Tear down the walls, bring in the light...happy solstice...all

May we break boundaries, tear down walls, and build on the foundation of goodness inside each of us. May we look past differences, gain understanding, and embrace acceptance. May we reach out to each other, rather than resist. May we be better stewards of the earth, protecting, nurturing, and replenishing the beauties of nature. May we practice gratitude for all we have, rather than complain about our needs. May we seek cures for the sick, help for the hungry, and love for the lonely. May we share our talents, give our time, and teach our children. May we hold hope for the future very tenderly in our hearts and do all we can to build for a brighter tomorrow. And may we love with our whole hears, for that's the only way to love.......

I read this on a blog and thought it was worth reading for the new year, Christmas, Solstice, or whatever you celebrate...cheers

snow capped

Snow capped takes on a whole different meaning ...here are some lepiotas having their second coming this fall, but alas a little deep freeze happening here, thus the end of my mushroom hunting for a bit...

its sad, as I love to go shrooming, but once the snow is gone I will go again, even just for other lichens etc...

the above pics are of lobster mushrooms, hypomyces lactifluorum plied with a brown merino, and the other is some weld that a friend gave me she had pulled some small weld plants a few months ago, and found them all shrivelled, gave them to me and voila still colored the wool...this is alum mordanted blue face, and is a soft yellow.

I also just received some amazing wensleydale fleece from Britain. As the pure wensleydales are not available here, and these have locks about 10 inches so so sweet...I will use these in scarves and boas, etc. as they are way too long for me to tease and card and the curls are best untouched except to dye them...so I have about a couple of years supply now. Such amazing sheep, they must look wonderful in the pasture, with their amazing coats.

So blessings to everyone for the holidays, six more days til the days start to get longer., which is amazing . It is definitely wooly weather here now. feeding the fire, spinning cashmere and cultivated silk, could it be any sweeter, well yes, if my sailor was home feeding the fire, but its a great second best...

Ramaria formosa? for dyeing for mosa...

Here is the find of the day that I brought home, I have seen this many times in thewoods, and it is a ramaria, but does it dye purple, that is the question....I hope this is the one, I have some soaking with a titch of ammonia, hoping the bring forth some color, and it is bringing up rusts, not very purple, but I shall pursue this as it is said in :"all the rain promises" mushroom book, that purple should be had with this coral mushroom....
There are a lot of ramaria here on the West Coast, in a variety of color, some white, others greyish, and then this salmon colored one...so far it is giving off a salmon color in the ammonia and water, I will also try some in vinegar to see if that makes a difference to what the color gives off.. I have been busy with two local Xmas fairs, one down one to go, and have been labeling and packing and selling. Also getting things ready for galleries, and shipping wool, all a very busy season, but know it will come to a grinding halt in January.
I have several endeavours on the table for January, perhaps combining some cedar bark weaving and some gourds, and get back into weaving bark for awhile...of course I can always use my scraps of cedar to dye wool...the problem is that wool is so, so soft and comfy and compared to anything else is a cushy form of creativity and is very warm and comforting. Cedar bark is wet, as you have to work wet, and gourds are wonderful but hard, and carving them and burning them isn't nearly as comforting as fibre.
So I will have to push myself to move out of my "comfort" zone...and can't see myself leaving wool alone for too long...it is addictive.
So off to try more experiments, and oh, I added a few new blogs on my site, one is Jenny Dean, dyer and writer and yarnpiggy, who I love, and Mrs. Quimby who is always entertaining...
you might want to check out Rick Mercer;s video on yarnpiggy, all about ousting smarmy Harper....with a coalition government to replace him, I am all for that...
so onward and upward...and into the dye vats...

oops

here is the site

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVRfVEONxJQ

A must see

Found this a must see, beautiful work and a lot of work...the women were amazing to watch , never again will I complain about carrying a few colors...lol

Mycelium blossoms still abound

Loving this new stitch, easy yet looks like I'm a very good knitter, just my type of mindless knitting....Faggot stitch, I am in love....

Not much posting lately as I have been working towards two Xmas fairs here, and so am busy labeling (not my favourite job) and then of course the sun was out so I was in the woods gathering the sanguinea and semi sanguinea like a mad fool...I would go for an supposed hour and three hours later emerge from the woods bags full of dyers mushrooms...I know the first frost will do them in so I have to gather now.

Will be doing a lot more dyeing after the fairs and have lots of dried dyer mushrooms to experiment with..even some blue tooth fungus..and some phelledon...very exciting.
And more on the newsy front Jenny Dean, author of a few of my favourite natural dyeing reference books, has a blog. http://www.jennydean.co.uk/wordpress/index.php and she has some great posts already. One on woad dyeing which I intend to do next year as I just received some woad seeds from Germany..I will trade her for Weld seeds.
So I will post more pics later, and have some "fair" stories to tell. Let the mycelium spread and the mushrooms bloom on...

Dermocybe madness!!

So many dermocybe, but still don't know the difference...do know northern, as this is definitely deep red stipe, gills, the works...but as for the others there seems so many choices ..Today I picked sanguinea, semi sanguine (I think) and other sanguinea....some are yellow stipes with red gills, some are bright yellow gills and stalks with beige cap, some are curled at the edge of the cap, with yellow gills and beige stalk...I am so confused...will I ever learn the different types, doubtful, but I love the colors, and I am dyeing with them and drying them...here are some of the coral tones I got with the semi sanguinea, and my somewhat alkaline well water. The dermocybes are big and abundant right now here... I got that pile in a few hours of hiking in the woods...of course abundance is relative, but I was thrilled. And I have been trying to separate the kinds, hugely frustrating, and drying them in the dehydrator and they dry quite quickly.
Did some cashmere today in hypomyces lactifluorum, (lobster) and it turned out very nice. Will show soon as it dries. All in all a gillfull day. lol

Here are the three types I found today. Could be six types you never know, but they are the right types I am sure of that. All will give me wonderful colors.

Oh Oh Oh Oh Obama!!!

This is indeed a day that was great to wake up to....I am thrilled, excited, goosebumped and generally the world is a better place today and hopefully for awhile. I can't believe how nauseous I was yesterday while waiting for the outcome..and how tearfully thankful for that outcome...I can only imagine what an American must feel..

So while I waited I went shrooming to calm my angst, and that was a five hour bush whacking journey, which turned out very sweet.. Western Red Dyes were found, and chantrelles to eat with dinner...Now the semi sanguinea are drying in the dryer, along with some sanguinea I found today....here is a pic of yesterdays semi sanguinea along with a sweet faced tree frog ...so all in all it was a perfect day.

west coast lobsters

Lobsters (hypomyces lactifluorum) fill the pot...that is a sink full. Found a mountain side full of them and have peeled my third batch and here they are...Today, my friend and I went up the mountain for the second time to gather and we had so many we had to take turns carrying the bag....but look at those colors...I did end up adding ammonia to the bath after the peachy tones and voila , instant rose...It changed right before your eyes...so sweet, and now I have peach and rose colors available in the fall...I am thrilled, too thrilled really, it is only wool and mushrooms, but what a rush it can provide.
I threw in the silk scarf and it came out so evenly dyed I was surprised...now I have more on the stove, having washed and peeled the sink full of them, not a pleasant job, a bit buggy and slimy on the hands but well worth it.
I haven't found any sanguinea yet, so perhaps this will have to suffice for the time being, but I am well pleased and will try using washing soda instead of ammonia in future and see if that produces the quick radical results...I don't really like the smell of ammonia on the wool, and have to wash it twice to get the smell out.

Excitement abounds...

Well I am way too excited about today's dyeing, perhaps I have a problem....
To start with I dyed with the peachy one with the hypoloma fasciculare(lobster) which I peeled and put in hot water, mine being alkaline, and then left overnight, it was peachy...then I boiled it and it darkened big time, to burgundy, then I added three skeins of 50/50 silk wool, and voila peachy keen...I am thrilled...not as rosy but more peachy don;'t know whether it was that the water alkalinity was about 8.5 and maybe if I had added ammonia and boosted it , it would be rosier.... I went and gathered more and will experiment next week.....
then I heated up the phaeolus, and added all kinds of lusciousness, silk, cashmere, silk/wool, cashmere silk, and got it a golden yellow, and then added the infamous half tsp. of iron, mixed with a titch of cot...and cooked another 30 minutes or so, and yum.....I can hardly keep my eyes of it...I am definitely a color addict...no doubt....I keep getting up and checking it out...it is alchemy...
And the last photo is the logwood grey and iron where I tried to get a black out of it, no luck but a lovely , darker than this appears, blue deep slatey grey.....another yum, and they all look great together....so it was a major fun day...had my sister with me and she got to see the iron change the phaeolus and was duly impressed..and I got to give up a bunch of yarn to her so it was a good day all around...
and the season has just started...and the rain is coming down..and the mushrooms are coming up....yeh...

Big Butt Rot

I thought that title might get a lot of people coming to the blog, and a lot of disappointment too...lol

I was out today shrooming after a heavy rain yesterday, everything was popping, well not everything, no cortinarius, but the biggest butt rot, phaeolus, I have found. The sun was shining through the woods right onto it. That seems to be how these are found here...and once picked the whole edge turns brown almost immediately so I took this while it was growing, then harvested and now it is coooking in the pot...I will not mordant silk/ just use the natural tannin in this, then I will again add iron, to turn it from gold to green, hopefully...the collar below was made from some lichen from the maple, lungwort, or lobaria pulmonaria...and it was silk boucle, and the"elizabeth" pattern which I really like...very comfy to wear and easy to knit...check it out on Ravelry, I think it is a Kate Gilbert pattern which I purchased...which by the way is way too easy to do with paypal...and you think "oh, what's four =six dollars" all very tempting...and you have it right away...I love the internet..
and then I found a big batch of hypholoma faxciculare, doesn't that just roll off your tongue..lol and they are also cooking. They love to grow on downed alder and they are like weeds here so I found a ton...and the deer don't like them so they leave them alone, in fact not many bugs eat them either...
Then I found what I was really looking for "hypomyces lactifluorum," (another tongue roller) commonly called Lobster, and I got them home, about ten, and then immediately peeled them, and put them in boiling water, some people add ammonia at l Tbsp. but my water if from a deep well and is very alkaline, so no ammonia needed...I guess if I was a "real" dyer I would only use distilled water, but apparently I am not, so what I get is what I get with my high ammonia water, very occasionally I do add vinegar to acidify it, but not often.
Also was attempting to get black silk, without using indigo, and so used some logwood grey extract and added some mordanted with alum silk and wool and then lifted half way through and added iron, but alas deep wonderful purple but not black...
will keep trying.
so let the season begin...i can hear the mycelium talking....

Getting Green

There is todays shrooming basket, full of dyers polypores, sulfur tufts, hypholoma fasciculare, and an unidentified polypore...so that was todays fun....
the dyers polypore, phaeolus schweinitizii, became the green above....first I did not put any mordant in as apparently it is high in tannin, so I did some silk/wool blend and it turned a lovely gold in about l5 min....so then I pulled it and added one half tsp of iron, and voila, a beautiful rich green...like I have never had before, I am thrilled.....then the sulfur tufts became this buttery yellow, with an alum cream of tartar mordant....I must admit to being a little of a cream of tartar addict...it does make the wool so soft...and helps dissolve the iron also...whenever I add iron to sadden, hardly, the colour, I also add cream of tartar as it apparently makes the iron dissolve and distribute evenly on the fibre....
of course, I am a babe in the woods on all this, and am just learning more each day, thanks to a lot of folks and books, and the internet...
all I know is that I love being in the woods and bushwhacking and finding treasures, and that I love being able to get color from the things I find...I must keep better notes, as this site is really what I use for a journal....but I have a few notes and need to be a lot more consistent...
am still waiting for the sanguinea to show, nothing yet here...but the chantrelles are beginning...
and the sulfur tufts seem to be peaking right now...as are the young polypores...
so more fun to be had, but I have to figure out how to store these polypores without processing them, as I want to be able to use them in the winter when I have not others to use....drying isn`t really an option they are so large, and I don`t want to cook them up and have a moldy pot of yuk around, as I have no room for that either....
I will dehydrate more dyers mushrooms, like the sanguinea and sulfur tufts, as they are quite easily dried. So the let the season begin...

Mellow Yellows..

1. 
   Mellow Yellows are a combo of phaeolus, pictured on the right, which is my latest picking, of fresh phaeolus schweinitizii, and gives wonderful golden yellows with alum and cream of tartar...although some say cot is not necessary, I definitely notice that it softens the yarns a lot, and I love using it. the other yellow is from the lichen that I previously posted, and it gave up some very clear lemony yellows with tinge of green in it. the combo is wonderful and I happen to love yellows. Yellow does something to all color around it and is always so inviting to the eye...
2. the rains have come finally, last night a good shower, so as my dear dh says, he can hear the mycelium moving....I can smell it, he hears it...lol so manana we shall go gathering. Today is fresh with the rain and a lazy Sunday.. will finish my Elizabeth collar which I love, from Kate Gilberts designs, and perhaps start another in a different color, now that I know I love it... as the mycelium moves....
   

a likely story of lichens

Todays dyeing was with this lichen, which was picked from ponderosa pines in the interior of British Columbia and gifted to me..so I pulled it out and added water and cooked it for an hour and then added mordanted (alum and COT) silk/merino 100 grams and two skeins of kid mohair and I thought I got a generous amount of color so I have pulled the yarn out to cool, added two more kid mohair, and it is cooking now and then I will add 1/4 tsp iron and see what happens ...a light green I am hoping.


I also have some `chicken of the woods` in a pot ..I had chopped this and soaked for several days, not much
colour so I am now cooking and added
a bit of ammonia as I read somewhere I
might get some colour that way, I also
read that it won`t dye..so I shall
experiment.




This is the lichen batch and it is a clear light yellow with greenish hue.
I am also dyeing with some giant knotweed, and have gathered and dried a quantity of this for winter dyeing.

One of those times when I have endless desire to do many projects and only one hand and not enough time in the day...alas, where are those workers to help me out...lol

If you go out in the woods today ....

Your sure of a big surprise....like this lovely thing, phaeolus schwinitizii...and is was young and big, so home to the dye pot. I chopped it up small and cooked for about 1 hour and then strained and added 200 grams of silk/merino, which had been alum and cot'd and then got a lovely gold. I was planning to iron it to get green but the gold was too lovely to let go of..so I will try green next time. as I do love the alchemy...

I am mucho slowed down as I have had a tendon taken out of my index finger and installed in my thumb as the tendon had abraded itself on the break line when I broke my arm last May..so I have beeb knitting with three fingers in my left had, so far three hats and relative sanity...a lot of swearing as it is more awkward than the initial cast as I have two fingers out of play. So I shall try and post, but typing is a pain when are used to being so quick....it is all a lesson in humility......

Subdued or subtle, that is the question

My latest fun was the silk boucle that I had dyed with phaeolus schweinitizii and iron aftermath, looks a bit more olivey in real life, and a muga silk thread on the far right, which is a wild silk from india the color of tussah, and then a kid mohair where the mo dyed in the above bath with no premordant of alum, just the straight iron etc...the nylon did not dye but the mo did, very sweet looking, so I but delica beads on the muga thread and plyed it with the silk boucle, which is the far left, and so hard to see the beads, so sublte as to disappear...but very pleasing to the eye especially in the sunlight.
All is all a fun ply to do and now that my friend, frenchette, picked me up the bead threader from "don;'t ask" store, for sixteen dollars, I can easily string those beads up in moments...it is a great tool, and although the first time I tried it I wasn't impressed, but got better the second time and so acquired one for
ease of beading.
I see quite a bit of these speciality yarns in my future, where the cost is high but the delica beads, and pure silks, and the plying all make it well worth the cost....you don;'t need much in a project to stand out...

And of course, they will all be yarns I
want to work with, so worse comes to
worse, I will have some yummy beaded yarns...the delica beads make a big difference and although costly are well worth the price. Uniform holes, great color spectrum, and small
dramatic statement...bring on the beader...

on the shelf

Here is a great shelf mushroom we found yesterday and dh decided to shelf it up with one of our fav, in the woods, mushroom books..this was the biggest shelf we have seen and it was perfect...and huge and growing on an alder snag, with a pristine white underbelly. This was our second day this week mushrooming and we found some young phaeolus schweinitizii, or butt rot to some more ignorant shroomers, namely me...
and so did some dyeing having read in a book that if you add an afterbath to the usually orangey tan shades of this, you could get an olive green, so that is what I did with the silk boucle...I had already mordanted it in alum and COT and then simmered it for a half hour pulled it out and added 1/2 tsp. of iron, stirred and reentered the silk for about one half hour, then I pulled it and rinsed in hot soapy water...did loose some of the greenish tones but
I think it still has an olivey tone to it,
moreso if you blow this up you can see
the greenish beige of it...so another reason to experiment more...I decided to take Carol Lees suggestion and make up some premordanted fibre and have them bundled and ready to experiment with...so I did some silk and merino sock weight, and mordanted some in alum and cream of tartar and and some in iron, and some with nothing...then I will cut about l foot lengths of these and then tie a little knot on them, l knot for alum, 5 for iron, and none for no mordant, and then tie these three threads into a bundle and then I can always have them ready to drop into a jar of mushrooms etc. to do a small test, also good for on the road, then I do not have to test with large skeins at a time, but can do this simple test for many types of mushrooms.
I am almost looking forward to the rains as this year I want to dry some dyeing mushrooms in the dehydrator..move over food, the revenge of the natural dyer is here....!!!!!!!!

but is it butt rot??

Spent part of the day looking for mushrooms in the woods, and found these...phaeolus schweinitzii, or butt rot I think...I haven't found a young one before, but have dyed with the older ones quite a lot, in fact it was my first experimenting with mushroom dyeing. So it was fun to find a young one...this time I will try playing with the ph, and with iron in the mordanting and see what happens...now I am a little more experienced with the natural dyeing...and I do mean "little" ...there is so much to learn and I am such a novice. Also found some versicolor with soft lavender underneath...will try that, and some rosy gomphidius which we will eat.
So let the fun begin, and the rain as it is going to be a good season, and I will try and collect and dry this year.

Going Green

Carrot tops, and they came out great on the silk/wool skeins...the centre one is straight carrot, simmered, then strained, and the two outer ones had 1/2 tsp iron added the last l5 min. of the bath...I love them and now want to do more.. I haven't had a huge success with greens so this is very "sagey" and lovely tones...I rinsed the iron ones right away in really hot water, same temp as the dye bath, so that the fibre wouldn't be harsh, and it is very soft and as it was cool today we had a fire going so they are hanging next to the woodstove in all their glory....so greening the world one skein at a time...lol

dyeing to dye

Here is the photo of the multi dyeing I did with cochineal, fustic with logwood, and logwood...sort of the color of springtime apple trees and I love it. Yet another batch I am reticent to part with...I must stop this and take them to market as they can't all be for me. The market has been bountiful and two more to go for the summer, but am selling really well and the natural dyes are a big hit with everyone...I put my acid dyes from last year all on sale for half price, and that has slowly been disappearing...it was just too much to label and sort, and I have basically decided to do the naturals only...of course, once said you can never be sure, but that is of my mind right now. With a few days of rain we went mushrooming today, but no luck. a little early perhaps, but I did hear some Prince and Chanterelles were spotted.
I have carrot tops on the boil, and wool and silk mordanting as I write so I am looking forward to trying a new green. I will post the results. I am boiling carrot tops, then will stain and put in a few skeins of silk/wool, then the last thirty minutes of dyeing add a quarter tsp. of iron, and see what results I can get... I loved the green from doing that with the fustic, so I will see what I can get with carrots. Don't really have much Queen Ann's Lace here so the carrot tops are the next best thing. The tansy is rampant here, and so is the weld in my garden so they will be next into the pot.
I put a stat counter on my site as I was feeling a little alone, and although most people don't actually leave a post, which I can totally understand, at least I feel that some are getting the pleasure from the site anyway. I like having the counter...56 in just four days...a bit mind blowing to say the least. I really should be selling wool on this site, but I just haven't gotten that together yet...perhaps in the fall and winter...

Take Two

Next batch of rainbow dyeing with natural extracts took place today, with great success, alas the camera didn't really agree, but in real wool life, they turned out great...I did several batches of silk/merino alum and COT, and mixed up some fustic with a drop of logwood and got the greatest greens, that was in Earthues by Michelle Whipplinger, and she mentioned under Fustic that you could get green but adding a bit of logwood....she of course, is more exact, but I am apparently allergic to exactness...from birth, could be genetic, but I don;t really intend to repeat exactly, anything I do, so it does take thepressure off me to be exact, but I do keep the odd note about it so I can remember what I have done, just not the measurements exactly....
I mixed up the fustic, logwood, madder/lac, cochineal, all in extracts, and then had fun mixing and playing...this time I used a large sponge applicator, it took longer but was less messy, and less liquid to mix although you have to be very careful to get all sides if you want solid bands of color....I did this early in the morning so by an hour ago, they had cooled and could be rinsed, without much loss of color, which is great...I microwaved them for 7 minutes, resting every couple of minutes for it to cool slightly, then left them bundles in there saran wrap, and plastic baggie until cool....so cool I do really appreciate being able to do this technique with natural dyes....I also cooked up the flower tops of the goldenrod I gathered last week off the highway...
and it initially came out a clear yellow, but I did cook it a little hard, and then the color browned slightly, I later, right that was too late, read that keeping it at simmer was best to keep color clear...I have read this before on yellows so perhaps I should try and remember this...
although the color it came out was great. I also have some giant knotweed that I gathered which I cooked up into a deep deadly caramel, so I will dye with that tomorrow. for now I will see which now batch I will keep for myself, as I definitely feel possessive about some yarns, not being able to repeat et al ...lol next I will be gathering the weld and hanging to dry as I have quite a few plants...and I love that clear yellow it gives.

I could hardly wait

Hideously colourful, just what I wanted...I have planned for this day for awhile, ordering extracts of dyes, as I am very much for the easy route, life being so short and all, and then researching, and then finally multidyeing with natural dyes, thanks to several folks out there in internet land...so generous everyone has been with their data...having been a vat rainbow dyer for at least 24 years, the folks expected multi colored dyeing from me...I, was getting a little bored with it, with the acid dyes, and voila, back to the future, with natural dyeing, revisited again from the late sixties...and then multi colored skein and roving dyeing which is so not!!! boring it was like a whole new adventure in fibre land, and of course loaded with sideroads, which Iplan to explore in ad nausea...to some but oh so fun to me...so here are the yarns of the day....the olive green kid mohair and silk boucle, you;'ll have to believe me on the color as it didn't photograph well, green being so rare a color for me in natural dyeing that it was like taking a picture of a miracle...lol

I started with the premordanted alum, and cream of...and then put them in osage bath, then removed them after thirty minutes and added a solution of hot water and half tsp. of iron, ferrous something, and then the olive colors came out...I am thrilled, it is sort of a golden olive but at least I have some greens happening without overdyeing in indigo and woad...just don;'t want to do an indigo bath right now...so I am thrilled with the color, and it would look so elegant with soft mauves and deep purples...I do love color.

the multi skeins were a lesson in patience, which all natural dyeing is for me, and so I waiting overnight before unwrapping and rinsing...some needed almost no rinsing , the logwood purple needed a lot...but I do like the colors, the multi color one with cochineal, logwood purple, and fustic is my favourite, but the silks are wonderful in thesun....so this was a safe experimental journey, but I can see so many roads to travel into this realm, mixing my own extracts more, although I did mix some fustic and brazilwood together, which are the orange tones....oh for retirement and a big lottery win, I would so be dyeing full time...

lac se daisical

New Lac dye from Aurora silk, and it is very lovely, compared to the lac from Earthues, which is more bluish...this is definitely a dark pure raspberry and very rich, richer than it appears here. I did soak the silk in cr. of and alum, and let it sit in the mordant overnight and then another day before rinsing and dyeing. I also put some rinsed in the fridge for a few days, and today did some multi dyeing with some extracts, like fustic, madder, cochineal, logwood purple, and brazilwood. Then I microwaved and now I am practicing patience as they cool in the wraps. I also am not sure how long to leave them so overnight might be the answer. This is so not me, as I love to open them right away.
I will post the results, they are all silk or silk/wool blends and already skeined up. Next I am going to do some silk roving and see what comes of that. this waiting is a bit much, no wonder I am not a potter, I would definitely be opening the kiln too soon...

anti depressant yarn

Yes, just wear this yarn knitted up and voila, cheerful...This is the St. John's Wort dyed yarn..and as we all know it St. John's Wort it used for depression, well maybe we all don't know this, but it is said to cure or help with depression...so just like that seaweed yarn upping your calcium, I thought this might up your mood, or as I like to say "up your chakras"....so here is what I did and thought it was so magic to get two totally different colors...the rusty orangy one, I picked the blossoms just as they were finished, boiled them for half an hour, let it sit over two nights, strained, added alum and cream of tartar, then added the soaked yarn, and the liquor was quite red when I entered the yarn, and I got this color, a little more orangey than it appears here, but a lovely color, reminded me of the mushroom dyes of semi sanquinea....and then the other color beside this is a yellow, which was the freshly picked blossoms which has just closed, I cooked them for minimal time like fifteen minutes, then added strained added alum and cream of tartar, and the soaked wool/silk, and it came out a lovely yellow, cooked for about 20 minutes, lifted and added a bit of iron, and cooked for about ten more minutes....the yellow is very clear and weld like...like both the colors, and vowed to pick more of this amazing plant, the range of colors are stupendous according the the Wild Color book by Jenny Dean...which is a wonderful resource book.

I finished the Tour de fleece, project, today, although not as I supposed I would , I spun up all the cochineal exhaust dyed tussah silk, and plied it with a silk silver thread, but ran out of thread a little early but did get the goal of spinning all the silk completed today. I think I came in second to last ....not great but a finish.

Am waiting for some more dyes and some more plant gathering, of that mysterious type of knotweed that I love dyeing with....until the next dye batch, I remain ecstatic, due to the St. John's wort fibre which I rub as I go by and feel my depression lifting...lol

fussing with fustic

I have been dyeing and mordanting all day, and playing with some combinations...had some indigo dyed cashmere that wasn't very even so did a fustic bath, and did some overdyeing and got two different greens. Greens have become somewhat of an obsession as it is hard to achieve, I know yellows etc. overdyed in indigo will give me a lot of greens but I am trying to do it without indigo, although I will do a bath in the future I don't want to start one now...so I have heard pomegranate with a swirl in iron after will produce olive greens so I will try that next. I also did some logwood grey, which is logwood and iron basically although earthhues sells it as a combined extract. I am still loveing the natural dyeing...and it is more to keep track of and so have become a note taker, nothing I ever aspired to do but alas, seems sort of necessary with all the process and combinations available with the natural dyeing.
Did some lac/madder extract combo and it came out more lac than I wanted, I am a bit tired of the raspberry redness of it all so will have to make a madder one and overdye tomorrow...no more raspberry for me in the near future.
The market has been a huge success for the natural dyes, and I have put all the acid dyed wool on for half price...so am slowing getting down to just the natural dyes, that is my goal of the year. Even for the knitting I would like to just work with the naturals... I love all the natural dyes and want to gather and dye more local fibres...
Am working on the tour de fleece, and spinning the coc hineal tussah then plying with a fine silver silk thread, and it is looking very sweet. So back to spinning and my goal of the month.

Silk Road Tour de

On the tour now, thanks to Frenchette's encouragement and enthusiasm, I took up the challenge, and here is the first round...I am spinning about ? of cochineal, tussah silk, which I dyed last week, and trying to spin thread...that would be the challenge, to do anything consistent...not something I usually strive for...and then I will ply it with white silk thread....so the challenge has begun....daily I will ride the spinner and hope I stay on track...while speaking the odd French work...and I do mean odd..

so off to the races and good luck everyone..may you win the race
and the winners have to buy more fibre...

purple plus

Purples ruled the pots the last few days
I have been trying for good purple...what I read was to use cochineal and add some logwood grey, so this the end result...the silk, and silk boucle came out beautifully and the kid mohair was used as an exhaust bath...the exhaust was basically the cochineal and so the pinkish tones...the silks sucked up all the purple. I have spent the last few days labeling skeins and winding skeins, not a favourite of mine, but the markets start next week and I just received my fab labels from my graphic designer friend, and she did a great job.
I have divided them into "Hornby Dyed in the Wild" which are all the local plants I have gathered, mushroom, lichen, rhubarb, etc. and then others are labeled, "Dyes of the World" for the madder, cochineal, lac, fustic, osage, etc etc etc.....
I divided them into 50 gram skeins, with the help of my almost l6 year old pretend cool rasta grandson, and he did a great job winding and tying skeins...at 9 dollars an hour, it was worth it as my 61year old pretend cool grandmother's shoulder was pooched after so many skeins.
so now I have all the appropriate goodies, lets see if they sell this summer...I know I love them all and hope the feeling spreads, and I am loving natural dyeing again....oops lost my purple...
so back to labeling and sorting, and figuring what I want to do with the pounds and pounds of acid dyed roving I have and the skeins of wool, maybe have a sale table at the market for these items as I would like to clear the deck and only do the natural....so
any suggestions would be great, aside from giving it away of course, as I spent a fortune on it all...mostly bfl tops and silks....

its my birthday I can dye if I wanna, dye if I wanna

Well started the day with a weld bath, for the wool that is, and then dipped in iron and cream of tartar...and got this....it is definitely sagey in real life, but missed the greens in the photo...

Then on to visits and bagels, and yes, more dyeing mordanting and smelling the flowers...
Now sweet man is making dinner and I am soaking some onion skins, a birthday present from a like minded soul... and then to spin some tussah silk that I exhaust bath dyed in cochineal...I skeined up several colors and got them ready for market..
all in all I am having a wonderful "to dye for:" day...
next I am going to experiment with osage and logwood grey, trying for more green shades...and then some cochineal and logwood grey to get some purples....sounds like I know what I'm doing doesn't it...
am keeping samples and labeling the different types of wool, mordants, and dyebaths, so I have something to refer back to..now halfway through my dye journal, and want another format...saw one the other day from a dynamite natural dyer who had hers in a binder, in the plastic covered sheets, and had the plant, different fibres it dyes, mordants, and was very exact...and think I want to aspire to this format...although exact wouldn't really be me...I can get more factual about the work in this format...
so on to another year, renewal...positive energy....and first day of summer to boot, what more can a girl ask for...oh, praline ice cream, right, its on its way....


logwood grey, matter exhaust bath, cochineal, and matter lst bath