I wasn’t going to do Fiber Friday this week, just because, but then as I was mordanting more yarn, I got to thinking: Will the metals in mordants affect acid dye in any way?
When it comes to alum, no, apparently not. Tin however, is a slightly different matter (left):
Whereupon I promptly overdyed all three hanks just a little bit:
You’ve probably seen my pix of yarn drying in the sumac tree in the front garden, it’s so easy to use, good branches. Today it’s really been put to work! It’s my montly headache day, but I felt perky enough to do some “dumb work” as we call it here.
On Sunday I put out the rest of my Gotland fleeces to soak in a tub before scouring, today they are promising a quiet sunny day so I filled my carrot bags and hung them up to drip dry the dirty water before getting the soapy baths ready.
I’ve also started mordanting my tapestry yarn, I’m going to keep a “regular” batch as well as some of the other forms of mordanting I’ve been contemplating.
Some cotton yarn that has been scoured, waiting for the next step.
And some small test skeins for a test tapestry. I had a bunch of purples and blues already from a colour blending test session, I wanted some black as well and as an afterthought did some greens and yellows on some strands that had already been cut for more testing which never happened. Only plan is to use a lot of white (remember my dream?) and then wing it row by row. Will probably end up needing more black. 😉
UldtræMÃ¥nedens hovedpinedag i dag, men ikke værre end at jeg fÃ¥r lavet lidt “dum i arbejde”. Vinde garn op, binde snore pÃ¥, bejse uldgarn og vaske bomuld i soda, sÃ¥ det hele er klart til plantefarvning. Puh, det er kedeligt, men det skal jo gøres hvis man vil have lov til at lege.
Uldtørretræet blev også lige læsset med gulerodssække med gotlandsham, som har ligget i blød siden i søndags, det kan lige få lov at dryppe det snavsede vand af inden det skal i et varmt sæbebad.
Og så smed jeg for sjov et par garnstumper i syrefarve, til evt. brug i mit nye eksperiment gobelinvævning. Har nogen andre stumper fra testfarvning jeg også kan bruge bare til at øve mig med.
Pincushion progress:
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.
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.
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:
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:
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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Ugens fiberprojekter.
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.
Soon the plant dyeing season will be upon us, so it’s time to find yarns and get them mordanted (I always do this ahead of time and then just keep the labelled skeins on hand). This year I’ll be working with more natural mordants such as sea water, tannins, soy and rhubarb leaves.
I’m looking for cheap silk yarns and/or fabrics that I can cut into swatches to add to my sample library. As well as cotton.
I’m also going to help myself to some structure by creating a section for it here on the blog with an easy access plant list of which I’ve done and how, update my tags and some other stuff I’ve been thinking about, hoping that it might prove useful for other people as well. I have a few science experiments in mind that might interest you…
I take requests for topics! Who knows, maybe my library contains items I haven’t even thought about mentioning yet. But please be patient, I won’t be finishing this off in a day or two. In fact I’m feeling a bout of blog fatigue coming on, so we’ll see how it goes!
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Det er ved at være tid til plantefarvning lige om snart – mon der kommer nye vaidplanter? SÃ¥ det er nu man skal i gang med at samle garn, fÃ¥ det bejset osv. sÃ¥ det er klar hvis man lige skulle fÃ¥ lyst til at smide noget i gryden! I Ã¥r har jeg tænkt mig at lege med naturlige bejser som havvand, rabarberblade, garvesyre og soyamælk i stedet for eller sammen med metalbejserne.
SÃ¥ jeg er pÃ¥ jagt efter bomuld og silke, som garn eller stofrester jeg kan bruge til at lave prøver med. Gerne billigt…
For at hjælpe mig selv til at holde struktur på tingene, og måske være en hjælp til andre, går jeg i gang med at udvide plantefarvningssektionen her på bloggen med lister, opskrifter, links, tips og andet. Jeg tager også imod forslag til emner, måske ved jeg noget, som jeg bare ikke har tænkt på at skrive om endnu?
Og jeg vil gøre mit bedste for at også opdatere det hele på dansk. Det kommer nok lidt i bidder hen ad vejen, så kig forbi i ny og næ.
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.
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.
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.
Denne 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.
