Category: Yarn and Fiber

Goldenrod – gyldenris

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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?

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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?

arwetta

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.

Still got the blues

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My first woad results this year. Next year I’ll focus more on these rather than doing many plants, I just hope it keeps spreading in my abandoned vegetable garden. I was glad to find that there’s plenty of colour in them even this late in the summer, old leaves with holes in them and all. I saved half my “potion” in what I hope is an airtight bucket for dyeing more later. I wanted the option to experiment more and besides, I ran out of Spectralite.

Left to right: woad x 2, tagetes orange, tagetes yellow, reeds, weld, birch (multiple dips)woad4

Silk:
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Farvevaid, Isatis tinctoriadanish

Det lykkedes at få noget ud af mine vaidplanter selvom bladene var gamle og ormædte. Den ene grydefuld har jeg sat på hold for at se om den duer senere, det skulle være muligt at gemme i en ilttæt beholder.

Det blev mest til overfarvning af forskellige gule, og så glemte jeg endda nogen af dem jeg havde planlagt. Tagetes orange fed, tagetes gult fed, tagrør, vau og birk dyppet 3 gange.

Fir cones 2

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Last year I did a brief experiment with cones and a rather boring result.

I wanted to know, however, if mordanting the yarn would make a difference, so I mordanted the original skein from last year with alum.

Got plenty of cones, boiled them good with some potash and waited until it had cooled and the pH gone down again. In with yarn, heat, sit in a bucket for 2 days.

The yarn is very dark chocolate brown when you take it out, like the dyebath, and feels oddly soapy?! But as soon as you rinse it, this is what you get:

kogle5I then added a silk skein and left in there for a few days. Disappointing light beige, so heated it for a bit. This looked so promising that I actually added the wool one more time! Simmered and left for a day. Very nice brown! Only… the day after they were dry and kinda pink…

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While I was blooded and believed in brown I entered one of my failed cotton skeins (the ones I’ve promised to talk about later). It was almost white with a hint of yellow spots.

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Remains to be seen if they are lightfast etc.

Grankogler (rødgran)danish

Sidste år lavede jeg et kort eksperiment med grankogler, som blev ret skuffende. Men jeg ville alligevel se, om bejdse gjorde en forskel, så jeg bejdsede samme fed og farvede det en gang til!

Sjovt nok er garnet en flot, mørk chokoladebrun når man tager det op, men så snart vandet er trykket ud og man skyller det, så bliver det meget lysere.

For sjov skyld kom jeg sÃ¥ et lille fed silkegarn i bagefter. Det lÃ¥ først i spanden et par dage, det gav kun en meget lys beige, sÃ¥ jeg varmede det op igen, og det sÃ¥ mere lovende ud. Faktisk sÃ¥ lovende, at jeg puttede ulden i en gang til! Fin brun – som blev til rosa, da de var tørret. Meget sært.