Goldenrod – gyldenris

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

Gyldenrisdanish

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.

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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

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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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