækker rækkerne sig sammen, så sekskanten er mindre i højden end i bredden, bliver man ved til man har over det dobbelte maskeantal, for at få højden, bliver siderne ikke lige lange!

    2. Åh ja – hvis de ikke bliver høje nok i glatstrikning, tager man større pinde, strikkefastheden vokser nemlig mere i højden end i bredden, da man jo primært gør løkkerne længere, ikke bredere. Og skal man filte, krymper det også mest i højden, igen, så kan man evt. strikke nogen på så stor pind at de er lidt for høje før vask. Mit tæppe fx er strikket på pinde 7, du kunne sikkert se på billedet hvor løst det var inden filtning, så det betyder ikke noget.

      1. Mange tak. Det er jo et rent columbusæg, så simpelt når man ved hvordan. Heldigt at jeg foretrækker glatstrikning.
        Jeg kan naturligvis godt regne ud at de også var sekskantede inden – femkanter eller syvkanter blive nok ikke til sekskanter af at blive filtet 😉 Jeg mente om de også var ligesidede inde du filtede dem, eller om de var længere på den ene led. Du har jo næsten svaret. Jeg skal nok i gang med noget sekslkantet i tilfælde af regnvejr 🙂

        1. Ja, det var naturligvis det jeg mente, at de var ligesidede, jeg tror jeg en gang har postet nogen i superwash garn, som ikke var filtet. Disse skulle lige strækkes et par mm, men ikke meget

    1. I’m having tea right this minute as you’re commenting. Wish I could invite you over for a cup and some fiber cuddling!

  2. Very clever loom! For months now, I’ve been reading about saori weaving. My gran, source of much knowledge and inspiration, got me hooked on the idea when she sent me these links. I think you might like them, too… I was skeptical until I saw the saori ‘wind chimes’ from the first link. What a fantastic project for odd yarn bits! But I could see you doing all kinds of cool things with saori. 😀

    http://www.saltspringweaving.com/blog/?p=535

    http://gingerbreadsnowflakes.com/node/352

    1. Thanks for those links! I definitely like the idea of making “all kinds of cool things” with art yarn and fluff and textured yarn… Such as I have already contemplated weaving some of my Gotland and Wensleydale locks as they are instead of combing them, because they are just dead gorgeous. After scouring of course and perhaps dyeing.

      And well, cardboard is always available.

  3. It all looks great, and I am particularly looking forward to seeing your tapestry experiments (as I definitely plan to follow your footsteps on this one, even if it’ll take me a little while to get round to it).

    But what really caught my eye was this: have you really made your own custom made yarn wrappers for your yarn balls?? Wow – I’m so impressed, that’s real attention to detail!!

    1. Haha, well, I’ve had the logo since 1999 and I needed some way to label the plant dyed yarn so I could keep track of it. I didn’t have cardboard and paper slips on a string would get torn off, so this seemed like a good idea, what with yarn cakes being stackable in the box and all.

      Trust me, it’s a rare occasion when I’m this organized! 😉

      But printing them also ensures that I can in fact read what they say even 2 years later.

      1. It is a very good idea, and doing it on the computer is probably much more efficient than creating labels by hand anyway. And with your system, you can actually use some of the yarn and the label stays with the rest. I tend to label skeins, but as soon as you need to use the yarn and wrap it into a ball, the label gets lost as by that time I can never be bothered to figure out how to attach the label to a hand-wound ball. Your system is definitely superior, so I may need to borrow it! I don’t have a ball winder, but it may now need to go on my “things-to-save-up-for” list.

        1. I love my winder, it has saved me so so much time and my hands are very happy as well. As well as less swearing because I no longer drop the balls to roll around on a hairy floor 100 times when winding.

          I use the yarn from the middle, so when I have leftover yarn that is wobbly I quickly make a smaller cake and put a new piece of tape on the band. (just did today with the leftovers from my pin cushions)

          Even G admires it every time I use it for its efficiency.

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