Category: PÃ¥ dansk

Daffodils / påskeliljer

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

I wanted to test my new plant dyeing yarn type, which I’m very excited about. It’s not only cheaper than my regular supply used to be (it has recently gone up 20% in price), it’s also much nicer. Smoother, more plies, and comes in readymade 25 g hanks.

not the ones I used
not the ones I used (1993)

So I’ve been deadheading daffodils for a few days, leaving them to soak in water until I had enough. In fact I was so busy collecting, that I forgot to take a nice flower photo for this post first!

I haven’t had time to do any natural mordanting yet, so I did the usual alum routine.

I didn’t actually expect much, but was pleasantly surprised, especially with the unmordanted hank, which is considerably more coloured than the dandelion hank I did on the same day.

I then collected the last heads and did an iron mordanted hank as well. I’m extremely pleased with this! Remains to be seen how fast these are of course. But I like this green so much compared to other iron induced greens or the nettle sample I did the other day, that I may just get more bulbs in the fall just for dyeing green!

daffo02
1. unmordanted, 2. alum+CoT, 3. alum+CoT+iron
Daffodil top, nettle bottom (no iron)
Daffodil top, nettle bottom (no iron)

PÃ¥skeliljer

Det siges jo at man skal prøve alt mindst een gang, så i år hoppede jeg på påskeliljerne. Vi har ikke så mange af de helt gule i haven, men det blev da til et alunbejset fed, et ubejset og et jernbejset.

Jeg samler når de begynder at visne, eller hvis nogen er knækket, og opbevarer i vand indtil der er nok, gerne flere dage.

Jeg blev da glædeligt overrasket over hvor meget farve jeg fik ud af dem, så den er absolut på listen over mulige planter i fremtiden. Faktisk er den grønne ret fantastisk i forhold til det ene fed brændenælde jeg har fået lavet (mere på vej).

Jeg har ikke nået at lave alternative bejsninger, som fx. rabarber, de er kun lige begyndt at kigge frem.

Dandelion 2013 mælkebøtte

PiaPÃ¥ dansk
dandelion / mælkebøtte
dandelion / mælkebøtte 2011

I’d already tried this 2 years ago and didn’t really think to repeat, but then again, one can always use yellow as a base for green or brown. I also wanted to break in the cast iron pot that I found in an “antique” shop.

So I did one hank in the iron pot, the others in a steel pot. And was quite disappointed. Even though I’d also cooked the flowers in the iron pot, it was no different from the others, I had to give it a bath with green vitriol to make it change.

So far I’ve only used flower heads because the leaves are hugging the ground mostly and are hard to pick, but I did want to do at least one skein before I abandon this plant. Not because there’s anything wrong with it, but because it’s not very remarkable compared to most wild plants that give yellow. If I need some, I can use it, but I’m not going to plan for it again.

It’s said that the leaves turn it more towards green than just the flowers. It didn’t BUT, the mordanted skein was ever so stronger yellow than the one with just flowers, so I definitely recommend going to the trouble of picking leaves as well. The two unmordanted hanks are almost identical, so I’ll probably be turning one into green with indigo or woad, unless I suddenly need a lot of pale yellow.

dandelion01
left to right: leaves no mordant, flowers no mordant, flowers + alum, flowers + alum + iron, leaves + alum

dandelion02

Now I just need to test it for lightfastness. Most of my yarns in fact. One of those tasks that I find less stimulating and leave off, like tax papers and such. 😉

Coming up next: Daffodils and Stinging nettle.

Mælkebøtter

Da jeg lige ville teste min nye støbejernsgryde, har jeg været en tur omkring mælkebøttefarvning igen – fordi det er de planter som er fremme nu. Jeg brugte et enkelt ubejset fed og ellers alun. Kun blomsterhoveder, da bladene mest ligger fladt pÃ¥ jorden her, nede i græsset.

Desværre fik jeg ikke rigtig noget anderledes resultat fra jerngryden, man får ellers tudet ørerne fulde af, at det dæmper farven på samme måde som decideret jernbejse. Så jeg måtte have det tredje fed en tur i en balje med jernvitriol for at få den olivengrønne farve jeg gik efter.

Og så ville jeg alligevel teste et enkelt fed med kun blade, for at se om det er rigtigt at de bliver lidt mere grønlige. Mælkebøtter er ikke bemærkelsesværdige i forhold til andre planter i naturen som giver gul, de kan bruges hvis de lige er der og man mangler gult, men jeg har ikke tænkt mig at bruge den år efter år bare for at gøre det.

Jeg blev temmelig overrasket over den kraftige gule farve jeg fik fra bladene, ikke grøn, men helt klart mere farve end fra blomsterne. Så det kan anbefales.

Lystestes skal det nok også, jeg skal bare lige tage mig sammen til at lave papskiver og lister og halløj for at holde styr på det.

Næste punkt på programmet er påskeliljer og brændenælde.

The wool tree

PiaFarm Life

You’ve probably seen my pix of yarn drying in the sumac tree in the front garden, it’s so easy to use, good branches. Today it’s really been put to work! It’s my montly headache day, but I felt perky enough to do some “dumb work” as we call it here.

On Sunday I put out the rest of my Gotland fleeces to soak in a tub before scouring, today they are promising a quiet sunny day so I filled my carrot bags and hung them up to drip dry the dirty water before getting the soapy baths ready.

wooltree1

I’ve also started mordanting my tapestry yarn, I’m going to keep a “regular” batch as well as some of the other forms of mordanting I’ve been contemplating.

Some cotton yarn that has been scoured, waiting for the next step.

wooltree2

And some small test skeins for a test tapestry. I had a bunch of purples and blues already from a colour blending test session, I wanted some black as well and as an afterthought did some greens and yellows on some strands that had already been cut for more testing which never happened. Only plan is to use a lot of white (remember my dream?) and then wing it row by row. Will probably end up needing more black. 😉

wensley01
Next batch of fleece soaking: Wensleydale
garden01
A tiny bit of colour is finally happening outside

danishUldtræ

MÃ¥nedens hovedpinedag i dag, men ikke værre end at jeg fÃ¥r lavet lidt “dum i arbejde”. Vinde garn op, binde snore pÃ¥, bejse uldgarn og vaske bomuld i soda, sÃ¥ det hele er klart til plantefarvning. Puh, det er kedeligt, men det skal jo gøres hvis man vil have lov til at lege.

Uldtørretræet blev også lige læsset med gulerodssække med gotlandsham, som har ligget i blød siden i søndags, det kan lige få lov at dryppe det snavsede vand af inden det skal i et varmt sæbebad.

Og så smed jeg for sjov et par garnstumper i syrefarve, til evt. brug i mit nye eksperiment gobelinvævning. Har nogen andre stumper fra testfarvning jeg også kan bruge bare til at øve mig med.

Fibery stuff this week

PiaFelting

Pincushion progress:

pin1

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.

pin2

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.

pin3

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:

suffolk16

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:

loom3

loom1

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 gÃ¥et 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 hÃ¥ndkartet løseligt (hvilket jeg er herredÃ¥rlig til, men det gÃ¥r faktisk hurtigere end antaget.) Ja, og sÃ¥ 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.

Get your pots and jars ready

PiaPÃ¥ dansk
Corn Marigold / Glebionis segetum / gul okseøje

Soon the plant dyeing season will be upon us, so it’s time to find yarns and get them mordanted (I always do this ahead of time and then just keep the labelled skeins on hand). This year I’ll be working with more natural mordants such as sea water, tannins, soy and rhubarb leaves.

I’m looking for cheap silk yarns and/or fabrics that I can cut into swatches to add to my sample library. As well as cotton.

I’m also going to help myself to some structure by creating a section for it here on the blog with an easy access plant list of which I’ve done and how, update my tags and some other stuff I’ve been thinking about, hoping that it might prove useful for other people as well. I have a few science experiments in mind that might interest you…

I take requests for topics! Who knows, maybe my library contains items I haven’t even thought about mentioning yet. But please be patient, I won’t be finishing this off in a day or two. In fact I’m feeling a bout of blog fatigue coming on, so we’ll see how it goes!

Corn Marigold / Glebionis segetum / gul okseøje
Tussah silk dyed with the flower above (and a few of its friends)

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danishDet er ved at være tid til plantefarvning lige om snart – mon der kommer nye vaidplanter? SÃ¥ det er nu man skal i gang med at samle garn, fÃ¥ det bejset osv. sÃ¥ det er klar hvis man lige skulle fÃ¥ lyst til at smide noget i gryden! I Ã¥r har jeg tænkt mig at lege med naturlige bejser som havvand, rabarberblade, garvesyre og soyamælk i stedet for eller sammen med metalbejserne.

SÃ¥ jeg er pÃ¥ jagt efter bomuld og silke, som garn eller stofrester jeg kan bruge til at lave prøver med. Gerne billigt…

For at hjælpe mig selv til at holde struktur på tingene, og måske være en hjælp til andre, går jeg i gang med at udvide plantefarvningssektionen her på bloggen med lister, opskrifter, links, tips og andet. Jeg tager også imod forslag til emner, måske ved jeg noget, som jeg bare ikke har tænkt på at skrive om endnu?

Og jeg vil gøre mit bedste for at også opdatere det hele på dansk. Det kommer nok lidt i bidder hen ad vejen, så kig forbi i ny og næ.