Tag: fiber friday

Fibery stuff this week

PiaFelting

Pincushion progress:

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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.

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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.

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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:

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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:

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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.

Targhee

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

For the monthly challenge of the Danish spinners on Ravelry, I’ve chosen a braid from Spunky Eclectic named “Nova Scotia”. The theme is “North”. I’ve chosen to spin it as a single, not because I’m in a hurry, but because I’ve already tried spinning bits of it as chain-ply and 2-ply, so I wanted to get a feel for the yarn this way, as well as the colour distribution. I had a feeling it would seem “cleaner”, and, well, I just wanted to.

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It’s a very soft fiber and very easy to spin. It ended up rather thinner than I had planned, simply because I wasn’t paying attention, but too thick to chain ply because I had a feeling it would bloom when I washed it, and I didn’t want a bulky yarn either.

It drifted apart very easily with too little twist, so I went and gave it some more, then let it drip dry after hand-stretching the skein to see if that would get the kinks out. I never weight my yarn as I think it doesn’t give you a correct image of how the yarn is spun. I also very rarely beat it. So my yarns will have to be balanced straight out of the bath! As you can see the skein is balanced but the yarn is still a bit kinky. Will be interesting to see how it knits up, it feels soft and not curly at all. But I’m guessing this fiber looks best plied if you want “perfect” yarn.

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before wash

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Targhee is an American breed related to both Merino and longwools. It’s about 22-25 microns according to the Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook.

To make this fiber Friday a bit more interesting, here’s a shot of a pin cushion I’m making from woad dyed yarn.

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danishDenne uge har jeg spundet Targhee, som er en fiber der kun kan købes i USA mig bekendt. Super blødt og nemt at spinde! Men falder ret nemt fra hinanden hvis ikke man giver det en ordentlig gang sno. Heldigvis gik de fleste af krøllerne af i vask, også uden at hænge vægt i feddet, hvilket jeg er meget modstander af. Det føles blødt og de resterende krøller er ikke hårde, garnet er ret elastisk. Hvis man vil have perfekt garn, er det nok en fiber der egner sig bedst til at blive tvundet, men det bliver interessant at se, hvordan det er at strikke med. Ingen planer lige nu.

Racen er amerikansk og jeg er kun stødt på fibrene derovre. Det er en krydsning mellem merino-typer og languldstyper som Corriedale og har arvet det bløde, elastiske fra Rambouillet og puffer op på tilsvarende måde. Jeg har endnu ikke prøvet at strikke med det.

Og så lige til sidst en nålepude jeg er ved at lave af vaid-farvet garn.

Felted blanket

PiaFelting

I decided I wanted another blanket covering the box by the stove, and that it would be a fine way to test some of the plant dyed yarns. The original lid has white cloth on it, not very practical for cats with muddy paws.

The plan is to leave it there and take new pix after summer and after a year, after wash etc. to see how lightfast they are. Especially useful info for the tapestry project!

To make it sturdier I decided on a felted blanket, so I knit some squares very loosely, then threw it in the washing machine with soap flakes which are neutral and should not disturb the colours is my previous experience.

  • Start size: 75×85 cm, rather a lot larger than my swatch had indicated!
  • Size after 60 degree wash: 46 x 47 cm
  • Blocked: 50 x 50 cm
  • Colour development: No loss but some seem to have changed a bit. I guess I’ll have to find those skeins in the box and compare.
  • Yarn used: 185 g

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I’d expected to have to do another 90 degree wash and perhaps tumble dry AND handfelt a bit on the long side. It must have been the larger size and being washed with other items, because it ended up smaller than I wanted in the first wash. So instead I had to block it a bit. Actually I should have blocked it more, but whatever.

I used the same yarn base for all squares, and they were identical when I assembled them – so it’s quite funny how some now look smaller than the others. It’s fine, I meant it to be a bit random and organic looking. Now to see if I can get used to all that yellow. I’ve been saying that it’s amazing how nearly all plant dyed yarns seem to go well together. Well, they don’t quite. When I’m done with this, suntesting etc. I think it might have a meeting with an indigo vat. Which in itself will be interesting!

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Of course just now we won’t have any sun to speak of for about a week at least, so the photo conditions are not the best. But could I wait? Noooo….. I’ll have to compare colours to the remaining skeins. But it looks pretty much the same as what I put in the machine. Some plants are there twice, but dyed with different methods or mordants/modifiers.

I’m going to have to follow up later with the actual real colours in proper light, it’s just too dark here inside and out.

Filtetæppedanish

For at komme i gang med at bruge noget af mit plantefarvede garn, besluttede jeg at lave et lille tæppe til brændeovnstaburetten. Den har et lÃ¥g med hvidt stof, ikke sÃ¥ smart til dovne katte med mudrede tæer, men vi har hidtil bare “midlertidigt” haft et spejdertæppe lagt hen over.

Så jeg tænkte jeg samtidig kunne bruge det til at lysteste nogen af planterne og strikkede derfor nogen meget løse firkanter af hver sit nøgle garn, så jeg bagefter kunne filte tæppet uden at ende med et bræt. Jeg har primært brugt de ældste fra 2011 fordi jeg også går og lurer på, om de falmer i sig selv af at bare ligge.

Det blev lidt rigeligt stort i forhold til min strikke-vaskeprøve, men jeg smed det frisk i maskinen pÃ¥ 60 grader med sæbespÃ¥ner og et par hÃ¥ndklæder. Jeg havde egentlig regnet med, at det ogsÃ¥ skulle tumbles og mÃ¥ske vaskes pÃ¥ 90, men det kom faktisk mindre ud af maskinen end jeg skulle bruge! SÃ¥ det mÃ¥tte lige blokkes i stedet. Start: 75×85 cm, efter vask: 46×47, blokket: 50×50.

Farverne ser ikke ud til at have ændret sig i styrke, men nogen virker anderledes, så jeg må nok have kassen frem og finde de respektive nøgler, så jeg kan sammenligne. Sjovt nok er nogen af firkanterne mindre end de andre, altså filtet uens, for jeg har brugt samme garn hele vejen igennem. Men det er helt ok. Nu skal jeg så lige se om jeg kan vænne mig til alt det gule. Ellers ryger det i en gang indigo når jeg er færdig med at teste lysægthed. Der kommer et opdateret billede af de reelle farver, når vejret er til at fotografere uden blitz.

Jeg har brugt i alt 185 g garn.

Fiber Friday Epiphany

PiaChit Chat

Only managed to spin half of the 2nd Rambouillet braid, I think (didn’t check) it matches the first in type pretty well although consistency went out the window along the way. I have another Ravelry challenge this month, so I better get the last half done. Or maybe I won’t actually (keep reading)! Fiber for the challenge is Targhee.

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As you know I’ve been thinking about how to simplify my hobby life without actually cutting some of them off completely. The other day (while hanging wet laundry of all things!) I also got to thinking about “The Purpose” vs. creativity, my knitting and all things yarny and if they fitted into all this in any way. Why I keep planning to plant dye now that I A. have learned how to do it and B. don’t really have an actual purpose/project for it. I’ve been feeling quite ambivalent about that.

And then it dawned on me, that I don’t really have to focus my yarn habits on knitting. At all. I’d already been contemplating not doing so many garments, but trying to work on smaller objects instead. I only knit sweaters when I learned, then I didn’t knit at all for about 20 years, so when I picked it up again, it was sweaters. And specifically, I like to design them myself, more fun that way than just producing a copy of somebody elses work. Then I learned how to spin, so the next logical step was: I won’t buy more yarn, I’ll spin and dye all that I knit with.

The thing is, I’m not terribly good at sweaters.

  1. I can think up cool stuff, but it’s no way as cool as what many, many other designers can think up. Ergo, I don’t see a “carreer” as a knitwear designer in my cards, really.
  2. I always get something about the fit not exactly right and completely pleasing. I know this can be learned, but is seems I’d have to work very hard and dedicated on it in that case. And it appears more logical to focus on the areas that you already seem to be at ease with than try to develop the ones where you struggle, right?
  3. I often take very, very long to finish sweaters, starting multiple and then leave them all with one sleeve missing. I get bored. It’s not the clickety part of knitting that fascinates me the most, in fact if I could just have the ideas and then get someone else to do the actual work, I’d be totally cool with that…. Or get a machine.
  4. There’s a limit to how many accessories and bags that I use (virtually none), and it’s a lot of effort for just potholders and washcloths. (admittedly, it would reduce both spinning and knitting time considerably if I only did it when I needed new potholders)

What I really want to do is design the yarn. Play with colours and textures in all sorts of ways. And the yarns I think up are just NOT suited for my wardrobe, no little inner gypsy waiting to come out, I really like it plain, classical and casual. And inconspicuous on the street. 😉 Crazy clothes on other people I dig, but it’s not me.

So I ran into this book at the library, and I know I’ve mentioned it previously as a frivolous idea of adding yet another activity. But now I’m thinking – I think in pictures, I want to paint, I’ve been taking photographs for decades – tapestries are really much closer related than clothes. It doesn’t look harder to learn than new knit and crochet stitches.

tapestry

The advantages are plenty:

  1. I can keep using the cheap yarn for plant dyeing instead of worrying about the cost of getting a good, soft type to work with that I can tolerate next to my skin.
  2. Amounts per colour also isn’t that much of an issue, nor with spinning. No need to chug through 800 g of brown Shetland fiber.
  3. I wouldn’t feel too guilty about having a large stash of different yarns just sitting there waiting for the right project, because weaving takes A LOT of yarn. Also removes the time pressure of having xx sweater amounts waiting. As long as I make sure I don’t feel obligated to weave a certain amount per month or year…
  4. A small tapestry loom for starters really is dead easy to construct, so no huge investments.
  5. Thinking in image creation only, I can hopefully arrange them as serial projects more often rather than parallel, better focus through singletasking. Get more done in fewer hours per day leaves more time and energy for chores, horses etc. and no scatterbrain.
  6. And if I do feel like knitting sweaters I can relax and do some of other people’s really cool designs that would make me feel better about wearing them and even pretend to be more fashion conscious. And even buy those yarns perhaps, at least in part.

Less stress on a lot of levels I think (hope). It feels good. Maybe the weaving turns into felting images instead, which removes the time it takes to spin…. It would make my hobbies more unified somehow, the fiber being just another painting medium. What do y’all think?

The effect won’t kick in immediately – I do want to finish my current knitting WIPs (6). But spinning will be different, my approach will be different and I won’t be actually getting ready to weave or even think about tapestry projects. Unless they happen on their own. It’s just there as an option for when I want to work with yarn, not paint or Photoshop.

Synchronicity of the day: 2 hours after I pressed Schedule on this post I see a news flash from World of Wool announcing a workshop with a tapestry weaver. I can’t go since it’s in the UK, but they usually write about felting….

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Rambouillet igen og en åbenbaring

Det lykkedes mig kun at få spundet halvdelen af ugens fletning, men jeg synes den matcher de foregående rimeligt i type og tykkelse som planlagt. Dvs. det tror jeg den gør, for jeg har faktisk ikke hevet dem frem og sammenlignet!

Og så har jeg ellers haft mit strikke- og fiberliv oppe til revision, for jeg har alt for mange aktiviteter jeg gerne vil, ikke når og så får dårlig samvittighed eller stress over. For ikke at snakke om de huslige ting, som jeg så ikke gider fordi jeg mangler energi. På den anden side synes jeg det er svært at vælge noget fra, når det nu interesserer mig! Jeg har ikke lyst til at gå rundt med skyklapper.

Jeg har også spekuleret over, hvorfor jeg bliver ved med at samle farveplanter, jeg har jo sådan set lært hvordan man plantefarver nu, men jeg har ikke nogen egentlige projekter planlagt med det.

Og nu har jeg så besluttet, at det er strikningen som kommer på vågeblus. Jeg havde allerede besluttet at jeg ville begynde at tænke i små strikkeprojekter fremfor trøjer, som er min standard, for det er det jeg bruger mest i den genre. Jeg er nemlig laaaang tid om at strikke en trøje, jeg begynder at kede mig halvvejs og finder på en ny osv.

Det er faktisk ikke selve strikningen der interesserer mig men det at finde pÃ¥. Jeg er bare ikke verdens bedste strikdesigner mÃ¥ jeg nok erkende, og ja, hvis man øver sig bliver man bedre, men nÃ¥r man nu vil 1000 ting er det mÃ¥ske mere logisk at satse pÃ¥ dem man har lettest ved, fremfor dem der skal knokles med og sÃ¥ alligevel kun bliver middelmÃ¥dige? Huer, sjaler, sokker og tilbehør er ikke rigtig noget jeg bruger…

Det jeg egentlig har mest lyst til er at bare designe garnet. Lege med farver og skøre ting som ikke kan bruges i min garderobe alligevel, jeg er mest til det enkle og neutrale på det område.

SÃ¥ faldt jeg over en bog om billedvævning og tænkte, at mÃ¥ske jeg bare skulle satse pÃ¥ det istedet. SÃ¥ er mine hobbies mere ensartede, male, foto – det hele er bare billeder med forskellige medier. SÃ¥ fÃ¥r jeg samlet mit fokus en lille smule?

Jeg vil også kunne have en samling blandet garn i mindre mængder, behøver ikke bruge krudt på at spinde 800 g hver gang. Jeg behøver heller ikke købe dyrt, blødt strikkegarn til plantefarvningen, jeg kan bare blive ved med at lege og eksperimentere med det billige.

Det er ikke svært eller dyrt at bygge en lille væv selv til en start, og det ser ikke sværere ud at lære end nye strikketeknikker.

Hvis jeg så vil strikke, kan jeg slappe af og prøve nogen af de virkelig lækre designs som andre har udtænkt i stedet for at ville lave alting selv fra bunden. Men jeg har endelig erkendt, at det er garnet som sådan der tænder mig, mit hjerte er ikke rigtig i strikningen som process selvom jeg er glad for de færdige resultater.

Bare en ide – som jeg har tænkt mig at afprøve. MÃ¥ske fÃ¥r jeg ligefrem overskud til ridningen igen!?

More snow dyeing

PiaAcid Dyeing

I promised I’d do one more skein, so here goes:

Look, it’s all tied up! Cotton, so no, I hope it won’t bleed. It’s what I had. Because I was too impatient to go searching. And remember, I was supposed to be doing something else, something USEFUL, like?

snowdye6

Didn’t I mention using less powder? A light sprinkle? Well, don’t apply it outside on a windy day, then. Also don’t think you can remember which cup is which when you’ve mixed 2 different shades that look exactly the same in the powder.

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But hey, I kept off the greens, pink and yellow. Some progress at least.

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The previous two skeins, all untangled and rewound. The first one I’m ok with, the second not so much.

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So I dunked it in a ½% solution of blue, and now I’m happy. Also in the nick of time with this experiment it seems, no more snow!

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Fiber Friday next week will be spinning – I hope.

danish

Snefarvning 2

Mit sidste snefarvningseksperiment gik også lidt i vasken, jeg huskede at binde feddet men lagde ikke mærke til at det blæste = ikke særlig smart når man skal strø pulver. Så der blev brugt rigeligt.

Af de to første fed var jeg ikke så glad for det ene, så det fik en tur i en blå gryde og det var meget bedre.

Jeg har besluttet at det nemmeste er at dampe garnet, så ikke farverne render sammen, jeg har ved andre lejligheder kunnet fiksere farven lynhurtigt ved at nedsænke i meget varmt vand, men det virkede ikke rigtig her.