Tag: wool

Teensy tansy tests

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

1400 g Tanacetum vulgare. Boil, leave for 3 days due to stupor.

First, simmer one mordanted skein for 20 minutes. VERY sunny. More so than the photo below shows (1st skein on the left).

Then enter 2 more skeins + some unmordanted fleece. Take out yarns after half an hour, put one in ammonia soak.

Enter two mystery skeins, previously dyed a dull grey-yellow last year. Leave in fleece. Simmer an hour, then cool in the pot.

Quick iron dip seemed to do nothing much (unlike the Dyer’s chamomile for instance, which just needs a quick dip to turn the yarn olive green) so that’s the skein that had an alkaline modifier. You could leave the ammonia in the yarn for an even deeper bronze, but it’s not good for the wool, so I didn’t, and most of it rinsed out.

CORRECTION AUGUST 21st: After unwrapping one of my cloth experiments, I can say that tansy does react with iron giving a strong olive. In this case however the iron was in the cloth first, i.e. as a mordant, then tansy cold dye poured on as an afterthought. Noteworthy I think!

The mystery skeins were slightly altered, quite greenish. Despite the large amount of dyestuff to yarn, I felt the pot was exhausted, seems like the first skein sucked up all the good stuff. One could use this for a series of yarns from dark to pale by entering one skein at a time and/or leaving in for different amounts of time. I can’t help thinking that a 1:1 dye ratio would give a rather dull shade…

mystery skeins before

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Rejnfan

En lille hurtig test med stor plantemængde i forhold til garn – i alt 5 nøgler á 35 g + en hÃ¥ndfuld uld. Suffolk tror jeg. 1400 g blomster, kogt en time, derefter trukket 3-4 dage.

Først kom jeg 1 bejset bundt i og simrede ca. 20 minutter, hvorefter det var meget mørkt og solgult (mere end på billedet).

Så puttede jeg to mere i, samt en håndfuld vasket men ubejset uld. De fik nok en halv time, det ene dyppede jeg i jern uden at der skete noget, så i stedet kom det i ammoniakbad, hvilket gav en dyb bronze farve. Når man skyller mister man lidt af gløden, men det er jo ikke så godt for uld at være basisk, så det må jeg leve med. Men muligheden foreligger hvis man ønsker.

RETTELSE: efter at have pakket en af mine stofpakker op, kan jeg se at hvis man bruger jern FØRST, som bejse, så giver rejfan faktisk en kraftig oliven/jægergrøn farve!

Ulden lod jeg ligge og puttede så to kedelige brungule fed i, som jeg ikke kan huske hvad de er farvet med. De blev noget grønlige af den tur, absolut forbedrede, og sjovt nok mere ens end da de kom i. De fik en time + afkøling.

Og så syntes jeg farvebadet så lidt svagt ud, det første fed må virkelig have suget til sig af farvestofferne. Det kan man jo udnytte netop til at skabe en gradueret skala af gul fra kraftig til bleg. Hvor gult det bliver når man bruger 1:1 plante og garn fik jeg ikke afprøvet, men jeg tror måske jeg vil holde mig til den kraftige suppe hvis der skal være lidt pang.

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Sunday swatch

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

The coming week I think I feel like spinning, although I still have sleeve syndrome. So be it. I hope I get the time in between all my appointments!

This is just one of project palettes that I’m contemplating. Plant dyed silk in the middle, merino for the rest.

Ugens spindeprojekt

Hvis ellers jeg har tid og ork mellem alle mine aftaler. Så må vi se, om jeg får gjort noget ved mine ærmer eller ej.

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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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Birch – birk

PiaPÃ¥ 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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PÃ¥ 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 ogsÃ¥ sandet og marehalmen. Den irgrønne farve er ret svær at ramme!

SÃ¥ planen er at teste bÃ¥de pÃ¥ fiber med forskellige farvemetoder, i gryde, “malet”, som fletning og teste hvordan det bliver nÃ¥r 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 nÃ¥ at spinde, men det er altsÃ¥ farvningen som interesserer mig mest i øjeblikket – og andre farveholdninger presser pÃ¥ i baggrunden! 😉 Naturen venter jo ikke, den sender sine indtryk til sanserne hver gang man gÃ¥r udenfor døren.

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

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