Purple or blue?

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

I needed a bit of blue to conclude my goldenrod chapter as well as testing if Dylon Color Run Remover works the same as our local brand which was more expensive.

My Japanese indigo is still growing new leaves and left me with a harvest of 90 g leaves to 40 g of yarn including half the rose coloured cochineal hank from Friday and samples from the other two, so I thought I was good to go. Only I must have heated it too long or something, because I could not change the colour of the dyebath after adding soda, so I didn’t bother trying to reduce it.

So I went and looked at my overgrown ex vegetable garden and luckily the woad is still growing abundantly too. I think I’ll stick with it, much lower maintenance as it takes care of itself in our climate, and much easier to extract.

And this is what I got from one 30 min. dip.

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Rosafarvet cochenille overfarvet med vaid.

Meningen var egentlig at bruge japansk indigo, men jeg kunne ikke få badet til at skifte farve. Da den samtidig er sværere at dyrke, og vaid bare passer sig selv på en brakmark i vores klima, så tror jeg bare jeg holder mig til sidstnævnte i fremtiden, den har været nem at følge proceduren med hver gang.

Colour explosion

PiaChit Chat

I went to my LYS the other day to ask for the Addi Click Heartstoppers I’d ordered (not there yet) and to get a couple of black skeins of the yarn I’m using for my hexagon blanket, since I’ve now decided on a stained glass effect with the edges. (fwiw, does anyone have a clue why my edges make the hexagons skewed? I count and I count to get the increases at proper intervals, testing 1 more or less stitch when I start, they’re all the same. It’s driving me nuts with this black yarn)

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Only this brand has come out with new colours. Sitting on her desk as I was waiting. So I had to take one of each (well, not quite, I left the pink one behind), just so I could keep them to look at. Really, I have no idea what to make of them. They are SW extra fine merino, so technically they are wearable, but they’re also not very elastic so I doubt they’d make a great hat. Shawl-scarf?

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I wanted to test cochineal – which I’ve never used before – over yellow to see if that made orange (it doesn’t), so used a couple of small goldenrod hanks I just dyed. And since my small items scales are wonky, I used far too much cochineal, so I ended up dyeing 3 larger hanks as well as some silk. Whoa! My eyes hurt! I wonder if they’ll turn purple in indigo…. I have a somewhat 20 skein experiment lined up, but that will be later. It’s a grey day today, trust me, the colour is even more vibrant up close and personal!

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Farveorgie i pinkdanish

Jeg var bare nede i garnbutikken for at spørge til de Addi Click hjertestoppere jeg har bestilt og for at hente lidt sort Arwetta til kanterne på mit hexitæppe. Og så havde hun lige så uskyldigt lagt nye farver frem på sin disk, som jeg var nødt til at tage med hjem! (pånær den i pink) Nej, nej, hun vidste ikke jeg kom, det var helt tilfældigt.

Pink har vi fået nok af denne uge, jeg havde spekuleret på, hvordan gult ville se ud overfarvet med cochenille, bliver det mon orange? (nej, det gør det ikke) Men jeg havde fået vejet for meget af, fordi min mini-vægt er lidt i udu, så jeg endte med at farve 3 fed mere + lidt silke, og det er da lige før man får ondt i øjnene! Jeg spekulerer nu på om de bliver lilla, hvis man overfarver med indigo. Jeg har et større eksperiment linet op med de små biller, men det bliver senere.

My week in images

PiaBooks & reading

Making this post has made me realize two things: A. my life is very dull and onesided B. My mind is even narrower because of all the things I don’t think to take pictures of. I also realized B is perhaps just an excuse to not admit completely to A. I obviously can’t count either.

I don’t mean dull as in being bored or not doing many things, which I obviously do if you’ve been following along, but they do tend to revolve around the same. I seem to mostly be looking a plants and the sky and nothing much besides! Of course, that’s what we’ve got to look at out here. I need to drive to the “city” (18 km) for some bits and bobs but most importantly more hydrosulphite to make blue, but I never thought of taking pix there. We usually just go to the mall, quickly scoop up what we need and head back home. Not really worth looking at.

How often do you do extraordinary things?

Elderberry juice

PiaFood

week1h

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.

danishLidt hyldebærkoncentrat takket være den dejlige “saft-Maja” jeg har fÃ¥et af min mor. SÃ¥ 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!

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You must be joking, right?

PiaChit Chat

Somebody has been having a very long vacation. Said vacation is now officially over! Last year I tried to teach the two remaining ponies to be free longed together in preparation for “ponying” the little one when I ride. (for the non-horse savvy this means towing him along on a rope). Little brown boy has a very firm idea about such things and he’s having none of it, also called ponytude. So I need an assistant and there never seems to be the time for it no matter how we plan.

Anyway, I finally got my own A into G and started them off today, and they remember perfectly, we’re right where we left off. How cool is that?! Would be fun if we could get to doing various moves and tricks as well apart from going round in circles at various speeds and turning.

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“And now, cookies please”

Åh nej, ferien er slutdanish

Efter en meget, meget, meget lang pause, har jeg endelig taget mig sammen til at få rørt ponyprutterne lidt. Sidste år begyndte jeg at lære dem at blive løslongeret sammen som forberedelse til at tage den lille brune bisse med som håndhest når jeg rider den store. Han vælter nemlig rundt over det hele eller nægter at gå, og manden i huset har aldrig haft tid når vi ellers havde planlagt, når han har ferie har vi jo også en milliard andre ting som skal ordnes.

Men de kunne sørme huske det hele, vi starter fuldstændig hvor vi slap. Lige nu kan vi bare rende i rundkreds og skifte retning og tempo, men det ville være sjovt at arbejde med lidt tricks eller finesser igen – det bliver noget af en udfordring fordi den lille er arbejdssky og den gamle synes det er noget pjat, han vil kun pÃ¥ tur.