Every year I find just one plant, so now I’m going to leave it alone OR, if it’s not too wet I’ll collect the seeds and hope to cultivate them.
I just wanted to tell, that this is also a very lovely dye plant, here some tussah silk top I dyed a couple of years ago:
Min enlige gule okseøje blomstrer i øjeblikket, så jeg vil prøve at lade den være og evt. samle frø hvis det ikke bliver for vådt derude. Det lykkes mig aldrig at finde mere end den ene, som flytter sig rundt i min overgroede ex-køkkenhave, så jeg kan ikke vise mere end dette bundt silke, men jeg syntes jeg ville fortælle at det også er en udmærket farveplante!
This is a thing I’ve decided to do. Not really every day, but rather on the days when I’m too busy, too tired, too distracted or too something else to haul out the serious painting gear and have a go at that. Or any other creative thing for that matter. Such as this week which seems to insist on being slept away mostly, I’m a complete zombie. Lovely weather and all, I’d much rather break in my bicycle! But there’s no forcing it, I’d not be safe in traffic.
I have no idea how many people are running a something-like-this-along, most likely 100’s. But I just set the challenge for myself to feel like I wasn’t missing out on picture creation while I do other things, as well as taking the pressure off making a “real” big painting in case any of that nonsense happens. I may do a search on the topic one of these days, but I’ll be more likely to just sit and browse pretty pictures for hours or days instead of making stuff, so for now I won’t.
I’m also not going to post every day or even regularly, just when I feel like it. This is meant to be a treat for myself, not a competition or an exercise. And sometimes other matters are more pressing or I’m simply having so much fun doing other stuff that I forget. 😉
If you want to -along you’re more than welcome to, and we can do the linky thing and all that, but I refuse to make any rules or schedules, just so you know! Just post your cards and comments – or we can swap!
I started out with a piece of watercolour paper that I dipped in my woad vat while testing if it was exhausted or what. It was indeed a wee bit tired (not that I know if a fresh vat would have made more of the paper, I’ll have to test that later), so the next day I dribbled some of the plant watercolours on it, tore it into 4 pieces and had a go with a glue stick because I hated what I’d done with the dribbles. I’m sooo rusty at this collage thing. And I know I should probably stick to one topic rather than trying on all the things I’m rusty at, but it seems I can’t help it. Ok, I haven’t really tried very hard not to, so I don’t know if I could.
I also considered to just copy cat a lot of stuff to keep the flow until I get into it properly, I don’t like to but I hear it’s great for cranking your skills. At the moment, the exercise is primarily about accepting that I make poor choices and that my cards are sometimes useless in the decorative sense. Maybe I’ll have an “ugliest card” competition at the end of the year where you can vote for all the monsters. 😉
This tiny format is a HUGE challenge for me as well. I want to cram all sorts of things on there, which is impossible. And why postcard and not just “a tiny image a day”? Well, I like to pretend I’m making something useful I think. And I know I’ve framed pretty postcards and put them on the wall, so really, it’s just a name.
Maybe I’ll put old stamps on the back and write pretend messages to and from imaginary people….
Then there’s an entirely different matter. I appear to have developed a slight hand tremor. I can feel it if I try to draw or knit with small needles for instance. Why I have no idea, it doesn’t run in the family that I’m aware. So I guess I should not count on any type of precision work in drawing etc. but have to develop a style where it doesn’t matter. I hope this is it, though, I’d hate to give up making things with my hands. I’ll have to pay attention to how tired I am when it happens. It’s certainly not very good for calligraphy or fine scissor work either! 🙁
Some old pieces of tissue paper with ink. I thought they might be more interesting with some doodles on all that white space, but can I?
Et postkort om dagen
…har jeg tænkt mig at lave som projekt.
Jeg har overhovedet ikke kigget ret meget eller for nylig på de 100-vis af lignende websider man kan finde derude, for så får jeg aldrig løsrevet mig fra at bare sidde og kigge og beundre. Men jeg tænkte jeg kunne bruge det som en slags livline, så jeg føler at jeg trods alt laver noget billedagtigt i de perioder hvor der ikke rigtig er plads til det. Som denne uge der insisterer på at være zombie-sæson, i det gode vejr, hvor jeg hellere ville ud at lufte min cykel lidt. Men jeg ville ikke være trafiksikker, der er ikke noget at gøre…
Ikke noget med at vise dem hver dag eller regelmæssigt, bare når jeg gider. Hvis nogen har lyst til at dele lignende projekter er det super, men der er ingen regler!
Jeg begyndte med et stykke papir som jeg havde dyppet i vaidgryden da den var ved at løbe tør for farve. Så driblede jeg lidt andre farver på, det blev grimt, så limstiften kom frem…
Det er meget meget længe siden jeg har lavet collager kan jeg godt mærke, og jeg tror aldrig jeg har arbejdet så småt, så det er udfordring på mange planer. Måske jeg går i gang med at kopiere nogen yndlingskunstnere, det siges at være en god måde at forbedre sig på, og så sker der da lidt når min egen fantasi ikke ruller som jeg vil det. Nu må vi se.
Jeg farvede også lidt papir i cochenillegryden, og jeg tror jeg hiver mine bladtryk fra sidste år frem også og klipper lidt i dem – eller laver nye.
Måske sætter jeg gamle frimærker bagpå og skriver fiktive beskeder til og fra ukendte og indbildte personer…
Til gengæld har jeg på det seneste opdaget, at jeg ryster en smule på hænderne. Det er ikke noget der ligger til familien, så jeg kender ikke årsagen, men jeg kan ikke tegne særlig nøjagtigt, og jeg kan mærke det hvis jeg strikker på tynde pinde. Ret irriterende, jeg håber ikke det udvikler sig yderligere, og så må jeg jo bare finde en tegnestil hvor det ikke ses.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nothing extraordinary from this yellow, in fact I like the boiled lot best.
Gyldenris
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.
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.
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.
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)
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?
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!
Farveorgie i pink
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.
