Tag: cotton

Cloths part 2

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

Time to open the rest of the packages from August 14th. The first package was opened on August 21st and now awaiting further experiments…

The sheet on the right was previously washed with soda, cooked with sumak leaves and was soaking in water with iron while rolled up with celandine. The pillow case similar although no tannin before but soaking in water with oak leaves while printing.

Discoveries so far:

  1. Oak leaves = nice clear prints
  2. yellow flowers = vague yellow blotches
  3. Sage leaves = absolutely nothing. Maybe a pale shade of yellow?
  4. Celandine leaves in a heap = again, turns brown when sitting too long
  5. Put cloth in bucket of whatever = only the outside layer takes any colour at all.
  6. My mystery cloth just lost whatever I put on it previously and didn’t take anything from the leaves it had been rolled up with.

None of these cotton rags were properly mordanted, which is the next process I’ll be trying to see what the difference is. Tannin and aluminium acetate, some with sea water and aluminium. Some with iron as well, before or after. But I probably won’t get to actually dyeing them until next summer. Rhubarb leaves will be on the menu as well.

Another set is brewing – hoping for prints from lupine leaves among other things.

Funny thing though, the celandine dyed sheet is brown – but when put into water again, the water turns yellow.

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Plantefarvning på stof

Tid til at åbne de sidste pakker jeg præparerede d. 14. august. Den første omtalte jeg d. 21. august, den er nu tør og afventer yderligere eksperimenter på et eller andet tidspunkt.

Der kom ikke sÃ¥ meget ud af det, svaleurt giver stadig brun ved langtidsfarvning og kun egebladene lavede print pÃ¥ stoffet. Det ene stykke stof mistede de print det havde inden og er nu næsten “rent”! Jeg ved ikke helt hvad det er lavet af, det er en slags kanvas og virker ikke syntetisk, mÃ¥ske hør?

Cloths part 1

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

Well, part 3 really. Since I already showed off some cloths from last year and blabbed about the new project in another post.

So, I made notes. I did not number those notes and match them with my buckets however…. lahdeedahh. Some I remember from description, but…

I was going to leave them all there FOREVER, but in less than a week some had taken on A LOT of colour in the fabric itself, the print part I couldn’t see of course. What to do? Open or leave them?! ARGH!

Ok, so I opened ONE. Seven days in. Hot weather (finally). And did recognize it after opening, so the registration is back on track.

This cloth had previously been soaked in red wine with a horse shoe on top. Then bundled with tansy, daylilies, something sunflower like and sage. Cold water bucket. I also poured in some exhaust from the tansy test halfway through, I think that’s what’s giving the olive green with the iron and also being the outer layers of the package. There goes my theory about tansy not reacting with iron!

I learned that you don’t get clear plant prints when submerging the cloth in fluid. So next thing would be add flowers to damp cloth and then not to use more water. I should probably go read my book….

In the mean time I’ve been cooking the rest of my cottons in tannins and aluminium acetate. So they should be ready for further experimentation. Next up if I come across old bedsheets etc. will be seawater and milk, and I’ve got some dried sumac bark from last year. I’ve also aquired some texts on dyeing with clay and rust among other things, can’t wait to dive into them. Bring on winter, see if I care! (Yeah, I said that last year too and spent the entire winter being sick = no crafting, but I’m not planning on a repeat). Silk fabrics, cellulose fiber yarns – lots to try! As well as trying out the procedure on wools for comparison with ordinary mordants. There’s no end to the experiments, somebody find me a huge grant?! 😀

Funny how boiled oak leaves left to steep for a few days, look and smell JUST like black tea. So I wonder if that’s the smell of tannic acid? I didn’t have a sip though 😉

 

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Plantefarvning på stof

Kort fortalt, jeg tester alle mulige måder at få plantefarve til at hæfte på bomuld. Garvesyre fra rødvin, egeblade, bark, aluminiumsulfat, havvand, mælk, jernopløsning. Første test var 4 forskellige spande med blomster og salvie rullet ind i lagner og puttet i spande i drivhuset.

Efter en uge hev jeg første bundt op og har bl.a. lært at man ikke fÃ¥r tydelige print af blomsterne ved at have stoffet liggende i væske, der skal man nok sarte med fugtigt stof og sÃ¥ snøre blomsterne ind og lade være. Jeg kunne ogsÃ¥ studere lidt først, men det er typisk mig at bare prøve noget. Jeg burde nok tage og fÃ¥ læst min bog om emnet! Jeg har ogsÃ¥ fÃ¥et fat i nogen e-bøger om at farve med ler, rust og andet sjovt. Vinteren kan bare komme an og gerne med en del mindre sygdom end den sidste, hvor jeg sagde det samme og sÃ¥ blev det bare til nul spinding! 🙁

Jeg skal ogsÃ¥ have spundet nogen forskellige plantefibre og teste med dem, mÃ¥ske silkestof? Nogen som vil donere noget kedeligt hvidt bomuldsgarn? 😉

Kogte egeblade som har trukket et par dage lugter fuldstændig som og ligner sort the. Gad vide om det simpelthen er garvesyre der lugter sÃ¥dan? Jeg smagte dog ikke pÃ¥ det….

Jeg lader stoffet tørre mellem hver behandling, jeg håber det sætter sig og ikke bliver vasket ud i næste omgang, men de kloge påstår jo at det kan lade sig gøre på den måde.

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 blÃ¥ cardigan
  • BlÃ¥ 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 pÃ¥ trøjen, de skulle have været brugt til skulderstroppen. SÃ¥ nu skal jeg pludselig til at lave en skulderstrop af noget andet, det tager lige mere tid end beregnet. Eller ogsÃ¥ klipper jeg bare knapperne af og gemmer til noget andet og giver trøjen til kattene.

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

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

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Pia’s Playground

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

-or “Where’s my Igor?”

I’m no good at it so far, I haven’t done my research yet, but I just had to try, didn’t I…..

Various cottons and one mystery cloth washed in soda, some soaked in red wine for tannin (YES, it had gone bad, ok?), some cooked with sumak, some with horse shoes, some a bit of both. I also had one treated with milk but forgot to label them, so I dunno which one that is.

Everything will be sitting in the greenhouse in various buckets now for weeks or months depending on my patience. Some with plant matter on the outside, others just in Alum/CoT water, or iron or everything. I did take notes….

Basically I’m just going to keep adding layers until they look interesting. The worst that can happen is nothing. Plant material: what caught my eye in the garden that day.

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Plantetryk på stof

Jeg har ikke helt fået studeret emnet nok, det er svært at få plantefarve til at fæste på bomuld, især direkte som tryk fra blade mm.

Men jeg mÃ¥tte alligevel iværksætte et par vanvittige eksperimenter…

Stoffet er vasket i soda, noget af det har fÃ¥et garvesyre fra rødvin eller hjortetakblade/bark, noget har været dyppet i jernvand eller stænket med det, ligget i blød med hestesko, sÃ¥dan lidt efter tilfældighedernes princip. Jeg er helt sikker pÃ¥ jeg ogsÃ¥ har haft et stykke i mælk (skulle binde protein i stoffet, sÃ¥ det tager mere farve), men glemte at sætte labels pÃ¥ sidste Ã¥r. SÃ¥ nu ved jeg ikke hvilket stykke det er….

Nu får det hele lov at ligge i spande i drivhuset nogen uger eller måneder, alt efter hvor god jeg er til at styre min nysgerrighed. Det værste der kan ske er jo ingenting!

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Solar preparations

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

Summer being what it is this year (sweater weather – ooops, I said it again) and my plastic greenhouse falling apart from exposure (let’s just say I don’t need to air it out when it’s sunny OR water my plants, that all happens naturally), I’m going to see if our kitchen window gets hot enough for some solar dyeing experiments. A south window would be better, but the cats use those and they’re not very particular about what they shove out of the way. So east it is. Here’s a couple of pix of my preparations:

  • Anthemis tinctoria getting ready for some mulberry silk top. Just poured some boiling water in and left it for a few days.
  • A couple of small cotton placemat thingies? that I scoured and wadded up with oak leaves in one jar, sumac leaves in the other, some of the famous Dorset on top. Mainly for the tannin, I expect to be overdyeing with something after. Possibly solar dyeing with the last coreopsis in the freezer.
  • Hypericum in vodka – just for laughs. I can’t find enough to make a serious dyebath from these, I’ll have to get seeds next year.
  • Some Suffolk fleece stuffed into leftover acid dye mixes. Let’s see if it will exhaust without steaming!

Last year I scraped off a teeny amount of lichen from some dead trees. Thinking it might be the parmawossname saxatilis? that yields blue which then sometimes turns to pink when exposed to sunlight. Soaked it in ammonia and it looked pretty brown for a long time until I forgot about it. It’s been sitting in the greenhouse all winter, until I found the bucket again yesterday. Inside was a clear blue liquid (much like that blue toilet water you see someplaces) and the plant matter just some black fluff at the bottom. In went some fleece and the day after it looked like this:

I have no idea if this is lichen dyed or ammonia dyed… It doesn’t turn pink in the sun anyway or change when soaked in vinegar.

I have further plans for cold dyeing:

  • Privet berries and elderberries
  • Alder cones (or are they actually catkins?)
  • Perhaps madder?
  • Anything interesting that I come upon that can be stuffed into a jar basically. Avocado pits or skins are candidates.
  • Onion peels

I’ve been pondering whether the jars would get hotter and the colours preserved better in coloured jars. Which colour would work best I wonder, green, red, black? One could cover the glass jars in coloured cellophane, that would make it easy to check on the progress.

This is an excellent blog on the subject that someone posted on Ravelry.

Dre has had a lot of scientific thoughts on the subject

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Solfarvning 1

Min plan omkring solfarvning – dvs. koldt vand som sÃ¥ blot opvarmes via solen i xx dage eller uger istedet for at koge planter og uld – holder ikke helt stik pga vores meget kolde sommer OG fordi mit Lidl plastdrivhus er ved at falde fra hinanden, betrækket kan simpelthen ikke holde til vind og vejr, sÃ¥ alle de smÃ¥ “ruder” er ved at falde ud. Dvs. jeg ikke kan fÃ¥ temperaturen i mine farveglas op, pÃ¥ den anden side behøver jeg hverken luft ud derinde eller vande planter, det klarer naturen selv….

Men nu prøver jeg alligevel et par bøtter i køkkenvinduet, noget silke, noget Dorset, et par bomuldsblondepynteting proppet i vand med egeblade som en slags bejdsning, perikumn i vodka, fordi jeg ikke har fundet blomster nok til at farve en ordentlig mængde uld med, men noget skulle der ske. Og så et par bøtter med syrefarverester. Enten er varmen nok på sigt til at klare vandet = farven sidder på ulden, eller også damper jeg det til sidst hvis det ikke virker. På den måde regner jeg med efterhånden at få regnbuefarvet en del af den Suffolkham som jeg fik gratis hos min høleverandør.

De der 40 + grader man kan få i et drivhus kommer jeg nok ikke op på selvom sylteglassene måske nok i sig selv gør lidt. Det gule glas med gåseurt var i hvert fald håndlunt da jeg mærkede efter, men ikke så varmt at mit termometer kunne vise noget.