Category: PÃ¥ dansk

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.

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!

Nettles 2013

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

nettle4

Having been taunted by the lovely greens on other peoples’ yarns, I decided to do this at least once, even though I’ve always thought it would just give a pale yellow.

I first used the method described by Jenny Dean, where you chop up the plant tops, pour boiling water on them, steep for a day, then boil as usual. I recommend using sturdy garden gloves while chopping, unless you need a new pair of rubber gloves anyway. (I don’t know why this came as a surprise, as I frequently draw blood when making salads. What does baffle me however is the fact that my left thumb is still the same size and shape!)

I started off with 350 g of plant to 25 g of yarn, because that’s what I’d picked. Dean’s recipe says 1:1, but MotherOwl suggested at least 8:1 which was good advice. Anyway, simmering/boiling the yarn didn’t give me much of interest. So I decided to keep it under 60° C and that made the green much more vibrant. So I ended up doing an unmordanted skein for a paler colour, one to modify with iron and one cotton, as it apparently can give dark green with iron. It did, but then rinsed out to a dark grey-brown. Could be the tannin mordant, could be that Jenny Dean doesn’t rinse her yarn, but since iron makes it brittle, I always do.

nettle1

For some reason, the alum mordanted skein doesn’t show correctly with the others, so here’s one of it on its own which I think is more true.

nettle2

Brændenælder

Jeg havde egentlig diskvalificeret nælder som farveplante, fordi jeg forestillede mig at den bare giver en fesen lysegul. Men der er nogen som fremviser grøn, så jeg måtte alligevel prøve. Jenny Dean skriver bl.a. at det med jern giver mørkegrøn på bomuld.

Først brugte jeg Deans metode hvor man hakker bladene, hælder kogende vand pÃ¥ og lader stÃ¥ til dagen efter, hvorefter man koger, farver osv. som “normalt”. Jeg anbefaler at bruge havehandsker nÃ¥r man hakker, med mindre man alligevel trænger til nye gummihandsker. Jeg ved ikke hvorfor det overraskede mig, for jeg har ofte blod i mine salater. Til gengæld er det forbløffende at min venstre tommelfinger stadig har sin oprindelige facon!

Den normale metode med kogning gav en kedelig khakigrøn, sÃ¥ jeg besluttede at forsøge med en lavere temperatur og bruge bladene med det samme – sÃ¥ et kort bad pÃ¥ 60° og sÃ¥ et par stykker i jernbad bagefter. Og det blev en hel del bedre! Bomuldsfeddet blev dog grÃ¥t efter skyl, mÃ¥ske pga bejsning med garvesyre, mÃ¥ske fordi Dean ikke vasker sit garn bagefter, men eftersom jern mørner garnet foretrækker jeg at gøre det.

Efter råd fra Uglemor brugte jeg omkring 10:1 plante:garn istedet for det gængse forhold 1:1, og det må siges at være vejen frem. Ellers er jeg ret sikker på, at garnet rent faktisk var blevet fesengult!

Carding not weaving

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

suffolk18

Been so busy picking, carding and spinning the first of three fleeces I was given last year, that I haven’t had time to paint the tapestry sketches that are floating around in my head (they just keep marching in), nor weave the small samplers for learning the process.

I’m finally done, although only with the dyed part. Still 900 g of white (from the one fleece) to deal with…. I must say, the spinning goes super fast from rolags, but picking out plant bits and hand carding was murder. Only 550 g of yarn to show for a whole month’s work, and there’s in total 2500 g left of those fleeces to process. In the meantime, I’m not doing any fun spinning, hardly any knitting, no weaving, no painting… in other words

NOT WORTH IT.

suffolk17

Now I’ve been there, done it and not even a t-shirt to prove it. Yes, buying a collection of many colours of yarns to weave with (gotta have a proper palette) requires a budget, but really, in hours each of my skeins here are worth a fortune compared. If I compare a paid job for the same number of hours I could have gotten several looms as well as a ton of yarn. If I did of course I wouldn’t have the time or energy to play with my hobbies, which is why I opted for free fleece in the first place. I still have an ambition to spin yarn for tapestry, BUT I’m also working on simplifying and destressing my daily life and this is not how you do it.

Using the plant dyed yarns however are an entirely different matter, at the moment the colour schemes I seem to come up with for designs are not very consistent with this intention, but I can work with that. If nothing else, my not plant-yellowish sketches can become paintings I suppose! So, carding is put on the back burner and more instantly gratifying projects are back in business. (and OMG is carding also boring!)

suffolk19

Kartehelvede

Så er månedens udfordring erklæret slut, jeg fik ikke spundet de hvide totter som håbet, kun de farvede. Og det er HELT ok.

Ideen gik ud på at endelig få onduleret den ene af de gratishamme jeg fik sidste år og gik og sjatfarvede hele sommeren. Spindingen tager ingen tid overhovedet, men pille, pille, pille små stumper strå ud og derefter karte, gab!

Og hvad har jeg efter en hel mÃ¥ned uden anden (sjovere) spinding, uden læsning, maling osv? Blot 550 g garn. Omregner jeg det til et almindeligt job, kunne jeg have købt det pÃ¥ blot et par timer… Det er vist ikke sÃ¥dan man afstresser og simplificerer sit liv, men nu er det da gjort og jeg er tilfreds med at have ordnet dette delmÃ¥l. Resten fÃ¥r pænt lov at ligge til en kedelig vinterdag hvor der ikke skal luges, sÃ¥s spinat, fotograferes forÃ¥rsskov (nÃ¥nej, mit kamera er jo ved at opgive ævred), males skabeloner til at væve efter sÃ¥, ideerne vælter ind og hober sig op mens jeg karter og karter! Der var vist ogsÃ¥ lige noget sommerstrik der skulle være færdigt.

Lilacs 2013

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

syringa

Two years ago I tried dyeing with lilacs and failed miserably: murky. I eventually suspected that this was due to boiling the flowers, it was at the beginning of my dye career, I didn’t know any better. This is what my 2011 skeins look like today:

syringa3

Well, this year I had the chance again, this time aiming for 60 degrees which is the lowest my automatic, programmable and very neat hotplate goes. Gift from the SO who just happened to see it in the supermarket and think of me, pretty great, huh? Just what every girl wants for xmas, kitchen utensils! 😉

The copper mordanted yarn is nothing much to behold, in fact it’s like the old results, but the others! Score! The unmordanted skein is actually very faintly green, I’m playing with “toned whites” at the moment…. The yellow is tin mordant.

syringa2

In the sun:

syringa4

Syrenfarvning

For to år siden, da jeg lige var begyndt at plantefarve, kogte jeg alle planter og resultatet med syren blev variende nuancer af beige. Jeg har senere tænkt på om det ville lykkes bedre ved en lavere temperatur, og sørme ja, 60 grader blev det til og en ny plante der giver grøn. Med kobberbejse bliver det stadig brunt, med tin citrongult.