Tag: brown

Fall forage

PiaPlant Dyeing

Just a bit of gathering while walking the dog, to keep me occupied during winter in case I get urges.

In addition to the chestnut hulls I brought home, I also gathered spruce cones from the forest.

AND I found one young alder tree on our property that had produced cones, so I got myself a bag of those too.

I then tried to strip the larch trees, but they were not quite ready to let go of their needles, and those which did mostly ended up on my sweater. Tricky! I’ll get back to them in a week or so.

Then I went foraging websites and ended up ordering this canning device with a thermostat, I’m guessing it’s real good for keeping madder root at it’s proper temp as well! Since the jars will be shut I’m wondering if I could use it for apple sauce too. Not sure if I’ve had actual mordants or acid dye in there, what do y’all think?

Chestnut hulls

PiaPå dansk

Not having access to walnuts – because I don’t know of any source – and no acorns or elder catkins because there just aren’t any this year – I thought what the hey, I’ll try throwing some green chestnuts in a jar. There aren’t many of those this year either, the paths are usually carpeted this time of year where we walk the dog, but I grabbed a pocketfull.

First I just put them in water, which went yellow and mouldy. So inspired by Dre (again), I added some ammonia. Boom, instant dark brown. Left it a week or three, I’m not counting.

Next up – will it do anything to yarn?! Should it be mordanted or not? I chose unmordanted for starters. Thinking I could go get another pocketfull in case there was a remote chance it’s working…

I added the liquid and the chestnuts to a larger pot of water and simmered with two 35 g skeins at very low temps – because the first one looked so promising at first dip. I would have just left them in there to dye cold, but the pH was 11, so that’s not a good method for wool.

 

SO – as we can give full marks for colour on this, what would happen once the colour IS extracted with ammonia (or rather, since the smell is really too much, would pot ash work?), if I then added something to lower the pH again before adding yarn? We need to find out, yeah?

This is what the skeins all look like if they are not rinsed after leaving the dye pot. I’m letting this one sit for a while, then I’ll wet it again. I got the pH down to 7 and added the yarn, left at about 50 C for an hour, steeped overnight.

And here they are together, left to right: first bath rinsed, first bath rinsed and dipped in horseshoe bucket, 2nd bath no rinse and still wet. As you can see, the brown bleeds right out as soon as you put the yarn in clear water, giving a dusty pink. One might try dipping that in vinegar to see if it changes…

I think I need to take the dog for a walk real soon and save the rest of those shells, the few that I can find. What to try: Hot extraction – longterm cold dyeing? How to prevent the dark brown from bleeding. pH testing. Anything else?

ETA Sept. 30th: I rinsed the brown skein, dyed in a neutral pH in cold rain water today. No change. Then I dipped one end in the clean dishwater that was sitting there anyway – no change. So it looks like the brown doesn’t run off if the dyebath is neutral. It’s going to be very interesting to test different pH values with this!!!

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Kastanjeskaller

Da jeg ingen agern eller ellekogler kan finde i år og ikke kender nogen med valnøddetræer, tænkte jeg, at den grønne skal omkring kastanjer måske kunne gøre det samme som valnødderne? Der er heller ikke mange af dem i år, normalt skvatter vi rundt i dem på skovstierne hvor vi lufter hund, men nogen er der dog, så jeg tog en lommefuld med hjem og puttede i et glas.

Først kom jeg bare vand i, det blev det gult og muggent af efter et par uger. Så tilsatte jeg salmiakspiritus og bingo blev det mørkebrunt. Men kan det også sætte sig på garnet?! Og eftersom base ikke er godt for uld, kan man efter at have hentet farven ud af skallerne, tilsætte syre, så pH værdien bliver neutral inden man putter garn i? Det må prøves, fortsættelse følger!

Jeg hældte indholdet i en gryde vand med to små fed ubejset garn og simrede noget tid. Tanken var at ikke spilde noget af mit bejsede garn, men evt. prøve en portion mere hvis der skete noget interessant. Det ene fed fik et jerndyp bagefter i hesteskospanden. Et tredje fed blev derefter farvet og lå i blød, efter at have skiftet pH værdien tilbage til 7, det er ikke blevet skyllet bagefter, da farven så render af, så jeg tester lige om det gør en forskel at det får lov at sidde lidt.

Edit 30. september. Det brune garn BEHOLDER sin farve både skyllet i regnvand og i hårdt vandhanevand!

UFO begone

PiaBooks & reading

Sat myself down for some prescribed quiet time and attacked my UFO pile in between reading. It’s sooo great to be able to cross out things on a to do list! And good to not run around trying to do ALL the things, just attack one at a time, never mind the others for the time being. I really, really must practise slow living since I probably won’t be able to master slow thinking…..

Didn’t manage to get done yet, even though I have several knitting projects just waiting, tempting…

So what do you do about sleeve syndrome?! As soon as I get there, I just lose all my steam. Knit summer tops you say? But I’m such an icicle, I need my heavy sweaters… I could do the sleeves first, but I tend to have length issues when I do. I need to set up some sort of reward system perhaps? I feel really silly working on one project, while my mind is all buzzing about another one that I’d rather be doing. Not very zen. I wanna be zen! So what do you do when one sleeve turns out too thin, the other too wide (not on the same garment thank goodness) and the body has stretched in width (on the garment that has too thin sleeve – but will the sleeve grow too?). You get REALLY bored!

This is just the very short immediate list. Oh boy, you should see the other one!

  • Sleeves on orange sweater
  • Sleeves on blue featherweight cardigan
  • Blue reverse sweater
  • Felted bag
  • New soft collar for ugly scratchy sweater

I felted the sweater, which I didn’t remember had no sleeves. I’d meant to use those sleeves for the shoulder strap. It also shrank A LOT. Well, that’s what felting does, stupid… So, now I have to knit some kind of strap, then felt THAT, before I have my bag. Which incidentally won’t be big enough for its intended use I think… Anyway, not the quick and dirty project I had in mind! For some reason, second hand stores here don’t have any wool sweaters, it’s all bleeping acrylics. I guess it’s a good thing though, I don’t need any storage space for felted items-to-be-turned-into-cool-stuff. I may just cut off the buttons and save those, you know. I know a cat or 3 who would love a new sweater.

I need a magic wand to finish these UFOs. And not one of those with a knob and a number on the end.

And now to go frog the too wide sleeve. In laceweight on 3 mm needles…. Wax on, wax off….. Yes, I did read that book up top. All looks so simple on paper, yes? Actually, maybe I’ll just keep knitting and accept what I get.

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Projektbunke-projekt

Så blev det lige tid til lidt stilletid, læs og strik, få has på nogen af de halvfærdige ting (så jeg kan starte 10 nye, ikke?). Jeg prøver at øve mig i at gøre få ting og gøre dem færdige frem for at rende mellem 25 forskellige projekter og få stress som jeg plejer. Jeg kan tilsyneladende ikke tænke langsomt, men måske jeg kan lære at opføre mig langsomt.

Det er ikke helt lykkedes mig at blive færdig endnu, selvom jeg har adskillige strikkeopgaver som ligger og frister! Jeg ved ikke helt hvad der sker, men så snart jeg når til ærmerne, længes jeg bare efter nye projekter. Hvilket er skørt, for ærmer tager jo ingen tid i forhold til kroppen, få dem dog overstået! Og hvad sker der så? Jo, selvfølgelig bliver det ene ærme for smalt og det andet for bredt (dog ikke på samme trøje), i min iver for at blive færdig. Og så tager ærmer pludselig meget lang tid, især med mønsterstrik som man er blevet rigtig, rigtig træt af. Nogen som har en tryllestav til låns? (ikke en af dem med numre på) Ja, og selvfølgelig er kroppen på det smalle ærme vokset i bredde helt af sig selv, men kan man forvente at ærmet også gør det?!

  • Ærmer til orange sweater
  • Ærmer til blå cardigan
  • Blå omvendt sweater
  • Filtet taske af sweater
  • Strikke ny blød halskant til kradsende, grim, men varm trøje

Dette er den meget korte liste – I skulle bare se den lange… Mht. at filte en taske, ja, jeg havde overset at der ingen ærmer var på trøjen, de skulle have været brugt til skulderstroppen. Så nu skal jeg pludselig til at lave en skulderstrop af noget andet, det tager lige mere tid end beregnet. Eller også klipper jeg bare knapperne af og gemmer til noget andet og giver trøjen til kattene.

Nå, det blev så til en rapport om, hvordan man IKKE bliver færdig med sine UFOer… I gang med at trevle ærme – i lacegarn på pind 3. Zen, tænk zen…. wax on, wax off.

Hm. Måske få projekter slet ikke giver mindre stress end mange?

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Birch – birk

PiaPå dansk

Birch leaves are abundant in the Scandinavian countries and were considered poor man’s dye because while it’s relatively lightfast, it does fade – and boy did poor people use and abuse their few sets of clothes in those days! But – no worries. They just re-dyed it every summer, voila, good for another season. (What I don’t understand is how they could wear them for more than a season, my hardworking clothes get worn out in a heartbeat – says something for quality of modern fabrics, doesn’t it). I’m thinking perhaps they also didn’t mordant and that’s why it faded sooner?

Anyway, I found the yellows of the birch a bit dull on my first try, lovely and blending in with nature, but in my initial plant dyeing craze I’ve been going for as much vibrancy as possible. That may change – I do see some natural fleece dying projects in my future, from sheep to sweater kinda thing. Or wall hangings actually.

Soooo, I haven’t explored it extensively yet. What I thought I’d do apart from showing my measly results from last year is write up a summary of the older recipes I’ve found in out of print books, my thoughts on future experimenting and perhaps a few links for the hungry.

Continue reading “Birch – birk” →

Sea & sand

PiaAcid Dyeing

Sunday swatch this week is an actual project, not just a colour strip.

I always get a kick from the colours of nature, and this is also where I get my ideas for yarn colours in spinning and dyeing. I don’t always end up where I started, but that’s kinda irrelevant. I’m having fun.

This time I came up with the title above, inspired by various images, among them an old unfinished painting of mine that I stumbled on, some photos I’d forgotten about and then my mind just began to ramble.

      

So I decided to play around with recreating the colours in my mind and test if they would actually work together in a scheme, as well as look good in a variegated yarn and knitted up.

I wanted the yellow a more straw coloured muted hue than the first samples (never mix dyes when in risk of being interrupted with trivialities! Pffft), so it looks like there’s going to be versioning of this colourway.

 

 

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På stranden

Sea & Sand er en farvekombination jeg har tænkt over længe, og som jeg gerne vil kunne genskabe nogenlunde – evt. med variationer efter humør. Konceptet er havet, himlen, men også sandet og marehalmen. Den irgrønne farve er ret svær at ramme!

Så planen er at teste både på fiber med forskellige farvemetoder, i gryde, “malet”, som fletning og teste hvordan det bliver når det er spundet og strikket, samt som stribet garn.

Nogen af varianterne vil nok blive destashet, det er trods alt begrænset hvor meget jeg kan nå at spinde, men det er altså farvningen som interesserer mig mest i øjeblikket – og andre farveholdninger presser på i baggrunden! 😉 Naturen venter jo ikke, den sender sine indtryk til sanserne hver gang man går udenfor døren.

Heldigvis er de fleste af “fejlfarverne” også flotte, selvom de ikke ligner det jeg havde i mit hovede til at begynde med. Det er jo herligt, så håber jeg at finde nogen som har lyst til at være en del af selve spinde-eksperimentet hen ad vejen.

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