sheepthrillsyarn

New Year's Mantra

2012-01-01T10:23:00.000-08:00

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 hearts, for that's the only way to love.....
I know I have posted this before, but it is worth saying over and over again...I read it a few years ago on a blog, and thought it was just so right....hope all of you have a wonderful, heartfelt New Year and that we continue to look for the goodness in each of us.
thanks so much for reading my posts and making my world richer.

Peaceful thoughts

2011-12-24T08:28:00.001-08:00

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

Greetings to the coming of the Light

2011-12-17T19:16:00.000-08:00

Being as it is dark about 4 o'clock nowadays we are eagerly awaiting the coming of the light and the season of the lights...here are our best wishes for you and yours at this lightful time of the year.

off the cuff

2011-11-29T14:43:00.000-08:00

Here is a selection of Christmas gallery works that I have made most recently... the first are felted bracelets which were inspired by Anita Larkin, and are made over copper wire so that they are adjustable and flexible.. Anita Larkin is a wonderful feltmaker in Australia, and does a lot of sculptural work...she was very generous in sharing her process and I have had much fun making these/
The next photo is of work inspired by a wonderful Canadian feltmaker, Marjolein and I have been making these pod type pieces for quite awhile and just recently making them into neckpieces.
They are so organic and rich that I wanted to be able to wear them so the neckpieces came to me late summer and I moved on the idea, extending what I had already learned...
The third pic is of cuffs made with silk that was dyed in multi colours and then lightly felted with wool on the inside. I have made a large selection of these and they are lightweight and very organic looking, I do prefer nuno with the silk side out, as I have stated before, so these are really a way to
utilize that process and make them very appealing to me.
I have just returned from the Christmas Faire here on the island where I live, and the cuffs were really well received and the neckpieces, in fact considering the power went out and we had to close two hours early, I did quite well, and so many people love felt.. It is really taking off these days.
I always remember when I first started felting with my good friend and mentor Alma Schofield, that there were about 5 or 6 felting books on the market and it was not very well known by the general public, now the story is quite different and there are so many wonderful felters in the world. It has been fun watching the resurgence of the craft of felting and seeing how things come full circle on so many of the arts and crafts movement. Wonder what will be next....
for me the next week-end is a two day event on a neighbouring island, and hopefully the sun will shine and the power will stay on ....in the meantime, mushroom dyeing is on the table, and have done some cuffs with the mushroom dyes, and with the eucalyptus, which is the plant that truly "keeps on giving:" lol

dance of abundance

2011-10-23T16:43:00.000-07:00

Cortinarias are popping up but what type is still in question...perhaps "croceus" but perhaps one of the other hundred of types of these shrooms, but these have lovely tan tops and gold/orange gills, and now I have them at home have separated the caps from the stipes and have cooked the caps and soaked the stipes...the wool is cooling in the mordant and tomorrow will be the telling moment. I believe my water is almost neutral ph although I did use tap water. Oh the fun of fall. I was able to pick some today but due to a cold, dh picked a lot in the past few days as well as these photos, to let me see where he had picked...love the photos...
tomorrow I will start cutting and soaking the hydnellum peckii (older) which we got on our camping trip last week up north. There were no young ones but a few older ones, so I will try them.
The trip was a great success as the weather was good enough to camp and the shrooms were out. No cauliflowers, and no lobsters which is quite a surprize.
So the hunt continues, for colour and shrooms...I love the fall

2011-10-03T10:10:00.000-07:00

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL FELT UNITED DAY....something blue, which was the theme and purple but can't find anything purple except this print.
This is a wall hanging of a sunflower which is about 5 feet long and two feet wide....it is beaded around the edges of the petals, and some free motion embroidery on the surface with a lot of french knots.
Hope everyone is having a wonderful felting day.

Summer sanity

2011-08-24T19:57:00.000-07:00

Here is where I have been this summer, or at least part of the summer, felt jewellery, and felted vests and nuno shawls and now harvest and stopping to eat peaches and dry them....the markets are almost over and I have a few orders to fill and now back to work for three days a week.The pictures are of a few of the neckpieces I sold this summer, and the top piece was inspired by work of several artists, and hopefully I did something original with the piece...I have several pieces of these lichen/sea anenomes and they are turning into the neckpieces and look great..I made several before I knew what I was going to do with it...I just loved the process and now it is paying off with new ideas, so I was thrilled...I showed them at a local gallery and they were much commented on and that was before I made them into jewellery. the other two were pieces made earlier, the shibori indigo beads which has a definitely japanese flavour to it, in my mind, and the multi coloured fun piece was quickly sold.....it was a wonderful summer, not hot, rainy enough to keep the garden happy and fruitful, and enough people at the market enjoying my work to keep me satisfied, not to mention selling work which allowed me to buy more supplies...like some lovely silk, and some fine merino rovings...so I am busy dyeing and doing some eco printing and then felting into it, and some gathering of dyeing supplies. Fall is an amazingly busy time, and it sneaks up on me every year. I love the fall and I hope we get a long indian summer and then lots of rain for the mushrooms, that would be perfect. I have been doing indigo dyeing and mordanting like crazy and even did a cochinel dye bath, and it is still giving me colour. Have done some ragweed, and some oregon grape dyeing as well and will have photos shortly. People really appreciated the felting at the galleries, and you can see that it is more generally recognized, and so the felting world is definitely expanding. I can see people are really seeing the felt work and appreciating it. Also the natural dyeing, although I don't exclusively do that, I mostly do it with a dash of synthetic every once in awhile...and this week the synthetics were in teal and deep rusty ochre, and I really like this combo....so back to the workbench and more fun and obsession...hope everyone is enjoying their end of summer and looking forward to a long and fruitful fall.

oops

2011-08-10T16:21:00.000-07:00

Did want to correct the previous post, as it is not a natural process, as chemicals are used, but do not exhaust dangerous fumes, and is not a fermentation but a reduction process.....will post more pics as soon as the fibres are dry and showing their true "blueness" very very excited...

Indigo cold vat

2011-08-09T16:24:00.000-07:00

Definitely into the blue realm today, after making a vat of indigo with a new method, thanks to the teachings of Barbara Shapiro, who was so generous with her teachings, (she does workshops) and is a wonderful artist and weaver, here are the results of my cold vat of indigo, no chemicals and can safely be poured on your garden once the ph is neutralized...how cool is that!! major cool...
and it is looking good...this is the silk boucle, which sucked up the blue, I have done four consecutive dips and this is the colour wet, it will fade somewhat in colour once it is dry but I am in love with the new method of dyeing with indigo, and see much more in my future. I will now attempt to overdye some of my weld, etc, yellow natural dyed wools and see how that works, and also some silk material that I would love to felt with if dyed in indigo. The skeins are dripping as I write, and will dry overnight before I rinse them and do a vinegar rinse to bring the ph back to form for the wool...I am sooooo excited by this, and dh did a video of me doing it and you can see the yarns going from green to blue as they oxidize...oh let the magic continue...we love natural dyeing and you cannot have too much alchemy in your world as far as I am concerned....and this is definitely alchemy!
back to the indigo and there will be more.

Solstice obsessions

2011-06-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

Here is the solstice post and a small peek at what I have been obsessing over....eco printing on muslim, is the first shot...and I wrapped this in an old bed spring and which made rust marks after a few days, then I overdyed in eucalyptus....which does miraculous things because even some of the rust that was invisible, was brought out by the tannin in the eucalyptus. Am learning more and more about eco printing on materials from the queen of eco dyeing , India Flints book, which is full of fabulous inspiration....Amazing how things change, as the first time I saw her work several years ago, I really didn't appreciate it, even though I was into natural dyeing I just could really "see" it....and then voila, I saw it and loved it, and am working with it although I am not very adept at it yet.....so many processes in my head must keep more notes the older I get, sometimes I begin something I have done before and don't remember until I am half way through it, that I had done it easier and better before, so notetaking will begin in ernest...through necessity, as I am more of an alchemist than a notetaker....I love the not knowing usually, rather than the detail repeatable process.. The next is some nuno felt shawls I did awhile ago and haven't posted yet...now I have a huge table, thank god, I can work larger than before...more work more fun, more room..Am beginning a new series of work, which is going slowly because of a sprained right wrist but it is moving. Summer is here, the garden is wonderful and the days doable in felt..... what more can I ask...well, more silk materials, more wool....okay I could ask for more but I am definitely blessed.

fairly fleeced

2011-06-15T18:57:00.000-07:00

Raw fleece has been involved, and lots of water and soap, and some silks and cordage, all very invigorating and loving all the natural fleece, of course, I could always use more and different textured fleece. I have some very short very curly black face >>>something fleece which I can't remember the name of , if anyone could help identify I would be grateful as that is the fleece I need, (want) now to add to the textures. I have some but they are all dyed and I wanted to use the natural tones....I am making a triangulated bag from the bottom photo, and it is still metamorphing into, ??!@@
who knows but it is fun....and the larger piece is also destined for a bag...It was fun using the locks again, as mostly I have used them for collars and boas, but this was more random, although the technique was useful to know...I am working on a wee series from nature and will post more when I have worked it through...very fun..and also have wrapped some bed springs in muslin, and then put it in eucalyptus bath...which tended to turn the rust black and dye the rest camel coloured...very attractive and also have some bundles which were a mix of petals, lemons, leaves and that bundle is still holding its mystery...ah, I love that expression....."holding the mystery" I think that is the alchemy I love about doing creative work.

Because I felt like it

2011-05-26T10:43:00.000-07:00

Here is my latest endeavour in felting. It is for the Grandmothers for Grandmothers auction here on the island and we all did chairs for auctioning. I chose a stool and thought I would felt it...then I thought of zebra designs in the felt...all sounded okay and I began, then the "tail " of the zebra surfaced and I was super excited about doing it...just adding a little humour made the project way more fun for me, and I even added horsehair from a horse tail on the end...it felted in beautifully and the whole process was lengthy but rewarding and now onto more nuno shawl work...I have been doing a series of shawls from silk and wools, and now I finally have a 4 x 8 foot table to work on I have much larger pieces to consider....More work but very easy to do with the right table...I have been doing a lot of experimenting and playing and have lots of new ideas for the summer line of clothing and felting.
Summer is still not truly here, the tomatoe plants are in the glass room in flower waiting for warmer nighttime temps and seems like we will be waiting until June here on the wet coast.

Wolf Moss makes my day

2011-05-09T09:29:00.000-07:00

Here is my most recent dyeing with vulpina lepidinum, or wolf moss, gathered by my friend Isabelle, up in the Chilcotin...and it dyes with the clearest of yellows...I know, we can get a lot of yellows from natural dyes, but this yellow is so clear and just the right colour for me..I had dried this and then used it by soaking overnight, then bringing to a simmer and then sieving, and putting in some silk/wool combos that had been mordanted with alum and cream of tartar....I love the yellows...I was going to tip it with some iron but just couldn't bring myself to do that as the yellows were so wonderful.
I am now in the midst of felting and dyeing with eucalyptus, the leaves that keep on giving, and now that the blogging is going okay, I will post again soon....spring has definitely sprung, but still cool here, and my woad plants love it...I had one overwinter and it is tall and in bloom, started some new plants and they are loving this weather...they seem to like it cool. Have weld coming up all over the garden and so there will be no shortage of yellows on my pallet this summer. off to felt...

trying yet again to post

2011-05-09T09:22:00.001-07:00

Trying to post ...testing

In the Pink!!!!

2011-04-10T12:03:00.002-07:00

Tree Tree barnacles, who would have thought, but yes, the red alders are loaded with them, and with a lot of patience and some ammonia and water...voila...we have Pinks....or orchils..did I mention patience yet, because these do take a long time to collect and a long time to see the results...but they are very rewarding. Here I have done two skeins of two weights pure silk...now, of course you could dye silk with anything and it would be stunning, as that is the nature of silk, but with the orchil it becomes a wonderful pink, or rather many shades but this one was light glowing pink.

Another wonderful feature was that they are incredibly evenly dyed, through no skill of mine, but probably because of the long standing in ammonia and barnacles, helps to dye the mordanted silk...I did mordant the silk with alum and COT, but I think the soak in ammonia for the barnacles probably had more to do with the level colouring...just my opinion...

the Latin name for tree barnacles is Thelotrema Lepadinum, and they love the west coast...and seem to be more predominant on the north side of the tree, and there are more generous amounts on some alders than others, which I haven't figured out yet . I have many lichen experiments happening at this time, and most are soaking in the ammonia water bath, which I stir irregularly.apparently I am not a regular type of person, but irregularly seems to work fine...

more experiments to come....

In the Pink@

2011-04-10T12:03:00.001-07:00

Obsession in Spring

2011-02-16T13:49:00.001-08:00

Sort of washed out photos of the "lichen like" sculpturals, but am loving them, and then my new selection of scarves, the oranges are from the semi sanguinea mushrooms, which I had made a very strong batch of mushrooms, and then put the mordant directly in which is not what I normally do, but I only wanted to dye the two orange ruffle scarves, and I have made silk ties for them, and the striped ones I made white and then arashi shibori dyed them, which was an adventure in patience and perseverence.

Spring gathering this morning in the alders, and looking for new and exciting lichens and moss, which are in abundance here. I have just gathered very small bits of lichen to experiment with

and see if they give colour but not taking much of any one type. They grow very slowly and so are not the best to gather. But am experimenting with small bits and putting ammonia and water with them to see what they give. The lichen off the alders is very giving and there is quite a lot of alder lichen here, as alders grow like weeds where I live. Gathered some turkey tails for making tea, and they are so lovely. I have not been able to coax a dye from them although I know you can with some versicolors. Perhaps I will make tea and drop some mordanted alum yarn in it to see what happens with this batch . lol

The scarves were part of my new spring work, as well as the sculptural felts which I still am not sure what I am going to do with these. I did put an led light inside and it was quite stunning at night...perhaps......??!!!

Spring is springing

2011-02-08T14:48:00.001-08:00

Here are my new pieces, and I am loving the bulbs coming up and the felt flowers on the workbench...Also working on the indigo cuffs, which are made from a soft white merino and then arashi/shibori dyed and voila, indigo accordian cuffs....and some new accordian spring cuffs, made with the colors of the spring bulbs in mind. The other sculptural pieces are more lichen or sea coral or whatever they remind me of in the moment, but definitely sculptural. Am imagining

using these in a wall piece but haven't solidified anything yet, just have an array of sculptural pieces with no known destination. lol...

I will be giving a two day one evening workshop on Quadra Island at Nanci Cook's B&B, in March for anyone interested in learning many felting techniques.
This workshop will be for "beginners and beyond" and should provide a lot of tricks and learning to anyone interested in honing their felting abilities. It will be a lot of fun, and Nanci has a great B&B which she provides for people to stay and the studio space is open 24 hours, which allows for a lot of great experimentation. I will be bring lots of different fibres and many ideas with which to play.
Her B*B is Firesign B&B on Quadra Island, and should be easily looked up for anyone interested in finding out more about the b&B....

I am now thinking more about felting in spring colors so spring must be here, my tones are changing with the weather. We have been soo soooooo lucky this winter with mild weather, and now the crocii are blooming in the orchard as well as my kitchen table. Nettles are ready for the eating and life is good.

where did January go?

2011-02-01T13:36:00.000-08:00

Springtime , well that could be a little optomistic, but we do have some bulbs blooming on our table, thanks to dh....

and where did January go? apparently more experimenting in felting cuffs...These cuffs were inspired by a Canadian feltmaker who does wonderful work and I was do impressed I had to try and make the cuffs...her name is Marjolein Dallinga, and she has such amazing felts and costumes...

These cuffs were experimental, as I used several typês of fibre for trying them out, the pink and orange were done with a fine merino, the blues with half breed, and the yellow and blacks with a combination...I preferred the half breed as it gave them some substance and weight. I had wanted to make these for some time and it took awhile to get the correct diameter of the cuff, but all worked out fine in the end.

So here is my first posting for February, because a friend nagged me about it, which is apparently what I needed.

I will continue to experiment with the felting textural work and hopefully something will come of it and I will be able to use all these techniques in future felting projects.

We have been experimenting with Lichens and dyeing with them. Right now gathering and experimenting with their ability to colour fibre..and with the orchils it is a long process. §o I am learning patience and labeling and keeping records of where, what and how they work. Dh is studying moss and lichens so he is a big help with remembering the names and where to find it, and it involves a lot of zen walking in the woods which is not exactly aerobic but is walking. lol

Happy Happy

2010-12-31T17:55:00.000-08:00

May all be blessed with health and peace in the coming year...thanks for stopping by and hoping
the year is creative and inspiring for all.

Lichens likeness coming of the light

2010-12-22T13:45:00.001-08:00

H

Here's to the coming of the light and all things bright and beautiful....like xmas lights, and sanguinea mushrooms found today in the woods, and lichens found on my workbench..
am working on a lichen series in felt, and experimenting with many different textures in felting, which has been quite fun and relaxing. Inspired by several european artists and their work, I have been going for texture and lichens are the perfect example as there are plenty here, and dh studies mosses and lichens so we are always exposed to looking at them up close and personal.
the Christmas fairs were hugely successful and the felted collars and cuffs were a big hit..and so it was a lift to be able to love doing something and get rewarded for it by huge sales...so all in all felting is on the agenda for the near future, as I think I will be on the table working on more and more projects in fibre. Wishing everyone a wonderful season, and the days are truly getting longer now, so the light is definitely coming!!! annie lennox has a wonderful xmas carol cd out, which is a treat to watch...you can go to you tube and listen to a few cuts from the album...merry merry and peaceful New Years to all

fff

2010-12-22T13:44:00.000-08:00

हल

2010-12-22T13:42:00.001-08:00

felting frenzy

2010-11-28T14:47:00.000-08:00

Here is what I have been up to the past several weeks, and I am loving felting more and more, and as someone said, do anything a thousand times and you will be good...or something like that, but at any rate I can definitely see my felting improving as I work more at it. The hats were fun to do and embedded silk was definitely a great addition, as for the gauntlets, well, what can I say, I have a serious addiction to them and love wearing them. Keeping our pulses warm keeps your whole body warm, of course I did not go naked in the snow with just the gauntlets on, but I am sure it works....lol
Some I put thumbs in and others I did the wild and crazy on them, and that is folded up and can be worn either on the top or bottom of the wrist, and they look stunning, (she says with no apparent modesty). I love how when we make something it becomes its own thing and stands on its own separate from the maker to some degree, at least to the degree I can love them and not feel like I am bragging about my work, but just that they look great as their own thing.

The beige ones I really enjoyed, as I made them in white and then dyed them in walnut, which brought out the different textiles, silk, prefelts etc, that I used...I also finished the edges which
I liked the look of. These I took to the Xmas faire and all my collars and cuffs were a huge hit, and that of course was just the excuse I needed to make more for the next show coming up next week-end. It will be a two day event so I am felting like a felting fool, and dyeing with shrooms and lichen and generally having a lot of fun and not too many aches and pains from felting.

fall is falling

2010-11-09T17:48:00.001-08:00

Very appreciative of the dermocybes I found, three types and took the stipes off them all and separated them by color although I am never sure exactly what I have...I have red cap reddish stipes and red gills, semi sanguineas, and some red cap with beige stipe...so three kinds and some very large caps which was great...so I will go again once the rains ease up a bit and perhaps there will be more.\
I have been felting, dyeing with lobster mushrooms, and phaeolus, and am craving some bright yellows so I will put some weld on to cook. I grow that in my garden and it such a clear yellow.
More lobster mushrooms to be done, as friends are gathering for me also, which makes for a lot of lobsters. I did a batch the other day, and then once it cooled I put vinegar in the ammonia/lobster juice, and then reentered three separate sections and got some variegated lobster mushroom wool.
Very fun. I am working for two Christmas fairs and felting like a felting fool...so much inspiration these days. Pictures will follow...

fall frogs

2010-10-20T20:18:00.000-07:00

new felting

2010-09-13T13:51:00.001-07:00

Here are the latest scarflettes, so inspired...loved all the lichen texture I got from embedding silks etc....just can't get enough of these right now so am thrilled to have some time to make more.

Treasure Hunting

2010-09-09T20:10:00.001-07:00

We have been having a treasure hunt in the woods, and found treasures...the first of the season, so beautiful and bug free and tasty..have some dehydrating now and will powder them, plus had a huge pan full for dinner last night. So fun, there we are on an ordinary quiet forest walk, not seeing any shrooms at all then voila...and there are many of them, just tucked in the moss by old downed trees, and so clean of insects and so plumb, it was a treat....

Aside from harvesting Chanterelles, no dyers mushrooms to be found. I remember once going up the mountain for dyers shrooms, and seeing a patch of Chanterelles, and I was so focused on finding the sanguineas I passed on the Chanterelles and was about ten steps away, when it dawned on me and back I went....lol

Am madly, happily felting and learning new tricks, and loving playing with the fibres and silks, and materials...I will take some photos, but seem to be selling them faster than I can photograph them...so I will be making more variation on the theme, either Nudibranch neckpieces, or Kelp, not sure of the name as people have
seen them as both...but am researching nudibranchs, should have used that as the title to this post, I am sure some weirdos would visit...lol...remembering when
I had my biggest blog hit when I referred to the phaeolus schwinitzii as Butt Rot in my title of the blog....lol

so work days for the next two and then for some more felting.

Whew! what a summer

2010-09-06T13:22:00.000-07:00

Waiting for these fungi, and eager to dye with more shrooms.Rain for the first day after summer, and the summer folk are all leaving our island, and so the rains comes first and then hopefully some quiet walks in the woods, and some mushroom dyeing.
The summer has passed by so quickly, only really two months of summer this year, and now it definitely feels like fall. The fall faire is the next event and hopefully it will be a beautiful fall day.
Not much dyeing going on right now, as the wells are low this time of year, and the garden is taking the extra water. Much garlic has been harvested, and tomatoes still coming.
I have been obsessed with wet felting, and continue to work on a series of scarves...I will post the pics soon. For now not much to report. The rain is soothing.

OMG I got Orchil

2010-07-27T08:38:00.000-07:00

Well yesterday was full of surprizes....just as I was cleaning up the natural dye room, and emptying some fairly gross mushroom vats etc...I was just about to throw out a jar when I noticed it was fuschia coloured...Oh the joy, yes, I finally got some orchil and it was not even stirred at all..Of course, I am always trying different lichens to see if they give orchil, but to no avail, so I had basically become very slovenly about labeling etc...and wouldn't you know it, the one I didn't label was the jar of orchil...so ecstatic!!!!!!!!! it was a jar I had put lichen and ammonia in and then left for many months...not touched. and it was so lovely...so I sort of remembered where I got it and returned there yesterday to experiment again...
in the meantime, I had carrot tops on the go...thus the first picture, which is silk/merino, with alum and COT , dyed then put in an after dip of iron, and ammonia...so now I have some lovely tri coloured natural dyed skeins....also dyed with some other fungus, which came out a lovely grey brown, which is not usually a colour I would call lovely, but it truly is...I will post more pics of the finished product today...but the dye room is kicking up again and I apparently am on a roll...of oourse having l9 days vacation in the middle of summer certainly helps. So off to open somemore of those mysterious yet smelly jars. lol

flying by

2010-07-01T15:03:00.000-07:00

what no pictures!!

2010-05-20T11:52:00.000-07:00

Yes, no pics today but tomorrow when everything is drying as I have been mordanting and dyeing wool as I am home sick from work. Too sick to work, not sick enough for the bed, so spent one day doing mordanting in Alum and COT, and today some dye baths. Did some mushroom dyeing and the pale hues are amazing. My water is somewhat alkaline naturally so it brought the pinks out of the sanguinea shrooms, and then part way through the cooking I took some dye bath water, one skein of 50/50 silk merino, out and added a "glug" of vinegar, definitely brought out the orange hues, and the one in the alkaline natural water from my well, was pinkish...love the subtle differences. And then did a logwood/logwood grey bath for some deep purples that will be light and wash fast as the logwood grey has some iron in it which I am thinking, will fast up the logwood. Then did pomegranate and turmeric, my mentors idea, and got a lovely golden color, which the pomegranate will make the turmeric fast of light and wash....so have been busy today dyeing and fun to get into it again. Am using up some of my bought natural dyes, before I dive into the collected natural materials, which I personally find, way more rewarding, especially when I collect them in my garden or the woods around here... I also did an osage and iron bath, cooking for 20 minutes in osage, before lifting and adding iron...oh I will get my camera out as these are too nice to not show you....

Where did spring go...

2010-05-04T19:08:00.001-07:00

Everything is moving way too fast, much work in the garden, many things to plant, although it is a cool spring and I am holding up on things waiting for the heat. We have lots of hummers and things are definitely springing forth, thus the picture of the salmonberry shoot, the color of the thorns against the stock is very inspiring..and the Hornby Blues Festival is about to begin and an art show is always the opening...thus the Hornby Blues Rocks...literally that is . I made a series of musical blue felted rocks for the show and have a few more to finish. Lots of fun to make but hard on the wrists, i.e. rocks are heavy.
I am awaiting new base yarn, and will be ready to do my sanguinea mushrooms that I have dried and have been saving for such a time as this. I was actually hoarding them but am hopeful of more next fall, so the time has come. I also have a lovely
wold plant in flower in the garden, and ready to plant more seedlings for dyeing..maybe have my own seed. The weld is abundant this year and I still have my dried weld from last year that I haven't used yet. Perhaps time for a natural dye workshop, as my supplies are getting out of hand. I hope to write more often as my dyeing proceeds this spring, but time has a funny way of slipping by...

old dye manuscripts found

2010-03-10T10:00:00.001-08:00

Bethany( with these hands.squarespace.com) sent me this info re old dyeing manuscripts found in India...they say the pages are yellow and brittle, but the colours from the natural dyeing is still very bright...such good news, and here is the site http://maiwahandprints.blogspot.com/2010/03/15-volumes-of-natural-dye-books.html Perhaps we can reap even more info re natural dyeing...

For the Birds

2010-03-07T13:46:00.000-08:00

=How could we possibly create anything that even comes close to mother nature...this wee nest was in our nesting box where the chickadees had been last spring, and dh took this fabulous pic, with bits of moss lining the whole outside, followed by cat hair which we supply on the brush around our deck and then lots of wool, silk, merino fibre that we cut up and leave on the bushes and there is even some red wool...how sweet is that?

spring has sprung

2010-03-03T09:11:00.000-08:00

And the herring are moving here, and the eagles etc...it is all springing forth. It has been awhile since my last post and the above is what I have been obsessed with. Felting rocks and beads...the rocks are embedded into the felt and the beaded one is starting to get ready to become a necklace, the small beads are felted then shibori dyed which is quite fun, they are cut little bundles and were tied with elastics, I felted white balls then elastic wrapped and put in indigo dye...the rocks have been embedded using wet felt which was a process I have been trying to work out for awhile, and I do believe I have it down now, famous last words but it took a bit of experimenting which is always a challenge for me to just experiment and not expect good results.
the blog world is giving me problems lately as it won't post pics as I am writing this and the pic just appears as symbols...so here's hoping this will work....

Trouble in Paradise

2010-01-19T14:50:00.000-08:00

Having trouble writing and doing photos in the same post, but below are three new felting moments...I use the term lightly as "moments" they are not...for example the felting of rocks is not quick, but it does feel very therapeutic. I don't really understand that but the warmth of the wool combined with the heaviness of the rock just seems so appealing when handled...I can take them or leave them by sight, but by touch they are something very special...who would have guessed. The next photo is of a hat in process, which is in Cl/pelsull fibre, felted like a hot damn, used Beth Beede's "hat over a ball" technique which is soooooo simple and easy, and is exceptionally quick.. still figuring out where to go with the embellishing but think that hats are in my future yet again. The third piece is a vessel, and I might not make these again, but it was fun. But do I or anyone really need a wool vessel? maybe perhaps, but....
so felting is still getting me off, and I have many ideas yet to manifest. Have dyed a little wool, but nothing stunning as of yet..except for some honey tussah silk which I dyed with acid dyes and well, need I say more, the colours are absolutely breathtaking, even if I do say so myself.
So here on the west coast of Canada, it continues to be mild, and wet, and rather windy...but oh so doable compared to ice and snow. I am so into grey and rain at least until spring. so back to the felting table (which is the kitchen counter at this moment> oh for a big table...

Felting Fever continues

2010-01-19T14:47:00.000-08:00

Coming of the light

2009-12-24T08:43:00.000-08:00

I drink a toast to the coming of the light, to rising with a glorious sunrise, and to all the seasonal celebrations, happiness, peace, and light to you all...

Felting Fever

2009-11-22T12:49:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the latest of my felting, felted flowers, and felted bead bracelet and felted bangles...I am really enjoying the felting process again, after many year hiatus, now it has returned, and so much fun...although it is work...
Today after days of rain the semi sanguinea shrooms are finally showing up big time. I have several drying trays full and this is the biggest pick this year. It seems very late but I believe it is because they need quite a wet season before they come to the surface, and we have finally hit their wet ratio, and it is touch and go as they don't like the frost, so we have a small window of picking them before the frost. Other years I have picked much earlier but it has been wetter earlier in those years also. I am always trying to figure out what secrets there are to knowing when they will arrive, but it is really just guessing at this point.
Two Xmas fairs, back to back, in the next few weeks, and that is keeping me busy, although I still want to make some new felt works, and do more shroom dyeing. So far it has been a terrible year for lobsters, which I love to dye with, but hopefully they still have a chance to show up, I am ever hopeful.

feeling a little Peckii ish....

2009-10-28T13:39:00.001-07:00

Just back from a mushroom forage on Vancouver Island North, and found lots of goodies..

have many pots of the stove, semi sanguinea, although a bit disappointed in the quantity, have cooked them up, added a little washing soda and have some sweet colors brewing as I write...the above photos, well, the hydnellum peckii were abundant, so I am ever hopeful for blues, but so far silvery grey, there were two types at least the one in the right phot0 top left. actually bleeding from the teeth, and these were the most abundant, and the teeth were beige brown, with light ring around the outside edge, the ones on the right of the right photo , looked very similar except the teeth were orange...and the ones on the bottom were tiny and I have gathered them before here on the island...now the mystery one for me is the photo on the left....it is toothed, with white, teeth, large stipe thick, and smooth dark almost black cap....what the ???? is it...some type of smooth sarcodon, I don't know , but I did gather it, and now am researching to find out what I can, so if anyone knows this shroom please let me know, and if it is a dyer, that would be wonderful, and if it dyes other than beige, that would be more wonderful...I have sent the photos to Dorothy Beebee, shroomer extraordinaire, and so hopefully I will find some more info about it. It was wonderful to be in a new woods, after 20 km on a logging road, and then hiking where it was all new territory, and there were so many mushrooms everywhere. We are surrounded by chanterelles, and boletus of every variety, and the wonder of it is that they were not all bug eaten, and that there was hardly any deer scat, which was very noticable... here on our small island, I guess there just isn`t enough for the deer and bugs to eat so the shrooms we gather here are often sampled by both...

where we went is supposedly two weeks ahead of mushroom growing than we are, so I am looking forward to more shrooms here, although the frost is approaching. There is a definite lack of lobster mushrooms this year and I wonder if they go in cycles, as I found none on our trip either...so I have three pots cooking, one with peckii, one with sanguinea, and one with chanterelle soup, they all look delicious to me...lol

Because I FELT like it

2009-10-21T12:16:00.000-07:00

The return of the felt, after a 15 year hiatus, has come back with a vengence...I am loving felting again and thankfully I hadn't sold all my felting wools, or washboard or mats, as I had continued to make boas over the years, but now I want to make everything...I love being obsessed with fibery goodies...and even though my back is l5 years older it seems to be able to handle this new work....here are are photos...

These need to be clicked on for a better view, but these are two partial boas, with long long wensleydale locks from England, and they are narrow with locks on either end...and some silks embedded in the main black scarf...The brown one is natural locks and one side is covered in the locks and it is felted with half breed and merino base with silk gauze embedded in between the layers to keep it from stretching out...I always put the silk in to stabilize the length....The top two are a wrap that looks quite elegant on, but doesn't really photograph well, do to well, the photographer, that would be me, and because I don't have an extra body here at the moment...but you get the picture....

and the rocks, well just couldn't resist, living on an island with an incredible amount of rocks, some just called to have felt coats put on them, so there they are, snug in their felts....they are so handleable....I always thought painting rocks was sacrilege, but apparently I don't think felting over them is the same thing...so there we have felted rocks....and olives,well it was a natural evolution from rocks apparently lol....

and last but not least the Vessel.....well thanks to nicole clasheen, an irish felter who is so generous of spirit she guided me through her technique, we have the vessel. The "all day vessel" as I like to call it, as it practically took me all day to get it stiff enough to stand on its own, but it is beautiful to behold, and I haven't even embellished it yet, so I am thrilled....next I am on to some nuno felting...with the help of nicole, and elizabeth of StudioFelter, in Australia, so my felting return is being fostered internationally...so so lucky...and of course there has been the usually natural dyeing.

More Polypores are soaking as we speak, and I have the bottom half of the fridge filled with premordanted fibre ready to dye at any moment. Have been going out a few hours daily, and the rains have finally shown up here, and we have even eater some white chanterelles, and saw my first Lobster mushroom just yesterday, so we are slow here compared to other places at this time of the year but it is an island, which is virtually a rock, so the rains take awhile to penetrate and get the mycelium running... so I have much to look forward too. Felting with mushroom dyed organic merino is the next venture, just after doing two xmas shows....so life is good, dh is semi retired and loving mushrooming and mossing and the sky is clear today...so back to felting...

Woad at last

2009-10-06T15:04:00.001-07:00

Finally a success story with the woad plants, and this was their second picking....I started with three quarters of a gallon jar packed with leaves and poured boiling water over them ...then followed the recipe it Rita Buchanan's book which seemed clear and simple....famous last words...then after soaking the leaves for an hour, I squeezed them out and saved them. At this point the water did not look hopeful , very pale, and distant memories, or "second cuttings being inferior" kept surfacing....but perseverence furthers, and I kept going...added 1 tablespoon of ammonia, being out of washing soda, and then began to pour it back and forth between two buckets, as soon as I added the ammonia, things began to darken and look up, and the pouring resulted in bluish green foam, now things were really looking up...so then added the 1 Tablespoon of thiox, and let it be in 100-120 degreen fahrenheit water bath, for l hour, and the above results happened, it turned this light yellow, actually a bit more yellow than the photo, I had added one fifty gram skein of 50/50 silk merino, and l skein of brushed mohair....then left them for 20 minutes. The upper right is after one dip, and then let air for 20 minutes and back in for twenty which are the ones on the left....

so there we have it ...well almost, as in the meantime, I had boiled the left over leaves of woad, and added one skein of mohair to the bath, and got a lovely pale rose, so then I just added more to the bath, and put the leaves in a nylon bag with the next ones, so see if I can get even more rosy a color...I am almost more fond of the pinks than the blue...personal preference, but so fun to be getting blue from the garden, and from a second cutting...yippppeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG ess

2009-09-30T16:05:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/arts/design/23spiders.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&emc=eta1 Found this on another site and it is very amazing....hope you enjoy

Pining for Sarcodon

2009-09-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

Well the pic on the left is my rather beige hawk wing, sarcodon, which apparently was not found under a Pine tree, which is why it is yet again, a lovely shade of beige...lol...apparently the sarcodons which there are a few types, often give this beige, unless they are the correct type which is found under Pine trees...as I did not pick these or know this, I was ever hopeful for blue, alas, my search continues....

now the one next to it, the orange beige in the same photo, is coreopsis flowers, soaked way tooo long, but lovely in spite of myself... the sweet buttons of shrooms on the top are the sulfur tufts hypholoma fascicular, which I will be returning to pick tomorrow...They are such a lovely clear yellow dye producing shroom...
and the other two photos, are the phaeolus schweinitzi, or dyer's polypore, or butt rot, and these are quite the array of colours...the brightest yellow was from young ones chopped and soaked and then brought up to heat and then let sit overnight, strained, then wetted wool added, then again brought up to heat and taken off and sat overnight...so gold, the brightest yellow yet, the duller one beside it, was from older specimens, and cooked too long I think..."they" always say that with yellow you can dull it by boiling, perhaps this is why it is dull or perhaps it is the fact it is older, its a "crap shoot" so I am guessing...

the wonderful greens are all from the same phaeolus, but with a titch of iron and cot added after they were cooked...like 1/4 tsp, ferrous, and 2 tsp of cot...insta greens which I love....this could be one of my favourite polypores but I am a novice so who knows what is awaiting for me out there...and if it rains I will be out there again.....I do love the lobsters and cortinarius...I have many bags of cortinarius dried from last year, but am saving them until I have this years stash...

so the rains are coming I hear...and we are waiting.

Hawks wings flying

2009-09-22T15:43:00.001-07:00

Look what arrived at my house today, Sarcodon Imbricatus, (hawk's wing) noted for its blue wool dyeing capabilities...ever hopeful..after reading several articles and Leena's blog and Ravelry posts on the subject, it sounds like a veritable crap shoot, but Carole said she had luck with it as long as it is older, and cooked with high ph, right from the start, so I have them in the pot, and wool and silk is mordanting, and tomorrow the big test. Will it be green or blue, or greenish blue, I am definitely hoping for blues and I will post. Have been finding a lot of dyer's polypores, and am experimenting with that and getting some lovely greens etc...and sages and now am only picking the very young and will see what that gives....so I will post pics manana...the sun is out it is 25Celsius and life is sweet...if only shrooms would come out in the sun that would be a perfect world...

Black Eyed Susan , Return of the Butt Rot

2009-09-16T16:18:00.000-07:00

Return of the Butt Rot, Phaeolus Sweinitizii, 2009.
This was my first venture into the woods in quite some time, as my foot has been f......! unfortunately, but today, managed a forage and voila, Butt Rot. It was a young, spongy, still vibrant butt rot, and so I chopped it up, put it into a pot of hot water, cooked it for several hours, strained, and added the above silk/wool, and kid mohair, both which were unmordanted. It turned a lovely yellow, but who needs more yellow, not I apparently, so I let it soak, not cooking the wool for several hours, then lifted the wool, added one quarter teaspoon of iron, with l tsp of cream of tartar, which is suppose to even out the iron results, and it turned a wonderful green almost immediately...Left it for an hour or so, then rinsed...I do have alkaline water at 8 and so this does influence my dyeing..I just use it anyway , and allow for that alkalinity, not being a purist it doesn't matter to me, and it is easier for me out of the tap...not that I am doing a research paper on this subject so 8 alkalinity is okay for my needs...so if using this recipe you might want to take this into account...or not....

]phaeolus schweinitzii....fresh picked and more to come as we found young ones budding forth at the base of other fir trees

Fall is falling

2009-09-12T19:21:00.000-07:00

Waiting for the rains, and the mycelium to start running and gathering of mushrooms for dyeing...so far nothing to pick and dye with but this was some tussah silk I had dyed with sanguinea mushrooms last year and then I plyed it with some large loop mohair...so sweet. Not much on the dyeing front, as life is just starting to settle in after a mad summer of markets and wool sales and working. This was a great year for wool sales, and I had lots of admiration for the natural dyed yarns. Have done some woad dyeing lately and if I could find the damn files I would post some pics.... the woad was a success, although somewhat finicky, I did get some lovely blues. It was the first time I had dyed with woad from my own garden, and I did about l2 plants, I followed the instruction in Jenny
Dean's book on Natural Dyeing, and did try to do the after bath with the left over leaves but to no avail, and no color. I will post when I find the woad pics until then I can almost hear the mycelium awakening.

Where did summer go?

2009-08-11T15:39:00.001-07:00

One moment we are planting carrots and in a blink we are eating them, and harvesting the tops for dyeing, and here are the results...carrot tops on mohair boucle...loving the clarity of the soft green. Did an alum and COT modant, then left overnight in the mordant, rinsed squeezed and added to the dye pot, which was cooked carrot tops that then had sat for a few days and then strained...and voila after 30 minutes of simmering this lovely color. I had remember that I had liked the carrot tops last year but didnt save a sample card...and this year I vow I will keep notes and cards with colors and info on it, as the only data I seem to be able to keep is this dye journal. and I have yet to save anything on the computor, so next is learning to save, and hard copy of samples...
The other is tussah silk, dyed last fall in semi sanguinea mushroom juice and then I spun and plied it with a mohair boucle. It is very soft and friendly and soothing looking. Dyeing season is definitely upon us and the harvest of food is also.
Summer seemed to be a blink of the eye, what with market, working and then I had a gourd show last week and sold everything, which was fabulous, but summer seemed like a moment. Last night I dreamt of mushrooms, so perhaps soon the rain with come and it will be time to go into the woods again.

Righteous Rain

2009-07-07T17:35:00.000-07:00

And the rain is coming down, for the last two days and the garden is loving it, so are my woad plants which seem to be developing quite nicely. I also have flowering weld plants that are very elegant looking, and this is my latest dye bath. Acid dyes again as I had someone wanting silk, and silk/cashmere in those colours, so I went for the pink and orange shades. I am getting ready to dye some woad, just have to get my courage up as I haven't done that before and also I am still using my eucalyptus dye pot. Eucalyptus, the plant that just keeps giving, and the wool and cashmere smell wonderful. Have been doing the market and job and times are busy, the summer rush is upon us and I know fall is a blink away. I am already thinking of the mushrooms I hope to find and am almost ready to dye with the semi sanguinea I have been saving....feel like I want this years in hand before I use up all of last year, somewhat obsessed perhaps.

Seems that I won't be posting as often this summer as I haven't the time, but I love that I have this dyer's journal as I found some silk I had dyed and not marked and it was a wonderful shade of green, and voila, I looked it up and it was in this journal, apparently polypore and iron were the culprits to obtaining the green, must do that again.

Getting Wild

2009-07-01T18:14:00.000-07:00

Just read Jenny Dean's post, she being the famous natural dyer, author of many wonderful well researched books on dyeing naturally, and she has asked her publisher to reprint "Wild
Colour" and they have decided not to do it at this time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! excuse me, like this isn't the hottest time to reprint such a book, are they crazy? not informed? not aware of how many people are into natural dyeing and how many more are becoming interested each day....so the request is to email: david.lamb@mitchell-beazley.co.uk and ask or beg, or plead our case for a reprint...this book is invaluable, and not only that but I only have a borrowed copy, and I would love to own one for my collection...I have two others by Jenny Dean and they are definitely worth having for reference. So help a great cause and send an email to the above and maybe we can get this reprinted if they receive enough requests...the power of the fibre field....onward and upward.
On another topic, I have been to market and now am marketing two days a week and working two days, so not too much time for blogging. Summer time and the living is easy...

its not a yarn but a fish story

2009-06-10T16:13:00.000-07:00

Here is what I have been doing lately, I am back into the gourds with a vengence...and finally my wrist is letting me carve and work with gourds again, this is the latest salmon spawning on mosaic pebble creek bed...get the picture lol....and it is a lamp. I have only been wool working at night and seem to have enough dyed for the summer galleries so am shifting into the gourd world for awhile..I will keep posting but if you are looking for natural dyed yarns they are being labelled.. ready for sale. and the lamps are being made for the local galleries and a few shows. I love carving into the gourds, and pebble hunting, not difficult being as I live on an island, and then doing the mosaics all very fun and very hard compared to the soft comfy fibre. I think that is why the wool was so conducive to healing my wrist and the comfort of the soft fibre and the softness and the lightness is more appealing the older I get. but I am still working on the gourds, and gardening and working.....and life keeps moving on.

hyperbolic hyperactivity

2009-05-24T17:11:00.000-07:00

Lilacs bountiful, garden flowering and I am currently obsessed with the crochet coral reef and the hyperbolic crochet which was demonstrated in the show...such wonderful work and that set me off on the crochet path for the past several weeks. Plus with summer kicking in not much time for the blogging...so here are a few pics to suffice...and hopefully I will know what to do with all the pieces of the new obsession, right now it is just enough to make them, haven't really established how I will put them together..so guess I could say I was crocheting for an assemblage. That would be vague enough. So happy gardening and will post more pics in the new future....dh picked that beautiful bouquet of lilacs, and a beautiful white bouquet last week...the house is smelling wonderful.

Great Scott, Cape Scott

2009-04-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

We have had a bit of spring camping and the weather was wonderful, right up at the top of Vancouver Island...Camping at San Joseph Bay, and before that at Fair Harbour...and no rain, in fact sun. So little in the way of fibre..my head was full of shooting stars, skunk cabbage, magnificent trees, and way too dry firewood. Hard to imagine that fir bark left outside on the west coast would be bone dry for firewood. Unheard of, and now even I am hoping for rain. It is extremely dry here and apparently even the west coast.
Let the rains begin.

Spring has sprung....

2009-04-20T19:32:00.000-07:00

Stepping out this morning my dh said it smelled like spring, and it did, finally....and we were out gathering moss, and looking for mushrooms, but this is the driest spring that I recall.. all the swampy areas are dry this year, which does not bode well.

Did a lot of eucalyptus dyeing and then realized I had quite a few semi sanguinea left over dried, so I made a pot and soaked them for a few days with straight water, somewhat high in alkali as that is what my well produces. The liquid was a lovely deep color, so I strained it then put in three skeins : l silk/wool, l cashmere, and l silk/cashmere. All three had been mordanted at the same time in alum and COT ,I put all three in at the same time, and brought up to a simmer, and turned off immediately and let sit and cool in the bath..

the results were somewhat amazing. I usually find that silk sucks up the colors quickly and deeply but this time the cashmere was the big color suck...and then the silk and wool, and silk/cashmere. Don't really know why the cashmere seemed to pick up the most orange. I don't know whether you can discern it from the photo, the middle one is the cashmere and the silk/wool, on the far side and the cashmere/silk on the near side.....quite a surprise.

Eucalyptus rules

2009-04-06T14:31:00.000-07:00

I am sooo impressed with the generosity of the eucalyptus leaves...I had seen some going for a display and asked for the branches when they were through with them and voila, beautiful silk and wool, not to mention the smell in the house...very fragrant. I took the leaves and just soaked them for a few weeks, and then the color of the water was so deep rust and then placed some silk/merino which I had previously mordanted with alum and COT, and just let it sit in the bath for an overnight, and that is the single skein, almost dried...the other is two more skeins that I have soaking in the strained eucalyptus water...I love the color they came out and keep adding more water to the leaves and it seems it is endlessly putting out more color. So I am soaking more leaves. Also have some cherry bark soaking and it is putting out color already. I will try that as soon as I have more mordanted wool finished, and the garden planted...\

I did plant some woad seeds today, which I had received from Kirkoe in Germany, and have some lovely little weld plants in the garden which have spread all over the place. I am concentrating on more plants for dyeing, and will make a plot for them so I can keep track of them in the garden. It is a wonderfully springy day today, and the doors are open and the sun is shining.

Hummers are humming

2009-04-01T14:54:00.000-07:00

Here are a few quickie dye batches with acid dyes as I have to squeeze the dyeing in between spring planting and garden clean up ....so these sweet colors were done with the microwave and have yet to be spun.
Spring is happening, although cold, and even snow on parts of the island today, very freaky....
and have tried to find some mushrooms but too early, and too cold. I have some silk/cashmere soaking in mushroom bath, of semi sanquinea, and some soaking in Eucalyptus, and also am experiment with some wild cherry bark. I harvested it off some trees that came done this winter on our land, and so will see what I can get with that. Have found some good data in Jenny Deans "wild colours" dye book, and so have it soaking for now. Can't believe spring is out there happening and it is still too cool to be out there or too rainy or windy...I am missing some of my favourite season, even though I get out daily it is not enough..usually we can work outside at this time of year. However I was spinning on the deck yesterday until the wind carried my roving off the deck.

extreme sheep led art

2009-03-19T14:24:00.000-07:00

This is a definite must see, unfortunately couldn't copy the url...but if you go to youtube and put under search, :extreme sheep led art..you will see one amazing demo of sheep and led and dogs, all producing the most stunning video....a must to see....

spring forward

2009-03-04T10:06:00.000-08:00

Here are a batch of the latest springy colors....the pinkish ones are cashmere/silk, and merino in the semi sanguinea mushrooms, dried then cooked strained and added some ammonia to pink it up...taupe one is eucalyptus cashmere, the silver is baby stinging nettle, which was a surprise, and the orange is the paramelia sulcata lichen found on downed branches, which I soaked, cooked strained and voila...it is a bit less orangy but still a wonderful color...
and now out for another walk to collect, I mean, stroll through the dye shop of mother nature...
It does make walking even more of an adventure, if not a little graspy, as now when I walk everything looks like a potential dye product. The herring are spawning here now, so the sea life, eagles, sea lions etc. are bountiful, and of course there will be nettles, and lichen, and some dyeing later.
Jenny Dean has a great clear, concise, post on mordanting with Alum and it is worth a look, as I have just made a batch of liquid alum and it is so easy...and now I just pour for 400 gm of wool, 400 ml of liquid alum mixture....voila done... do this dones make it quick and doable...here post on it is very clear...i.e. tsp. which I love, and also the post on her dyeing cochineal and logwood is great. She is such an inspiration.

Curative Cashmere

2009-02-16T15:36:00.001-08:00

And here are the results of yesterdays modified skein.....that would be the centre one and it definitely has three colors subtle but not as subtle as the photo...I am thrilled with the results. The skein above, was dyed in the exhaust of the semi sanquinea, and then put iron into it, which gave a beige, one of the many beiges I have learned to love, sort of, and the skein to the right is the Cashmere Cure...that would be cashmere that was premordanted in alum and COT and then put into a strained eucalyptus dye bath....and of course if you buy this, you won't get a cold, you can just wrap it around your neck and snort the eucalyptus vapors which are amazing....I figured if the sea silk is said to help your bones with the calcium ? ( that;s what they say) then here is the cure for the common cold...straight from the alchemists dye pot...lol The colour is amazing, is has a greenish/khaki tone to it and it smells wonderful. Will definitely do this again, and try with some modifiers... so thanks to Jenny Dean and her modifying tricks, her books are also very informative and a great natural dye source...and she is now dyeing with fungus, so I can't wait for the next book.....its like having personal researchers, between Leena and Jenny, they are both very articulate and do great research and note taking, unlike myself, who tends to be way too spontaneous, and never strives to duplicate, so I can certainly appreciate the work these women do....and hope some rubs off on me...I do take notes, but am not really a researcher unfortunately, but there is room for all types in this kind of work...and I do love the gathering and the alchemy involved....like magic getting all these different results...but no book from me in the near future that's for sure...lol

Modified Mushroom Moments

2009-02-15T17:34:00.000-08:00

Today was an experiment that hopefully will give good results. I had read in Jenny Dean's blog, this process of modifying with different mordants post dyeing...so here is what I did...with the appropriate picture...can't believe I actually took one of the process, usually I think of that when the process is finished and it is too late. The fibre, silk/merino 50/50 was alum and COT mordanted and then left overnight, actually two nights then rinsed and put in a bath of strained and cooked semi sanguinea mushrooms which I had dried last fall. about a quarter of a baggie (sandwich bag) which I then squished and cooked then soaked and cooked some more, then strained in fine cloth, and entered the mordanted fibre, then cooked for about half an hour, just below simmer...then removed the skein and poured out two bowls of the dye water,(hot) and into one added vinegar (on the left) and the other washing soda....and suspended the middle of the skein above the two bowls, as Jenny suggested, so it does not wick into the yarn...hopefully it will give me three shades of mushroom dyed yarn...so far it definitely looks like two shades, as the washing soda made an instant difference....wonder what a dip in iron would do....oh, that will be for tomorrow....so right now they sit as in the photo, and will leave them perhaps overnight...and take a photo of the skein tomorrow for show and tell..If I could get three distinct tones I would be thrilled as I like the multi colored skeins and usually with the natural dye I have to mix extracts to get multi colors, this should be subtley beautiful.....eternally optimistic...i remain... I actually mordanted about 6 more skeins of cashmere, and silk and cashmere and so far three hours later, have resisted the temptation to dye them all...usually as soon as I mordant I can't wait to dye so as a result the idea of having premordanted fibre waiting to be dyed is a joke around here...I am amazed I have actually waited two hours...no matter how many pounds I premordant it is never enough....what's with that? lol

spring colors

2009-02-10T17:22:00.001-08:00

Well here are the latest acid dyes, and I am springing forth into lightness...I just had to do some quick microwave acid dyeing as I wanted an instant hit and had no mordanted yarns ready and this is the result..if you enlarge the pics by clicking on them the real colors will explode. Color is such an amazing meal...it fills the soul and the eyes, and as I mentionned at the guild meeting today, it is almost orgasmic...and I just hang it by the woodstove and love looking at the yarns and roving...and then walk into the other room and return to feast my eyes again...I guess I have a serious color addiction.
and talking to a friend of our obsessions today, and wondering about the balance of it all...seems I would rather be handling fiber and dyeing and spinning and collecting plants, than doing anything else, almost. and it isn't the money that it brings in, but certainly the sales allow me to buy more fibre and make more colors, and so the sales are important but not why I am doing it....I am definitely a fibre addict and there are many of us out there. I wonder where the drive comes from to be so obsessed with dyeing, spinning, and collecting plants. It is certainly embedded deeply in our souls and must be some kind of deep genetic impulse that is at work. I am always thinking of the fibres, what I will do next, how I will process, how important that is in the grand scheme of things...etc etc. and there are so many of us out there!
so the pondering go on, as I plan for another spin session, and have a pot dyeing on the stove as I write, and wonder how I will store the next bundle of fibre...and find balance in my life....

Variations on Obsessions

2009-02-04T17:02:00.001-08:00

Here are my lates obsessions the past few weeks...the knitted neck warmer which I got off of the net I love....it is 50/50 silk/merino, so soft, and keeps my neck warm as well as hiding those double chins...what more could you ask?

The walnut dyed wool is a combo of brown merino, and blue face tops and they were plyed and are lovely and soft....I loved the walnut dyeing and will do more next year....and then as I was starving for brilliant colors some acid dyed superwash merino and I micro dyed them after I had skeined them off a cone in 50 gram skeins...I hadn't done any acid dye for quite awhile and the drab winter weather just had me reaching for it. and the colors were fun to play with so I am quite happy with the colors and have been spinning some roving from it also.... Never say never...like"I'll never dye with acid dyes now I have rediscovered natural dyeing" but I didn't give all my acid dyes away so I must have known that I would be using them again....

I do love all the natural dyeing but a hit of brilliance is fun also...Not that you can't get brilliance with naturals but it was quick and fun to do...

I am learning how to spin fat yarns again...which is always a challenge as it entails slowing down the spinning wheel...and that mean paying attention as I am quite a quick person naturally, and so the meditative spinning is a challenge. My friend Judy does this type of spinning because if you are going to be selling, you don't want to spend hours doing a fine yarn and get the same price if you spent a half hour spinning thick yarn...also people love the thicker yarn and sales for that are good...especially using the tops as they are incredibly soft and I am doing 85 grams, and getting about 110 metres of fibre and it is a good practice after spinning for over thirty years to try something different.

Have more yarns mordanting and will be doing some dried carrot tops next week, as the well is high now, so have to take advantage of lots of water...

noxious weed!! sweet

2009-01-21T17:03:00.001-08:00

Well here are my latest dye jobs, and here is the noxious weed, japanese knotweed, which apparently has endless varieties, this being one called polygonum cuspidatum, and apparently is an incredibly invasive weed, and grows in one spot here on the island in noxious abundance.I harvested these gigantic leaves last fall, and dried them, and here is the wool from that, it is the one skein on the left, premordanted with alum and cot, and then dyed ..a wonderful tone, and the two on the right of that are done with the dermocybes, (semi sanguinea) same mordanting as above...I almost like the one on the left more, as it is stronger in color, but perhaps in need to do the mushroom dyeing with more shrooms to really compare...they have more pinkish tones, and did add extra ammonia to them to pink them up some...although my water is very alkaline, I added even more, and they went pinker.
so that is the latest, although I did get a great tip, from renaissance dyer on ravelry, from France with a great blog, www.renaissancedyeing.com named Andie and she has a great site for natural dyeing and awakened me to cold mordanting with alum, which I will try with my BFL tops as they seem to get to compacted with the hot mordant then dyeing process, so I am going to cold mordant them and save at least one stage of heating and hopefully maintain its loftiness.
I like that lofty word. I did a little acid dyeing this week, just about blew my eyeballs away with its brightness. I forgot how brilliant they can be, but messy really messy, and have to do it outside and pay attention and its chemical and sometimes I just crave its instant color... I am such a "color ho".. lol

OOO obama

2009-01-21T09:52:00.000-08:00

No pics in this post, but had to say what a wonderful moment it is for all of us with the newly elected...people say "but can he deliver.'..I say" he has already delivered," delivered hope for all. Onward and upward. Who would have thought an election of U.S. president could have me weeping into my coffee at eight thirty in the morning. Sweet !

Natural Acid

2009-01-05T17:56:00.000-08:00

Catchy title eh? Of course its all about dyeing and what we have here is natural osage blue face leceister plyed with acid dyed blue face leceister tops....haven't done any acid dyes for about a year but all of a sudden I needed instant vivid colors and that's what I got, but it went so well with the yellow osage that I twisted them up together, sacrilege perhaps, but a wonderful combination...

and for the phaelous schwienitzii, or butt rot as I am apt to call it, just for the shock value, is the green roving...I had saved some young phaeolus

and dried it and so was curious if I could get greens by adding an after dip of iron ...so I used half tsp. of iron and lifted the brown roving out and added the iron and voila sort of khaki, not as nice a green as I have had when dyeing over the fresh phaeolus, (which gives golden color) but definitely khaki /olive green. so now what to do with it....I am spinning more and enjoying the colors and the combining...I also am enjoyed Jenny's Dean's new dyeing book, a must for all of us obsessed dyers, lots of good tips and small and compact for carrying. I love adding to the library of natural dyeing. So tomorrow I will mordant a lot of yarns and prepare to dye with some sanguineas....I can hardly wait....now for some more natural acid.....been there done that...

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

2008-12-21T13:41:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-15T13:49:00.000-08:00

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...

2008-12-03T14:50:00.001-08:00

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

2008-11-26T20:22:00.001-08:00

here is the site

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

A must see

2008-11-26T20:19:00.002-08:00

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

2008-11-25T20:05:00.001-08:00

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!!

2008-11-09T16:10:00.000-08:00

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!!!

2008-11-05T17:21:00.000-08:00

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

2008-10-21T17:19:00.000-07:00

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...

2008-10-15T18:44:00.001-07:00

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

2008-10-14T18:02:00.001-07:00

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

2008-09-29T17:04:00.000-07:00

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..

2008-09-21T13:07:00.000-07:00

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...
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

2008-09-14T12:11:00.001-07:00

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 ....

2008-09-11T16:59:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-04T19:04:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

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??

2008-09-01T14:45:00.001-07:00

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

2008-08-24T16:05:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-24T13:14:00.001-07:00

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

2008-08-17T19:12:00.001-07:00

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

2008-08-11T18:46:00.001-07:00

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

2008-08-10T17:08:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-27T19:28:00.001-07:00

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

2008-07-14T19:20:00.001-07:00

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

2008-07-06T09:29:00.001-07:00

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

2008-06-25T18:53:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-22T17:38:00.001-07:00

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

Celebrity Blow up

2008-06-17T19:12:00.000-07:00

just wanted to add that if you want a real color hit, click on those last two pics...the silk boucle, and silks are just too much..

one handi work

2008-06-17T19:02:00.000-07:00

Truly one handed handi work, but dyeing seems to be in for the past few weeks...knitting slightly painful but getting better, so for my upcoming birthday, sweet man, got me some lovely natural dyes in extract....so I can eventually, perhaps tomorrow, paint some skeins in multi colors...if I wasn't so pooped I'd be on that right now...so madder was in the works and the lovely deep old carpet oranges are just too much, and the batch went on and on with several layers of ever diminishing oranges...just finally having the last soak in the exhaust, because even if the color or shade is not desirable you can over dye or paint...also did some osage orange, very lovely yellows, potentially to dip in indigo, and then two batches of cochineal, one from the bugs grounds by moi. and the other an extract...so the extracts are too easy to use, feels like cheating.

In the Cochineal made from bugs I put some silk and wool skeins and after dyeing swished one skein in ammonia and water, for about a minute, and it definitely made a difference, brought the blue tones out of the red, and then did multi dyes of the cochineal, until I reached the softest pink....then with the extract it was a whole different thing...also did some roving which I would do in one step dyeing put the mordant right into the dyepot with the dye and this seems to be working fine...so much fun...even one handed, although that is getting a bit boring...
am now taking the cast off at night for a breather and arnica...tomorrow more colors, think I will do some fustic and some blending of extracts....hold me back!!!!

lac se daisical

2008-05-27T14:51:00.001-07:00

here is what I have to show this week, dyeing with Lac..the dark colors in first and the lighter shades in the exhaust bath.. reverything done with alum and cream of tartar mordant. I do like the colors together andwill definitely do more, although I find the mushrooms more rewarding as I gather them myself, i suppose I could go to India and pick insects by the thousands off the ficus trees but I am way too busy right now...and the "cast of patience and perseverence " doesn't come off for a few weeks so I am definitely slowed down...

GIVE ME A BREAK

2008-05-21T16:06:00.001-07:00

and here is the latest addition to my wardrobe, such a teacher in patience and perseverence.. so invited a few friends over and they helped tie dye some silk scarves in lobaria pulmonaria (lungwort) , and wolf moss , which was a gift.. and the results were great.. so back into the forest with walking stick and dh pushed over a few tiny standing dead maples with tons more dried lobaria...and then we found a mother tree of oyster mushrooms, so it was one bountiful day...
and now back to the job for three days

lichen it or not

2008-05-12T16:15:00.000-07:00

Out gathering again today, and besides a feast of oyster mushrooms we lucked into lobaria pulmonaria, and my dh has been bugging me about all these lichens I could be experimenting with and he was soo right, as here are the first lichens, from lungwort or lobaria pulmonaria, and we found them in the woods on a fallen maple tree. I soaked them in cold water overnight, and got a great rust color..then today put in some kid mohair which I had wound and mordanted with alum and cr. of tartar, although I know that many don't bother with mordants for this lichen, and then some silk/merino in the exhaust bath.

here are the photos of the lichen, soaking in the water, as today I went back out and gathered more...so between the oyster mushroom feast, which we found yesterday, and went back for more today, and the lichen, I am having a great mothers day....Mother lode of mother's bounty.How sweet is that. I did see some lichen dyed wool that had an iron mordant and was really orange, so have more soaking and might try a little iron to bring more of the reds out, it does seem more reddish brown in real life.
Tomorrow back to the indigo bath, which I have made more stock and will try and refresh the pot..

Blue footed booby

2008-04-22T16:03:00.001-07:00

And finally, my first real indigo bath, and I am thrilled...it was so exciting. I had done this before but with a friends dyepot and so now I too, have my own pot of indigo. I loved the process although my feet are a little speckled with blue dots. Lesson one, don't wear sandals or bare feet, very drippy. Also I need a better system for putting them in the vat and turning them, it was quite a mess and also wondered if the pooling on the bottom of the skeins would make a difference.
I shall see tomorrow as I am to wait 24 hours to rinse. I did bfl, silk and merino, silk and cashmere and some mohair, like 500 grams, and still the bath was working. I am very thrilled. I ordered the real East Indian indigo, and it was a fine powder, and I did the quick fermentation method so I could do this in one day.
All of this was fun, and I will be doing it again really soon. Like tomorrow.

This is the 500 grams of Mohair which I put in the bath last, thinking I had almost exhausted it so I was quite thrilled I got such a lovely blue, but the final telling will be after I rinse it tomorrow...Now to figure out easier methods of handling the skeins and hanging them, and what to do to the not yet exhausted bath...can I extend it or what....very exciting and wonderful to watch the oxidation...I love indigo so now I think everything I do will be with this color, and it looks great as an undercolor for other natural dyes....and no mordant necessary on the wool as it is substantive dye...yes, I do love not having to mordant. I am too lazy.