...as Granny Weatherwax would say. (From Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, which I consider highly addictive.) No pictures today, just a quick post to say I'm alive. (Heck, I haven't managed to get the last four knitting projects photographed and onto Rav yet.)
It's been a crazy fall. Mostly fun and all, but I find myself needing more hours in a day, every day. There's been Havelock Fair and the Roxham WoolGathering, a dye class to teach, a baby shower, Rhinebeck, the Knitting Guild vendor's night, and now next weekend is the OVWSG Exhibition and Sale. On top of that, work hasn't had the September slowdown we did last year, and it looks like we'll be running another 2 weeks at least, when last year the garden end wrapped up a week or two earlier. I really hope we don't get early snow or really cold weather...
We worked yesterday, the first Saturday in a while. Today the apartment is going to be very warm and steamy, fan and open window notwithstanding. Damp socks hanging in the living room, damp skeins hanging on the rack in the bathtub, two dyepots simmering on the stove, and the week's baking (pizza and apple muffins) in the oven. Tags are on the table for writing out whenever I have 2 minutes to spare. With any luck I can get the lion's share of the prep for Ex and Sale done today, (apart from reskeining things once they dry), and do all the other little chores that are piling up (like sorting the recycling, which is also piling up), then I can concentrate on reskeining and packing during the week. I'm thinking the Sale should be pretty busy this year. Carole, the co-ordinator, has arranged an interview on TV this week (Wednesday on CTV Morning Live, I believe) where they will try to teach the interviewer spinning, weaving and felting. Sounds like a fun session!
...And there goes my timer. One batch of skeins ready to rinse, one dyebath ready to put skeins in, and the pizza's done, so I can start muffins as soon as the next round of pots is simmering.
Man, I'm looking forward to end of season. I want a nap. And then Kristina and I are planning a fibre prep day later in November, and then in the winter, Heather of HelloMello, who I met at Rhinebeck, and I are planning a SAL, like a little Tour de Fleece. I have ambitions to make a serious dent in the fibre stash this winter, and knit a few things for me, and...yeah, need more time again ;)
Showing posts with label natural dyeing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label natural dyeing. Show all posts
Sunday, 1 November 2015
Saturday, 22 August 2015
Summer To Fall
The last of summer is speeding by already. All the signs are here that fall is on the way. Cooler mornings, geese flying overhead, asters and chrysanthemums blooming, and a few early leaves turning. In the veg garden the tomatoes are ripening (there will be bruschetta this weekend!), and I took enough beets and onions out last weekend to put up nine jars of pickles.
Work has slowed down a little, but there's still plenty going on. Last week (yeah, in that heat wave) we had three of us out to an all-day job, clearing a massive set of stone terraces and steps on a waterfront property. The owner wanted some of the wildflowers left but the massive stuff and the bad stuff (like burdock and nettle and weed trees) gone. We put a good dent in it, but it will take another day's work at least to do it all. And thank goodness he had a burn pile, because that was so much easier than bagging it all - we got the pile to the point where it was six feet tall and at least twice that long. It felt at times like we were clearing Mayan ruins, and we should have had pith helmets and machetes. Yesterday we started another bigger job which will continue Monday - tidying up a property that I don't think has had much care in a year or two, but needs to get to a decent point, after which we will be doing regular maintenance. It's an older house and gardens, and definitely has potential, but some plants, like the day lilies and hydrangeas, have sort of started taking over - I think about 70% of the space is orange day lilies at the moment.
I'm still trying to finish re-skeining all the dyed yarn from the summer's batches. The bag of things to re-skein is slowly emptying (most of what's left in there is pastel shades of alpaca), and the box of things to label is slowly filling.
Only three weeks until the WoolGathering and Havelock Fair, and things need to be labeled and packed, and I'd like to do a bit more spinning and knitting if possible. Just finished a pair of fingerless mitts that are definitely seasonal, though!
The main reason the re-skeining goes slowly is HRH Julia. Standard session goes like this: I have the swift and the reel set up on the dining table, which is pretty much the most convenient spot in the place for me, and start working, then she decides after I get set up that she needs to stretch out right there also. So I shift the reel out of her way, she rolls over and gets whacked with it,
I move her over, she gets grouchy and comments that she's trying to sleep and I'm in her way. I reply that Temptations don't grow on trees and someone needs to buy them for her. I get a little more work done before she rolls over in the way of the reel again, I get up and go do something else, then several minutes later she gets bored and wanders off elsewhere. I go back to re-skeining, and try to get as much done as I can before the next round of need-to-nap-on-the-table-now-plz. Which is where I'm headed now, since the table's free for now...
Work has slowed down a little, but there's still plenty going on. Last week (yeah, in that heat wave) we had three of us out to an all-day job, clearing a massive set of stone terraces and steps on a waterfront property. The owner wanted some of the wildflowers left but the massive stuff and the bad stuff (like burdock and nettle and weed trees) gone. We put a good dent in it, but it will take another day's work at least to do it all. And thank goodness he had a burn pile, because that was so much easier than bagging it all - we got the pile to the point where it was six feet tall and at least twice that long. It felt at times like we were clearing Mayan ruins, and we should have had pith helmets and machetes. Yesterday we started another bigger job which will continue Monday - tidying up a property that I don't think has had much care in a year or two, but needs to get to a decent point, after which we will be doing regular maintenance. It's an older house and gardens, and definitely has potential, but some plants, like the day lilies and hydrangeas, have sort of started taking over - I think about 70% of the space is orange day lilies at the moment.
I'm still trying to finish re-skeining all the dyed yarn from the summer's batches. The bag of things to re-skein is slowly emptying (most of what's left in there is pastel shades of alpaca), and the box of things to label is slowly filling.
Only three weeks until the WoolGathering and Havelock Fair, and things need to be labeled and packed, and I'd like to do a bit more spinning and knitting if possible. Just finished a pair of fingerless mitts that are definitely seasonal, though!
The main reason the re-skeining goes slowly is HRH Julia. Standard session goes like this: I have the swift and the reel set up on the dining table, which is pretty much the most convenient spot in the place for me, and start working, then she decides after I get set up that she needs to stretch out right there also. So I shift the reel out of her way, she rolls over and gets whacked with it,
I move her over, she gets grouchy and comments that she's trying to sleep and I'm in her way. I reply that Temptations don't grow on trees and someone needs to buy them for her. I get a little more work done before she rolls over in the way of the reel again, I get up and go do something else, then several minutes later she gets bored and wanders off elsewhere. I go back to re-skeining, and try to get as much done as I can before the next round of need-to-nap-on-the-table-now-plz. Which is where I'm headed now, since the table's free for now...
Saturday, 18 July 2015
All The Dyed Yarn
It took me a week to get the pictures of last Sunday's dyeing off my camera and onto the computer so I could post them to show you all. But here they are at last. It was a busy day; I think about 7 dye baths, two of which (cochineal and indigo) had multiple batches of things going into the bath, with over-dyeing and such going on.
First out of the baths were greenweed yellow (which I actually did Saturday night, and left overnight to cool) and orange from dried coreopsis. I usually get a gold from the dried coreopsis, so the orange was a bit of a surprise, albeit a nice one. One coreopsis skein was done with sections in multiple mordants, but the results weren't as dramatic as I hoped; it just looks like a splotchy orange and brown-green (furthest left), not very pretty. That may end up getting over-dyed at some point to try and improve it.
While the coreopsis bath was simmering, I braved the heat and mosquitos and filled pots with sumac leaves for grey and goldenrod plants for olive green. The sumac greys are always interesting because you get a slightly different cast of grey on different fibres and yarns - all three greys in the picture are on different bases, and you can see the difference.
There was also a bath with madder, but I accidentally overheated it and it came out a dull salmon-y rather than the tomato-y red-orange it should have been. Not bad, but not the best. One of the coreopsis skeins got over-dyed with cochineal to fill that gap in my palette.
The cochineal, indigo, and walnut baths finished the day. Besides the solid skeins that were either plain or over-dyed, there was a dip-dyed greenweed/indigo skein, and a tie-dyed one with bits of coreopsis and cochineal showing through the walnut brown. But I think the purples and greens from the indigo over-dyes are still my favourites.
Today I'm dyeing just a couple more skeins. A tan with tea, and a gold with onion skin, to fill the gaps in the palette. Altogether a lovely pile of colours, if I do say so myself.
Saturday, 11 July 2015
Eye Candy From The Country
Wild and wooly, warm and wet. That pretty much describes my Saturday this week. I'm out at the parents' for the weekend, and it's been a hot, sunny, breezy day - to me, that makes it a good day for fibre, since things will dry well. So laundry and dyeing and fleece washing have been most of the day.
I started the day with a quick blocking of the hat I finished last night. Ribbed, in a cushy handspun Jacob wool I had a few partial balls of to use up. A post on the little porch proved a great place to put the hat to dry, and incidentally, provided a nice background for the photo.
In between loads of laundry, staying with the Jacob breed, I washed about a fleece and a half that I had gotten a while back and not done anything with yet. This is where the wet and wooly part comes in, since I wash stuff outside, which means hauling hot water in buckets from indoors to fill my tubs. A few old sheets went in a sunny spot for drying, and Mom said it looked like I was working with skunk pelts. Definitely smells nicer than skunk, though!
Cooled wash water from tubs was re-bucketed out and onto a bunch of plants that needed a water and fertilizer shot. More buckets of water came outside in the meantime for the next project, which is a batch of mordanting and dyeing. At this point the clothesline was full of laundry, so I hauled out a big wooden clothes-dryer, because something like 30 skeins got mordanted today.
In the little gaps between waiting for a mordant batch or a fleece batch to be ready for the next step, I got to shell peas. Result, a true green thumb (or at least thumbnail) and a lovely bowl of fresh peas.
Only had time to start one batch of dye after that - greenweed yellow, which will sit overnight - but there will be more dyeing tomorrow, and hopefully pretty pictures of the results. Although I'm planning mostly solid colours, a few of the skeins to be dyed will be multi-coloured, using different techniques, so I can show them as samples for a class I will be teaching at L'Ourse Qui Danse in a couple months. Ran over to the OQD ranch this afternoon to borrow some thiox for tomorrow's indigo dyeing and talk to Johanne about the date for the class - tentatively Sept 19 or 20 at this point. The road going to Johanne's is lovely; gravel road with maple bush along part of it, opening to fields of corn and soy, dark-green and silvery against the late-summer olive of the trees, with the Adirondack mountains misty-blue to the south.
Barbecued local sausages and homemade strawberry shortcake for dinner, and now the last thing before bed will be to go outside to turn off the burner under my dye-pot for the night, watch the fireflies winking for a few minutes, and smell the scent of the lilies in the air. Life doesn't get much better than this.
I started the day with a quick blocking of the hat I finished last night. Ribbed, in a cushy handspun Jacob wool I had a few partial balls of to use up. A post on the little porch proved a great place to put the hat to dry, and incidentally, provided a nice background for the photo.
In between loads of laundry, staying with the Jacob breed, I washed about a fleece and a half that I had gotten a while back and not done anything with yet. This is where the wet and wooly part comes in, since I wash stuff outside, which means hauling hot water in buckets from indoors to fill my tubs. A few old sheets went in a sunny spot for drying, and Mom said it looked like I was working with skunk pelts. Definitely smells nicer than skunk, though!
Cooled wash water from tubs was re-bucketed out and onto a bunch of plants that needed a water and fertilizer shot. More buckets of water came outside in the meantime for the next project, which is a batch of mordanting and dyeing. At this point the clothesline was full of laundry, so I hauled out a big wooden clothes-dryer, because something like 30 skeins got mordanted today.
In the little gaps between waiting for a mordant batch or a fleece batch to be ready for the next step, I got to shell peas. Result, a true green thumb (or at least thumbnail) and a lovely bowl of fresh peas.
Only had time to start one batch of dye after that - greenweed yellow, which will sit overnight - but there will be more dyeing tomorrow, and hopefully pretty pictures of the results. Although I'm planning mostly solid colours, a few of the skeins to be dyed will be multi-coloured, using different techniques, so I can show them as samples for a class I will be teaching at L'Ourse Qui Danse in a couple months. Ran over to the OQD ranch this afternoon to borrow some thiox for tomorrow's indigo dyeing and talk to Johanne about the date for the class - tentatively Sept 19 or 20 at this point. The road going to Johanne's is lovely; gravel road with maple bush along part of it, opening to fields of corn and soy, dark-green and silvery against the late-summer olive of the trees, with the Adirondack mountains misty-blue to the south.
Barbecued local sausages and homemade strawberry shortcake for dinner, and now the last thing before bed will be to go outside to turn off the burner under my dye-pot for the night, watch the fireflies winking for a few minutes, and smell the scent of the lilies in the air. Life doesn't get much better than this.
Thursday, 12 February 2015
Ticking Things Off The List
It's always nice to feel progress is being made. I keep feeling like things aren't getting done as fast as I'd like, but once I started adding up the last few weeks, it's not so bad.
All three pairs of socks for the cousins are now done, blocked, labeled, and wrapped up, ready to pass along.
And there is a pair of mittens and a pair of fingerless mitts done and ready to bring to Jo at the Ranch the next time I go. Right now I'm working on a pair of baby socks to add to that pile, and they go fast enough that they should be done by tomorrow.
I finally got the yarn on the wheel finished and plied - it's cormo that I dyed with bedstraw, walnut, and indigo. Not sure I like the texture of the wool, but we shall see how it is after washing.
No thanks to the Julia, who makes it very obvious she dislikes me spinning by running out and flopping down in front of the wheel when I'm trying to use it.
At least this time she was far enough from the wheel that I could work - sometimes she's right against the wheel like a hit-and-run accident, so I have to stop. Well, she won't be getting away with it for the next little while. Jo's cria rovings are the next thing to spin, and there's a lot of it. Probably close to a kilo. I'm glad it spins easily, but it will still take a while.
Tuesday, 20 January 2015
Sock Phase Begins
With the christening dress off the needles, the next project up is 3 pairs of socks. When my cousins saw the socks their mother got from my mother for her birthday, they loved them. So my aunt decided to commission a pair for each of her 3 girls, and gave me the size and colour info over the holidays.
First up is a pair for Wendy, who wanted grey for the main colour and 4" below the knee. She and one of the other girls are solidly-built, with wide calves, which is why the sock leg looks like it does. The grey is blackberry cane with iron mordant, with indigo blue and greenweed yellow in the trim.
I'm a little farther now than the picture - working on the heel flap. It's been slower going than normal, but my excuse is that I've been on a cleaning jag. Comes on rarely, so I like to take advantage while I'm in the mood. About the only thing in the apartment I haven't cleaned (yet) in the last 3 days is the fridge inside and the kitchen cabinets, but the rest is done, dusted, and slightly better organized, so I'm happy (it's a load off my normally-lazy-about-housework conscience) and looking forward to more knitting time again.
First up is a pair for Wendy, who wanted grey for the main colour and 4" below the knee. She and one of the other girls are solidly-built, with wide calves, which is why the sock leg looks like it does. The grey is blackberry cane with iron mordant, with indigo blue and greenweed yellow in the trim.
I'm a little farther now than the picture - working on the heel flap. It's been slower going than normal, but my excuse is that I've been on a cleaning jag. Comes on rarely, so I like to take advantage while I'm in the mood. About the only thing in the apartment I haven't cleaned (yet) in the last 3 days is the fridge inside and the kitchen cabinets, but the rest is done, dusted, and slightly better organized, so I'm happy (it's a load off my normally-lazy-about-housework conscience) and looking forward to more knitting time again.
Wednesday, 5 November 2014
Backlog - Rhinebeck
Right, so the outdoor work season is just about over for me, and I'm preparing to curl up and hibernate in the yarn and fiber until April. It's bloody gusty out today, and supposed to be flurries later this week, so I think that's good timing.
Only just got around to moving the pictures of my Rhinebeck goodies and our visit to the Vanderbilt Mansion. We had a lovely time (who could help it?) Friday turned out to be the nicest weather of the weekend, warm and sunny enough for us to have a picnic on the grounds of the Vanderbilt Mansion after we went on our tour. Behind the house is a pretty sheer drop-off (wooded, but still, you would probably want to keep drunken guests indoors) and a lovely view across the river.
The parterre gardens were probably less effective than they would have been earlier in the season, but the pool is alway pretty even without the water lilies in bloom, and some roses were still out (one with a bee in headfirst, trying to get in to the nectar.
Indoors we weren't allowed to take pictures with flash, so most of mine didn't turn out well, but the entryway wasn't bad.
At supper that evening, it turned out the person at the next table was a Gotland sheep breeder. Not a breed I was familiar with, but when we went to see the fleece and yarn samples...dudes, it's lovely. I am so getting a fleece next year - I know I saw some at the fleece sale, but I was hunting mohair for someone, and that was before I went to the barns. Silver-greys, soft and drapey like alpaca, and curly like a mohair or something. Anyway, both River Bend Gotlands and Quinta Melo Gotlands (can't find a website for them) had cards there, and I am hanging on to those.
We all did some spending, of course. I think our newbie, Francine was the worst...she went home with an inkle loom, and if her budget wasn't already gone, I think there was half a chance she would have bought a mohair sheep. She certainly fell in love with their cuteness. My budget went pretty fast, but I got lots of pretties. Admittedly, half the pile will be leaving me as gifts, but there are some things for me. I was eyeing some gradient rovings last time, and spent 20 minutes deciding on one from Loop, in mostly reds. I also got a couple skeins of sock yarn, one in periwinkle from Hudson Valley Sheep and Wool Co in Red Hook, and one of Fleece Artist BFL sock. Because I do have a couple pair of socks that I'm about to give up mending.
Then there were a couple skeins of alpaca and silk, one in sea-green for a friend's Christmas gift (scandinavianweaveknit.com), and one in olive (Tess' Designer Yarns) for my mother, along with a tin of Heal My Hands (oh yeah, I got one of those for me too, figured it would help with the gardening dryness.) And a few bundles of multicolored roving for spinning friends (Wellspring Farm).
I can never leave Rhinebeck without books...didn't find everything I wanted, but came home with a history of the Hudson Valley, and a stack of Piecework back issues. One of them has a lovely afghan pattern, which I'm going to have to make sometime. There's no pic of it on Ravelry, but it looks like this.
And I can totally see it in a palette of the natural-dyed colours. Sheep's-black or darkest walnut for the trim, and a range of corals and golds and greens for the panels, or cooler tones of rose and mint and periwinkle...one day. There has been and is a lot of other knitting going on, though, and tomorrow I should get around to showing off all that!
Only just got around to moving the pictures of my Rhinebeck goodies and our visit to the Vanderbilt Mansion. We had a lovely time (who could help it?) Friday turned out to be the nicest weather of the weekend, warm and sunny enough for us to have a picnic on the grounds of the Vanderbilt Mansion after we went on our tour. Behind the house is a pretty sheer drop-off (wooded, but still, you would probably want to keep drunken guests indoors) and a lovely view across the river.
The parterre gardens were probably less effective than they would have been earlier in the season, but the pool is alway pretty even without the water lilies in bloom, and some roses were still out (one with a bee in headfirst, trying to get in to the nectar.
Indoors we weren't allowed to take pictures with flash, so most of mine didn't turn out well, but the entryway wasn't bad.
At supper that evening, it turned out the person at the next table was a Gotland sheep breeder. Not a breed I was familiar with, but when we went to see the fleece and yarn samples...dudes, it's lovely. I am so getting a fleece next year - I know I saw some at the fleece sale, but I was hunting mohair for someone, and that was before I went to the barns. Silver-greys, soft and drapey like alpaca, and curly like a mohair or something. Anyway, both River Bend Gotlands and Quinta Melo Gotlands (can't find a website for them) had cards there, and I am hanging on to those.
We all did some spending, of course. I think our newbie, Francine was the worst...she went home with an inkle loom, and if her budget wasn't already gone, I think there was half a chance she would have bought a mohair sheep. She certainly fell in love with their cuteness. My budget went pretty fast, but I got lots of pretties. Admittedly, half the pile will be leaving me as gifts, but there are some things for me. I was eyeing some gradient rovings last time, and spent 20 minutes deciding on one from Loop, in mostly reds. I also got a couple skeins of sock yarn, one in periwinkle from Hudson Valley Sheep and Wool Co in Red Hook, and one of Fleece Artist BFL sock. Because I do have a couple pair of socks that I'm about to give up mending.
Then there were a couple skeins of alpaca and silk, one in sea-green for a friend's Christmas gift (scandinavianweaveknit.com), and one in olive (Tess' Designer Yarns) for my mother, along with a tin of Heal My Hands (oh yeah, I got one of those for me too, figured it would help with the gardening dryness.) And a few bundles of multicolored roving for spinning friends (Wellspring Farm).
I can never leave Rhinebeck without books...didn't find everything I wanted, but came home with a history of the Hudson Valley, and a stack of Piecework back issues. One of them has a lovely afghan pattern, which I'm going to have to make sometime. There's no pic of it on Ravelry, but it looks like this.
And I can totally see it in a palette of the natural-dyed colours. Sheep's-black or darkest walnut for the trim, and a range of corals and golds and greens for the panels, or cooler tones of rose and mint and periwinkle...one day. There has been and is a lot of other knitting going on, though, and tomorrow I should get around to showing off all that!
Tuesday, 23 September 2014
Dye Another Day
Mid September...we've had our first mild frost, and it's officially fall. The regular garden maintenance at work is finished, and it's too early to start cutting back and garden shutdowns. The boss talked to the garden team last week and told us this, and he was really sorry, but we were going to have a few weeks where we wouldn't be working every day, starting with this week having yesterday and today off.
He really did seem a little concerned, like he hoped we would be OK and not starve because work was slow. I said I totally understood that was how the industry worked, and I was happy to have a little extra time to do my own stuff. And in my head, I'm going "Yes! Perfect timing! Thank you!"
So much going on outside of work between now and the end of October! All fun stuff, happily. It turns out I may have not one but two natural-dyeing classes to teach at the local guild, and today when I'm out doing errands, they will include picking up a parcel of yarn for the class, making an extra couple copies of class handout notes, and getting some dye supplies. Then Sunday I had a visit from someone I've done a couple commissions for, and she had a few more commissions she wants me to do, the biggest one with a deadline of beginning of November. Which coincides nicely with my prep time for the guild Ex and Sale. And of course there's Rhinebeck in mid-October. I've started a shopping list, and will be making reservations for dinners and sightseeing for our group in the next few weeks. We're planning to go to the Vanderbilt estate out there - Mom and I went the first year we did Rhinebeck, and the others haven't been at all, so it's time we revisited!
This weekend has been all about the dye pots again. There's a group my mother is part of, all multi-craftual, talented women, who are getting together and doing a series of KAL-type things, only not all knitting. Weaving, woodwork, embroidery, who knows what else. The current project coming up is knitting, though. One woman has a book with gorgeous stranded socks and slippers, so they're going to do that - only since most of them have done natural dyeing with me, and one has a dye garden, they decided to have me come and lead a workshop there, and natural-dye the yarn for their projects. And they are very enthusiastic! It was supposed to be 5 skeins each, but there was some extra, and so many possibilities with mordants and baths, that they ended up with 6 skeins each, and a bunch of things where they're going to split skeins between people because they couldn't decide between possibilities...I was there from 8am to 6pm, and we must have done a dozen colours on over 40 skeins, including woad and Japanese indigo from the garden. It was super fun, and lunch was a pot-luck, with spaghetti and salad, and fresh homemade cheese curds one of the women makes from their cows' milk! You know a good time was had by all when they're already planning next year's session...
I was supposed to do my mother's share of the skeins for the project, but saved that for the next couple days while I dyed my own stuff at home. Less crowded dye pots, and more leisure to plan. I think it turned out to be a good couple days' work:
Isn't the red something? I finally got around to using some of the pokeberries I've been freezing. Mashed a couple litres of them and soaked them in vinegar overnight, soaked an alum-mordanted skein in vinegar overnight also, mixed the two solutions and the yarn after straining the berries out, and simmered (covered, thank you!) for an hour or so. It boiled a little towards the end when I wasn't watching, but doesn't seem to have harmed the result. The other skeins going away from the red, include onion with copper mordant, dried coreopsis with alum, greenweed and onion with alum, rudbeckia with alum and iron/onion/woad, greenweed with alum overdyed with woad, rudbeckia with alum and iron, and two shades of black walnut, no mordant.
He really did seem a little concerned, like he hoped we would be OK and not starve because work was slow. I said I totally understood that was how the industry worked, and I was happy to have a little extra time to do my own stuff. And in my head, I'm going "Yes! Perfect timing! Thank you!"
So much going on outside of work between now and the end of October! All fun stuff, happily. It turns out I may have not one but two natural-dyeing classes to teach at the local guild, and today when I'm out doing errands, they will include picking up a parcel of yarn for the class, making an extra couple copies of class handout notes, and getting some dye supplies. Then Sunday I had a visit from someone I've done a couple commissions for, and she had a few more commissions she wants me to do, the biggest one with a deadline of beginning of November. Which coincides nicely with my prep time for the guild Ex and Sale. And of course there's Rhinebeck in mid-October. I've started a shopping list, and will be making reservations for dinners and sightseeing for our group in the next few weeks. We're planning to go to the Vanderbilt estate out there - Mom and I went the first year we did Rhinebeck, and the others haven't been at all, so it's time we revisited!
This weekend has been all about the dye pots again. There's a group my mother is part of, all multi-craftual, talented women, who are getting together and doing a series of KAL-type things, only not all knitting. Weaving, woodwork, embroidery, who knows what else. The current project coming up is knitting, though. One woman has a book with gorgeous stranded socks and slippers, so they're going to do that - only since most of them have done natural dyeing with me, and one has a dye garden, they decided to have me come and lead a workshop there, and natural-dye the yarn for their projects. And they are very enthusiastic! It was supposed to be 5 skeins each, but there was some extra, and so many possibilities with mordants and baths, that they ended up with 6 skeins each, and a bunch of things where they're going to split skeins between people because they couldn't decide between possibilities...I was there from 8am to 6pm, and we must have done a dozen colours on over 40 skeins, including woad and Japanese indigo from the garden. It was super fun, and lunch was a pot-luck, with spaghetti and salad, and fresh homemade cheese curds one of the women makes from their cows' milk! You know a good time was had by all when they're already planning next year's session...
I was supposed to do my mother's share of the skeins for the project, but saved that for the next couple days while I dyed my own stuff at home. Less crowded dye pots, and more leisure to plan. I think it turned out to be a good couple days' work:
Isn't the red something? I finally got around to using some of the pokeberries I've been freezing. Mashed a couple litres of them and soaked them in vinegar overnight, soaked an alum-mordanted skein in vinegar overnight also, mixed the two solutions and the yarn after straining the berries out, and simmered (covered, thank you!) for an hour or so. It boiled a little towards the end when I wasn't watching, but doesn't seem to have harmed the result. The other skeins going away from the red, include onion with copper mordant, dried coreopsis with alum, greenweed and onion with alum, rudbeckia with alum and iron/onion/woad, greenweed with alum overdyed with woad, rudbeckia with alum and iron, and two shades of black walnut, no mordant.
Sunday, 24 August 2014
Tempus Fugit
So...how did it get to be 3+ weeks into August already? I've been hearing geese and seeing red leaves - summer's almost over! And it's so dark in the morning now (and cool!) - the birds are only starting to wake up when I leave for work, instead of being up before me. The rabbits are up early, though - Julia's been chasing (but not catching) them in the mornings while I eat breakfast. The weeds in most gardens at work are starting to slow down, but now all the deadheading and cutting back starts. I got into my garden today for the first time in a month, and did the weeding and deadheading; came out with armloads of stuff to compost.
All my other late summer - early fall stuff is going on now too - that's my excuse for disappearing from the blog.
Dye plants are ready, and I've been doing a pile of my own dyeing for the fall shows (pretty, ain't it?), teaching a class in dyeing and one in spinning, and have two, maybe three more dye classes to teach next month. It's exciting that people seem to be really enjoying the natural dyeing. One of the classes, in fact, is a group where they want to dye their own yarn for a KAL of stranded socks and slippers. One of the members I know has done a bit of dyeing and is growing dye plants, and I'll be there to organize and answer questions, and make sure they get a nice variety of colours to play with.
One craft show down, next one in 2 weeks (the Roxham Woolgathering, which has been moved a week earlier this year). One agricultural fair down, one coming in 3 weeks. We exhibit a lot - and doesn't that occasion a pile of running around cutting flowers and scrubbing veg and labelling jam jars! And thinking of jam jars...one batch of beet pickles and two of jam done, probably another round of the pickles to go.
And then there's the knitting - a few commissions, including socks for my aunt's birthday out of some of my natural-dyed yarn, and trying to accumulate stock for the shows coming up. Thank goodness for long bus rides, because otherwise I would get about 10 minutes of knitting a day after supper before I start nodding off!
All my other late summer - early fall stuff is going on now too - that's my excuse for disappearing from the blog.
Dye plants are ready, and I've been doing a pile of my own dyeing for the fall shows (pretty, ain't it?), teaching a class in dyeing and one in spinning, and have two, maybe three more dye classes to teach next month. It's exciting that people seem to be really enjoying the natural dyeing. One of the classes, in fact, is a group where they want to dye their own yarn for a KAL of stranded socks and slippers. One of the members I know has done a bit of dyeing and is growing dye plants, and I'll be there to organize and answer questions, and make sure they get a nice variety of colours to play with.
One craft show down, next one in 2 weeks (the Roxham Woolgathering, which has been moved a week earlier this year). One agricultural fair down, one coming in 3 weeks. We exhibit a lot - and doesn't that occasion a pile of running around cutting flowers and scrubbing veg and labelling jam jars! And thinking of jam jars...one batch of beet pickles and two of jam done, probably another round of the pickles to go.
And then there's the knitting - a few commissions, including socks for my aunt's birthday out of some of my natural-dyed yarn, and trying to accumulate stock for the shows coming up. Thank goodness for long bus rides, because otherwise I would get about 10 minutes of knitting a day after supper before I start nodding off!
Sunday, 1 June 2014
Summer's First Dyeing
A gorgeous weekend, and one I get to spend out at the parents', having fun. Yesterday there was a trip to the local greenhouse to ogle their stocks (and their cat), then a run to Johanne's with my latest knits. The crescent shawl I was working on turned out nicely, and I had also finished a pair of short-row fingerless mitts (the Mixed Wave mitts by Sybil R).
Right now I've got a pair of socks on the needles, scrappy and in stranded patterns, for my brother's landlady. She loved the ones Mom made her daughter for Christmas, and has commissioned two pairs for herself, so we're each making a pair. No pics yet, but I promise there will be.
Today we have had some fun in the dye pots. One of the local weaving guild members who was in the dye course I taught last year wanted to dye some yarn for a weaving project, so she and a friend and her husband all came over. He took off for a nice rural bike ride, and the ladies and I ran an indigo pot. I made the pot fairly strong, and cooked up a batch of fresh greenweed for myself as well, then dyed a bunch of fleece after the yarn was done. Now the clothesline is cheerful with fleece in aqua from the greenweed overdyed with indigo, and sapphire from the indigo alone. I can't wait to see how they look as yarn.
Right now I've got a pair of socks on the needles, scrappy and in stranded patterns, for my brother's landlady. She loved the ones Mom made her daughter for Christmas, and has commissioned two pairs for herself, so we're each making a pair. No pics yet, but I promise there will be.
Today we have had some fun in the dye pots. One of the local weaving guild members who was in the dye course I taught last year wanted to dye some yarn for a weaving project, so she and a friend and her husband all came over. He took off for a nice rural bike ride, and the ladies and I ran an indigo pot. I made the pot fairly strong, and cooked up a batch of fresh greenweed for myself as well, then dyed a bunch of fleece after the yarn was done. Now the clothesline is cheerful with fleece in aqua from the greenweed overdyed with indigo, and sapphire from the indigo alone. I can't wait to see how they look as yarn.
Wednesday, 9 October 2013
Nuts, Bugs, and Other Wildlife
It's fall in the country. And in the fall, a dyer's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of...nuts.
No, not that kind.
This kind.
What with a few windy days, the butternuts and black walnuts have been falling en masse, and I'm happy that coincided with my vacation week at the farm. We've got two wheelbarrow-fuls of butternuts picked up, and I spent one morning picking up four large pots of black walnuts and hulling them. The hulls are spread out on screens to dry, and the nuts are dumped in a pile for the squirrels, since I don't consider the flavor worth the effort of cracking them.
A fifth pot got picked up and hulled today (part of what fell since the last haul), and resulted in three skeins of yarn in a colour like dark chocolate.
Hanging out in the field where I was cracking walnuts, I found a little brown frog, and Mom found a few praying mantises. Don't usually see them, but they seem to like her new hosta patch.
Harvest time here also means the apples are ripening - domestic and semi-wild. There are some random trees on the lane with fruit that taste like russet apples, some with big yellow fruit behind the house that may be the remnants of an old orchard, and little, glossy crimson crabapples that make a nice jelly.
And the squash! Pro tip, dudes. Plant your squash in the compost pile. There was an accidental one coming up there this spring, so Mom left it...it went wild and was super-healthy, took over a chunk of the field, and produced 33 squash.
Beside the harvest, there's been lots of wildlife excitement. It's tick season, so we've been checking the dog and cats daily. Record so far is Abby, who brought home three at a time. She was also behind a little fracas this morning. She brought a mouse home (which was still alive), and let herself into the house. She wanted to play with it before eating it, I guess, but the dog thought maybe it was for him, scared Abby, and the mouse ran away and hid. The dog tried to get at it (we're not sure whether a wet spot there was dog drool, or the mouse wetting himself in fear), but it escaped and is presumably at large in the house. Maybe he'll join the ones I heard in the walls last night!
No, not that kind.
This kind.
What with a few windy days, the butternuts and black walnuts have been falling en masse, and I'm happy that coincided with my vacation week at the farm. We've got two wheelbarrow-fuls of butternuts picked up, and I spent one morning picking up four large pots of black walnuts and hulling them. The hulls are spread out on screens to dry, and the nuts are dumped in a pile for the squirrels, since I don't consider the flavor worth the effort of cracking them.
A fifth pot got picked up and hulled today (part of what fell since the last haul), and resulted in three skeins of yarn in a colour like dark chocolate.
Hanging out in the field where I was cracking walnuts, I found a little brown frog, and Mom found a few praying mantises. Don't usually see them, but they seem to like her new hosta patch.
Harvest time here also means the apples are ripening - domestic and semi-wild. There are some random trees on the lane with fruit that taste like russet apples, some with big yellow fruit behind the house that may be the remnants of an old orchard, and little, glossy crimson crabapples that make a nice jelly.
And the squash! Pro tip, dudes. Plant your squash in the compost pile. There was an accidental one coming up there this spring, so Mom left it...it went wild and was super-healthy, took over a chunk of the field, and produced 33 squash.
Beside the harvest, there's been lots of wildlife excitement. It's tick season, so we've been checking the dog and cats daily. Record so far is Abby, who brought home three at a time. She was also behind a little fracas this morning. She brought a mouse home (which was still alive), and let herself into the house. She wanted to play with it before eating it, I guess, but the dog thought maybe it was for him, scared Abby, and the mouse ran away and hid. The dog tried to get at it (we're not sure whether a wet spot there was dog drool, or the mouse wetting himself in fear), but it escaped and is presumably at large in the house. Maybe he'll join the ones I heard in the walls last night!
Wednesday, 26 June 2013
Country Weekend, By The Numbers
Monday and Tuesday were the 'weekend' for me, out to the parents' with the cat. What does a couple days out there look like this time of year? Well, I didn't even get around to unpacking my camera, but it shaped up kind of like this:
Number of -
thunderstorms rolling through over two days: 3
loads of wash that nevertheless got done and dried on the clothesline: 4
dye baths cooked up: 6
skeins of yarn dyed: 15
(the ones still damp are currently hanging in my bathtub)
baby chicks to check out: 32
bunches of catnip to hang for drying: 3
wild strawberries picked and eaten in homemade shortcake: 1 cup
mosquito bites sustained while picking: about 24 per ankle
(bare feet in clogs not the best idea, even if it was bloody hot)
garlic scapes harvested and currently residing in my fridge: 125
bouquets picked for taking to the city:2
meals with wood-barbecued meat: 3
meals with salad and snow peas from the garden: 2
spinning projects packed: 2
yards of yarn spun: 0
(I always overestimate the amount of work I'll get done in a couple days...)
mittens knitted: 1
mittens delivered to Johanne: 1 pair
times my cat came indoors over the two days: 4
(and stayed in for maybe 5 minutes each time)
In other words, a great time was had by all. Now it's countdown to Tour de Fleece next weekend, and St. Anicet Festival in mid-July...
Number of -
thunderstorms rolling through over two days: 3
loads of wash that nevertheless got done and dried on the clothesline: 4
dye baths cooked up: 6
skeins of yarn dyed: 15
(the ones still damp are currently hanging in my bathtub)
baby chicks to check out: 32
bunches of catnip to hang for drying: 3
wild strawberries picked and eaten in homemade shortcake: 1 cup
mosquito bites sustained while picking: about 24 per ankle
(bare feet in clogs not the best idea, even if it was bloody hot)
garlic scapes harvested and currently residing in my fridge: 125
bouquets picked for taking to the city:2
meals with wood-barbecued meat: 3
meals with salad and snow peas from the garden: 2
spinning projects packed: 2
yards of yarn spun: 0
(I always overestimate the amount of work I'll get done in a couple days...)
mittens knitted: 1
mittens delivered to Johanne: 1 pair
times my cat came indoors over the two days: 4
(and stayed in for maybe 5 minutes each time)
In other words, a great time was had by all. Now it's countdown to Tour de Fleece next weekend, and St. Anicet Festival in mid-July...
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
Dang, I'm Good
(Julia says, "OMG! Help! A tornado just blew through!)
No, but seriously. I feel like this has been a really productive, efficient couple of days off. So much got done! Now I can go back to another few days of work with a clear conscience, clean clothes - and food in the fridge, ready to go. One of the things that got done was groceries, plus I made a batch of lentil soup and one of bruschetta (with fresh herbs from the garden!) , a loaf of bread, and some rice cooked up to use for fried rice.
And the fridge has a light now, for the first time in months. The landlord was in yesterday to check out some issues with my electric sockets, and he succeeded in getting the broken bulb out of the fridge so a new one could be put in.
The kitchen's steamed up right now, and has been all evening. One pot of boiling water went into a pail of aphid-infested leaves from the currant bush. Spraying them wasn't really helping (plus the rain kept washing the spray off), so I went out and picked off every single infested leaf I could find, and cooked the buggers. The other two pots currently boiling are mordant and cochineal dye. The UPS shipment yesterday turned out, unexpectedly, to be the yarn I ordered for dyeing. So three skeins of that and a handful of other skeins are getting colored tonight in shades of red and pink - I'm getting every drop of work I can out of that pot of cochineal.
The rest of today has been gardening, spinning and knitting. My Japanese indigo seedlings are set out in a few empty spots in the flower beds, a niche has been found for a little globe basil, and a new row of beets has been planted. Plus the blue fingerless mitts I was working on are done and blocking, and a bunch of angora/wool blend has been carded and spun. Life is good.
No, but seriously. I feel like this has been a really productive, efficient couple of days off. So much got done! Now I can go back to another few days of work with a clear conscience, clean clothes - and food in the fridge, ready to go. One of the things that got done was groceries, plus I made a batch of lentil soup and one of bruschetta (with fresh herbs from the garden!) , a loaf of bread, and some rice cooked up to use for fried rice.
And the fridge has a light now, for the first time in months. The landlord was in yesterday to check out some issues with my electric sockets, and he succeeded in getting the broken bulb out of the fridge so a new one could be put in.
The kitchen's steamed up right now, and has been all evening. One pot of boiling water went into a pail of aphid-infested leaves from the currant bush. Spraying them wasn't really helping (plus the rain kept washing the spray off), so I went out and picked off every single infested leaf I could find, and cooked the buggers. The other two pots currently boiling are mordant and cochineal dye. The UPS shipment yesterday turned out, unexpectedly, to be the yarn I ordered for dyeing. So three skeins of that and a handful of other skeins are getting colored tonight in shades of red and pink - I'm getting every drop of work I can out of that pot of cochineal.
The rest of today has been gardening, spinning and knitting. My Japanese indigo seedlings are set out in a few empty spots in the flower beds, a niche has been found for a little globe basil, and a new row of beets has been planted. Plus the blue fingerless mitts I was working on are done and blocking, and a bunch of angora/wool blend has been carded and spun. Life is good.
Friday, 5 October 2012
See Amanda Run
See Amanda. See Amanda run. See Amanda drying yarn and blocking pillow cover pieces.
Only to discover the pillow top is on the small side. Hmm.
See Amanda run around stacking interlock pieces Wednesday, attending the inaugural garden club meeting at school, learning to drive a riding mower Thursday, and then dashing off to Deb's to make measurements and pictures for an assignment (on interviewing clients and getting the needed information, presented as a theoretical garden/landscaping renovation.)
Also, see Amanda succumbing to the lure of Chapters and purchasing both the new Knitting Traditions and Knits Holiday magazines from Interweave.
See Amanda catching the nasty cold going around at school. See Amanda navigating the Friday Safety lecture and quiz with the help of Tylenol and ginger tea. See Amanda looking ahead to Saturday demoing spinning all day with the prospect of a wedding reception that evening to go to...
Yeah, that was my week. Hope everyone else's was good. Tomorrow's demo is back home, at the official store/studio opening for Johanne's alpaca ranch, L'Ourse Qui Danse, in Godmanchester, Quebec. She wants me there to spin, and show off some of the natural dye colors, since the idea is that I may be teaching workshops on those topics at her store/studio. Just hope Jo doesn't mind me coughing and blowing my nose, and croaking. But unless I feel a heck of a lot better tomorrow, I'm going to try to avoid the reception. Very thankful (appropriately) this is a holiday weekend, and I have two days after tomorrow where I hopefully don't have to go anywhere, and someone else can cook and let the cat in and out, while I rest and do homework, and try to catch up on knitting...
Only to discover the pillow top is on the small side. Hmm.
See Amanda run around stacking interlock pieces Wednesday, attending the inaugural garden club meeting at school, learning to drive a riding mower Thursday, and then dashing off to Deb's to make measurements and pictures for an assignment (on interviewing clients and getting the needed information, presented as a theoretical garden/landscaping renovation.)
Also, see Amanda succumbing to the lure of Chapters and purchasing both the new Knitting Traditions and Knits Holiday magazines from Interweave.
See Amanda catching the nasty cold going around at school. See Amanda navigating the Friday Safety lecture and quiz with the help of Tylenol and ginger tea. See Amanda looking ahead to Saturday demoing spinning all day with the prospect of a wedding reception that evening to go to...
Yeah, that was my week. Hope everyone else's was good. Tomorrow's demo is back home, at the official store/studio opening for Johanne's alpaca ranch, L'Ourse Qui Danse, in Godmanchester, Quebec. She wants me there to spin, and show off some of the natural dye colors, since the idea is that I may be teaching workshops on those topics at her store/studio. Just hope Jo doesn't mind me coughing and blowing my nose, and croaking. But unless I feel a heck of a lot better tomorrow, I'm going to try to avoid the reception. Very thankful (appropriately) this is a holiday weekend, and I have two days after tomorrow where I hopefully don't have to go anywhere, and someone else can cook and let the cat in and out, while I rest and do homework, and try to catch up on knitting...
Wednesday, 5 September 2012
New Yarn Going Up and Cat Antics
About half the yarn from the past week's dyeing is dry now, and I've started to do the re-skeining. That's usually the final step for a few reasons. For one, after having me dipping and rinsing and turning it on the drying rack, most of the skeins are not precisely tidy anymore. Re-skeining at a different length from the original skein, so the colors are more mixed up, I find also gives a notion of how the yarn will look in a project, and what the dominant color/effect will be. And last but not trivial, for the indigo-dyed skeins especially, I get a chance to see whether the color is going to crock (rub off) significantly.
Light's half-decent, so I got a couple skeins of sock yarn photographed this afternoon, and put the first one up on Etsy. The rest will get added gradually over the next few weeks, minus anything that sells this weekend.
This is the Foxglove colorway.
And this is Strawberry Swirl, going up tomorrow.
Longer day of class today, including 1.5 hours on study habits and student success...my pillow top is coming along nicely. Ginger provided an extremely apt illustration by wandering into the classroom and along the tops of the desks looking for pets (and getting them) while the teacher was talking about managing distractions during studying. Who says cats don't understand English?
Light's half-decent, so I got a couple skeins of sock yarn photographed this afternoon, and put the first one up on Etsy. The rest will get added gradually over the next few weeks, minus anything that sells this weekend.
This is the Foxglove colorway.
And this is Strawberry Swirl, going up tomorrow.
Longer day of class today, including 1.5 hours on study habits and student success...my pillow top is coming along nicely. Ginger provided an extremely apt illustration by wandering into the classroom and along the tops of the desks looking for pets (and getting them) while the teacher was talking about managing distractions during studying. Who says cats don't understand English?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)