No tour

PiaAcid Dyeing

I’m not doing Tour de Fleece, in fact I haven’t been spinning at all lately. I do have a few yarny things going on though. Working on little things, a bit at a time, since my good days are still spent in the garden mostly, and then I have days where I can barely keep my eyes open. Hexagons are excellent projects for such days, takes no time to knit up 3 g/ 7 m of yarn, but you still feel like you’ve made something.

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The Sunday batch

Dyed a few more micro skeins for the hexiflats and knit up the ones I showed on Sunday. Some of the solids I didn’t like because I used too much dye, so I’ll reknit combining them with other colours and scraps. Even if it’s a random, messy blanket I do want to like each piece that I put into it! I’ve figured that for starters I’ll need something like 250, but then I’ve only done the sum in my head and I really suck at that. It’s going to be roundish/hexagonish in shape or something along those lines.

I couldn’t find my dye notes, so I just played around (again), aiming for a summer flowers vs. beach ball look. Ok, I made that up after I saw the skeins… I also did a few “ok, if 4 sections look like this on a 1 meter skein when knit up, what do 4 sections on a half meter skein look like knit up?” Perhaps I’ll even document the result for later use. Some of them were supposed to be more defined, but the colours bled and blended. Oh well…

microskein01

And then I had leftover blue, so I thought I’d start a sky/cloud series for later use in various combinations. All sorts of possible scenarios there, morning skies, winter skyes, rainy skies, storm, sunset…

microskein02
There’s cobalt, ultramarine and teal in this collection, but microcamera can’t see the difference.

I also restarted knitting the lace scarf for my mum – and since I need the leftover yarn for something else I really should get it done, so I know HOW much I’ll have left. I cast on in December, then husband had vacation and could not stop talking while I was counting and I simply didn’t get back to it…. I don’t really wear this type of thing myself, but she’s much more ladylike.

lacescarf

I’ve been dyeing cotton yarn and worked a bit with madder – more about that in a later post.

maddertowel

I also do have some spinning planned, but some blending needs to be done first. This is an old project, and I know I need to make certain yarns together, I just don’t know what they’re for.

red indigo silk2 silk1 blue purple

I just borrowed Spin Art by Jacey Boggs, lovely book, pretty photos and very simple, clear instructions for making the basic art yarn techniques, in fact you feel like you’re quite able just reading it! So inspired by that as well as the Spinner’s Book of Yarn Designs by Sarah Anderson which I received some time ago, that may well be my next project once I get this one done. I’d love to make some projects with really textured yarn blended in I think.

And last but not least, I’m making a couple of tapestry looms a bit larger than the small sample frame I did. I seem to be coming up with too many ideas that contain blue and I don’t HAVE any blue yarn just now, not plant dyed, nor commercial (Which is odd since I love blue. And green. And, well, all the others of course). It’s a good thing tapestries take something like forever to make, because I can’t afford yarn to make that many! I keep falling in love with different colour combos and getting ideas for using them. Yes, I should paint more, much faster. Water colour sketches would be great, but that means I’ll have to buy watercolours!!! LOL It just never ends, does it.

loomsupplies

Making…

PiaChit Chat

Elderflower cordial.saft1

The shops were all out of organic lemons, so I also made a batch with oranges and one with mint! A bit of an experiment, but I’m happy to report that it tastes really great.

It’s been a couple of years since last, so I thought it was time, we have a lot of elders right now, they spread like weeds. I’ll wait for autumn and make a batch with the berries too, it’s really good in winter, hot with lemon, ginger and honey if you have a cold, don’t want one or just need heating up. And then I’ll cut some of them down, because, well, there’ll be more. If I don’t keep them in check we’ll be known as Elderberry Jungle Farm.

Link to “nettle energy drink”

I’ve been making other stuff too – stay tuned. I’ve finally had time and “presence” to start painting a bit again this week! But not much, still have that hedge to cut.

Hyldeblomstsaft

Det var et par år siden sidst, så jeg fik lige lyst til at lave lidt saft, siden vi har rigtig mange hyld for tiden, de breder sig som ukrudt.

Butikkerne var helt udgåede for usprøjtede citroner, så jeg lavede også en portion med appelsiner og en med mynte. Det blev virkelig godt! Til efteråret skal jeg lige have lavet lidt bærsaft også, det er rigtig godt varmt med citron, ingefær og honning. Og så ryger nogen af planterne altså, inden vi helt drukner i dem.

The dye bed

PiaChit Chat
Coreopsis tinctoria, indigo left, weld at the back
Coreopsis tinctoria, indigo right, weld at the back

The section of lawn that I killed off last year is all filled out, although not just with dye plants. In fact, the dye project seems to go not all that well. Plants are growing (in case of the japanese indigo, not growing, but surviving), but no flowers. The weld most likely won’t be useful until next year, but I did hope to finally harvest a lot of coreopsis. The marigold also aren’t looking very willing. I didn’t sow new Dyer’s Chamomile, there is still some in the abandonded veggie garden along with woad.

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French Marigold (tagetes patula)
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Marigold (calendula) and potatoes

I took the opportunity of clear soil to bury a few old potatoes, replant my strawberry plants and some asparagus. Lettuces and spinach, kale, and this little experiment: The wilted stub of a used supermarket celery, now look what it’s doing after I planted it! Hopefully some radishes on the way too.

celery1

lettuce

It’s still stormy and autumn like temperatures here (13 C yesterday), so I don’t spend much time outside actually. We’re putting up a temporary fence where the hedge died, so we have a corner of shade and quiet, vainly hoping we’ll actually get to use it. I think I’ve had 4 days’ use of our garden furniture this year! I believe it’s the third summer in a row that’s acting this ghastly, and I really, really dislike strong wind. We’ve also had snow 3 winters in a row now, very unusual.

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Look how the pear tree has been shaped by the wind – despite a hedge!

Well, at least I have an excuse for knitting more sweaters since they’re now all year gear! I’m going to step up my needle sizes to be able to finish sooner…

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The birdies are fed sunflower seeds in winter – sometimes they miss a few.

Bits and bobs

PiaAcid Dyeing

Not much going on here, but I did pop some of the solid hexagons I’ve knitted into a dyepot for a bit more pow. Should have diluted it a tad more, as some of them came out black! Of course being superwash, they grew to gigantic proportions when wet, so I tossed them in a bag and into the dryer. Wanna see what happens when you do that?

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I’d meant to tie-dye or paint some of them but felt too distracted. Instead I did a couple of micro skeins with mixed leftovers. There goes “subtle” for the blanket colourscheme! And I have a couple of other ideas to try out…

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Otherwise I’ve managed to finish the sleeves on my two “endless” sweaters, meaning they are in fact DONE. And since it’s never ending sweater summer, I may actually get to wear them… The orange is a cotton/alpaca blend on 4 mm and the blue is Wollmeise lace-yarn on 3mm. And no, the fronts don’t meet up and aren’t supposed to.

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wollmeise02

Battery fluid

PiaChit Chat

A friend of mine taught me this recipe for a natural energy drink and I thought I’d share. (no, this still isn’t a cooking blog)

The base is:

  • Nettles and/or ground elder (Aegopodium podagraria), pick the tips with the youngest leaves, fill your blender.
  • Add 1 diced organic lemon, peel and all, green tea, apple juice. Perhaps a dash of honey or vanilla sugar if you don’t like it bitter.
  • Blend, strain, serve. Keeps for two days in the fridge (if you added sour things like lemon and juice, they keep the good stuff from getting ruined by oxygen)

You can vary it by adding whatever herbs need trimming in your garden. Mint, lemon balm, black currant leaves. Or a basil/oregano/tomato juice variety?

Both nettles and ground elder contain lots of minerals and vitamins. Marigold petals are good for connective tissue. I’ve also used fresh ginger, chopped up and made tea which I then strained and added to the rest.

Linseed oil is also good for you.

IMPORTANT: Do not use actual elder leaves, as in from the tree. They are poisonous.

danishEnergidrik

Flere i vennekredsen er gået amok i denne naturdrik og jeg synes den er så god at jeg ville dele den med flere.

Basen består af brændenældeblade og skvalderkål, 50/50 eller hvad man nu har. Tilsæt en hel usprøjtet citron, skal og det hele, samt lige dele grøn te og æblejuice. Evt. lidt honning eller vanillesukker hvis det bliver for bittert. Kan holde sig i køleskab 2 dage.

Og ellers kan man tilføje hvad der lige trænger til at studses i krydderbedet, mynte, citronmelisse, solbærblade, morgenfrue. Et skvæt hørfrøolie er heller ikke af vejen! Jeg har også brugt ingefær, det er godt.

Lad mig høre hvis I finder på flere varianter!