Celebrity Blow up

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Elizabeth Zimmerman rocks

Here is the Baby Surprise Jacket..amazing piece of mind invented this...Elizabeth Zimmerman says she was on vacation when she worked this out...I haven't been on one of those types of vacation where your mind is making ingenious patterns and calling that a vacation...I want one though..
Putting this together was fun, and giving it to others as a flat piece and getting them to work it out was fun to watch...Now I will trim it around the neck and maybe down the front with the lighter color ..

turkey tails tell all

Trametes versicolor, but will they give color, that is what I am trying to find out..sure are attractive and plentiful right now. I have chopped some up and they are soaking and then I will cook them up and see what happens..I have just finished a baby surprise jacket pattern by Elizabeth Zimmerman, and have yet to sew it up, but then will have show and tell...it was a treat to make, but only had cashmere silk on hand in balls so made it with that...so no drooling on this sweater, and think it might be for the second coming, as your average child would definitely puke on it and then have to be hand washed...
Have some instant Indigo crystals a year or so old, and have tried to dye with them, maybe they worked but did lose a lot of color in the rinsing..will have to try and save the bath tomorrow, with the Rit dye remover and see if I can get it working better. May try some real indigo instead..but want to do indigo with the mushroom dyeing as they are so complimentary. What I love is that all things natural go so well together. ah Mother Nature....

what the???

So this is why I haven't blogged, apparently I have been in the frozen North...that would be Quebec, and record snow fall, and here I am snowshoeing....One day watching my daffodils blooming and the next day snowshoeing across a lake in Quebec while affirming why I left the East....and now I am home and knitting and spinning. One good thing was I did check out the yarn shops before leaving and managed to bring home a few goodies... My first cashmere/tussah roving which I will photograph for you..and the occasion of the trip was my MIL's 80th birthday so now I can garden, and finish watching the blooms come up ...I love the West Coast of Canada

Leaves of inspiration...

So here is the wool dyed with inspiration from the rainy drop leaves..of a salal I think...but the colors of the wool were irresistable so started another pair of socks...so easy to work with on the road, and doing them in the magic loop, with the pattern of knit two rows, kl pl,for one row....this is a great pattern and keeps the socks from slouching without having to do too much purling...not that we don't love to purl...lol...
Love the tones of green and pink, very juicy and the yarn is too...

Leafy days of spring

Here are the photos I liked from todays walk with my friend who is 82 and has wonderful eyes, she is always seeing things I miss, and has such a beautiful eye for them, and leaves are one of her favourite, so she reintroduced my mushroom seeking, moss delving eyes, and had me focusing on leaves, and voila there were some sweet ones...It was a beautiful sunny spring type day and the leaves where colorful in there deterioration...so the textures were wonderful, and so many colors very inspiring for dyeing yarns...the lower one is especially dyeable.....On the knitting front I am working on dyeing sock yarn which I think profit wise is a bit of a right off, unless you are selling it yourself, because with the galleries putting on their percentage, I really don[t think it is worth it for me...but I do like to dye some just for my socks and for the market...but don't think I will get too far into it, as it is too much work for not enough return and life is too short...I could be out there taking pictures of leaves....but am working on a cashmere/silk :"ice queen" as I like my yellow kid mohair but wanted one a little heavier so I am knitting it in white and I will dye it later...it is very soft and necky.....and am working on finishing two pair of socks, and one old shale scarf and still waiting for my new blocking wires...very thrilled with that purchase....so more pictures to follow...

sock it 2 me, one more time

Here are the newest colors and I love them both...the yarn is the merino washable sock yarn, and they were both handpainted and micro dyed...I used at least three different dyes in this process...telana, jaquard, and gaywool, and mixed them with water and a bit of vinegar, and soaked the yarn in vinegar and water first....then microed them for a total of about ten minutes altogether with time in between, and they came out totally exhausted and I wasn't...it is a great way to have a dyeing day without lugging big vats of water, and I have it down so there is little mess, and all happens quite quickly...one thing I have learned in doing this process, is that after I have soaked the wool in vinegar and water, I then put it in the washing machine and spin the water out, then dye it...that way there is no pooling in liquid as it steams...minimal liquid in the saran wrap...and then I dry it and skein it in 50 gram skeins...this is rather work intensive for the money you get for sock yarn...what with the gallery or shop taking ther percentage...not a very lucrative business if it goes in shops, although when I sell at the market in the summer and I get all the money for it , it is more lucrative. But I do love having all these socks to knit, as I c annot resist making socks out of all the colors I like so usually I get a pair out of each dye lot.


Now am working on a pair which has a great pattern on the leg part...two rows knit, one row pl kn l , and I love the look and the elasticity of this. so off to knit more socks...

Under the weather with the ice queen

Here's the latest finished gooding, the Ice Queen, from Knitty....without the beads, and shortened, to ll final repeats, because I could never see myself wearing it over my head, but do love to where high neck covers, for the warmth it gives, and for the chins it covers...seem to be liking them more the older I get, but really they are incredibly warm...so this is done in silk haze and certainly took the whole ball, and if I had followed that pattern it would have been more , which is kind of a shame as a one ball pattern is always good to use up those balls... it has a provisional cast on, which I got to practice and a picot edge bind off which I learned to do and took forever. All this while listening to a book on tape...which I love doing if knitting as I get to "read" the book and not lose out on knitting or spinning and also because sometimes the brain just doesn't want CBC...This is how I get through some novels that would have perhaps been a slog to read...and as long as the narrator is good and it is unabridged I really enjoy it.



Here is the close up of the ice queen although the buttery yellow of the silkhaze seems to be lost.
Next is a string bag which I am going to make from organic cotton which I bought on Ravelry for a more than reasonable price. So as the island turns ......

Twist and shout

Here is the sock yarn all twisted and a pleasure to see and irrestible to me..I have balled some up and must make some socks...seems I have to make socks from every color I dye...pathetic really...just color gluttony....but some is being shipped off in a trade for two ply alpaca, and some I am keeping for myself, and the reest I will sell...it is the washable merino and I love this twist...it is so endearing to me to clearly see the twist in the yarn, must be the basket weaver in me because even though I love other sock yarns seeing this twist has the most appeal...

and here we have some 50/50 silk/merino and some blue face roving drying by the fire...I love how the silk sucks up the dye and even though I only used two colors in the bath so many variants...all the tiny sprinkles that make up the shade get absorbed into the silk....now to dye some cashmere/silk next...think I will micro dye that..I read in someone's blog last week that putting it on low for 5 minutes, then resting and dyeing 2 min on and off, makes for better color, the starting low, so I will try this method and see if it makes a noticeable difference. As the island turns....and snow falls, we dye on...

Down and Dyeing

Been down with the local plague for a number of days, which at least found me undating my blog, and a wee bit of dyeing...here is my latest washable merino, although the color is slightly askew...more olive in that gold ...but it works...
and next in the photo parade..voila, German heel, taught by Frenchette, and practised here for the first time on a normal, relatively, sock...do I like it? not really, will I do it again? sure if its for the felted footie...it worked great then and used less yarn, but give me the old flap...of course I will do it again, as I need that second sock to match to pictured one.. I like the process just not the fit for my foot...
Photo number three: the sweet blocking of the cashmere old shale scarf...still can't believe what simply blocking does, might be magic...and I can hardly wait for the real blocking wires to show up ....I must get knitting so I have more scarves to block when they arrrive....and the finale is the newly spun mushroom dyed bfl tops....how sweet it is...my eyes are becoming more attuned to the pastel palette, much to my surprise and delight, and good thing too, because I can't seem to get bright mushroom dyes...you need much mushrooms, like 70 grams dryed for l00 grams of fibre, now that seems like a lot of mushrooms but come fall, I;ll be out there picking and drying...
so for now I leave you with the softest of hues....and go back to those damn Harlot Hamsters.....

Snag me and lacy....

Cashmere, old shale scarf...I started this eons ago, and finished it, and so so, okay, then dyed it, so so okay, then washed it, so so, then decided to block with wires, tedious....then at eleven thirty at night had to take the wires out before the cats decided it was a toy, and took out the wires, and OH MY GOD dess.....what a piece of work...I found myself running around the room saying "mine mine mine" ...so this is my discovery of blocking...I have blocked before, sweaters, hats, socks even but never with wires and never cashmere, and this is sooooo mine.... I went directly onto Harlot's site, as I had remembered her writing about fabulous blocking wires, which mine weren;t, and ordered me a set....and because I thought maybe I shouldn;t , I don;t the money, well I;ll just find the site...so in a wing and a prayer, I went to yarn harlot, hit what I thought was around the site voila, hit the right "past post", and took that as a sign that I must order them...doesn't take much to convince me......so I await the wires...in the meantime, more lace.....Frenchette came over and gave me my first chart reading lesson, and it was sweet....she;s not too anal, just anal enough to teach me..and here is my first beginnings of flower basket shawl, in kid mohair, of the sweetest aquamarine color...this was hours of work you are looking at, so this will be a long journey into night... so wish me luck and may the force be with me...and frenchette in case I bugger up....I think I can only do so much of this a day, then go back to mundane housework, cooking, or socks...something I don;'t have to concentrate so much on....so bring on the snaggy and lacy, I'm on the road to wispy land...

Promising

So here are a few of the promised pics...like this hand painted sock yarn, such a lovely twist and I love the colors, and in the background some spun bfl tops which I also hand painted...so quick and you can change the colors so quickly compared to vat dyeing..the ever so soft fluff is alpaca, a cria fleece which was very clean of vm but had some little bits which when I spun it white were disturbing so colored that and then carded a bit this morning on an electric carder...didn't actually feed it in as one normally does, but read somewhere a trick of laying bits on the large roller while brushing with a hand carder at the same time, and it seemed to work well...but someone kick me next time I think of buying a fleece, lots of work, and I am spoilt in my old age...so now I will spin the alpaca, which when I spun the single from the uncarded came out disappointedly limp...so tight twist and then plied...this is the next plan...
Next photo is the Tomten that I just finished although I haven't blocked it yet, or put the buttons on, there are three buttons and did an ez trick of just gapping the i=cord where it attaches to the sweater...love Elizabeth Zimmerman! so will see how it blocks up, it was fun to know..and the final pic is the bird in hand, and am closing in on the first mitten, will I ever do the second one, I almost stopped and called it a cuff, but perseverence furthers, so I am persevering on.....thats all folks, now for some more hand painting.....silk/cashmere perhaps...

What no pictures

Not only have I not blogged for eons but with no pictures to show, manana pictures will follow...and what the hell have I been doing for the past month..
Well the dh left for sea, and apparently I am too busy to blog, who knew, but here I am back again with a vengence, and although I haven't been blogging, I have been dyeing, knitting, spinning, and working my butt off doing chores, working, feeding the fire, cats, birds, myself. So on the knitting front, I have been knitting footsies, the initial pattern from pippi's site. and then my knitting partner, Frenchette, adjusted adapted and finally taught me the german heel and I have a pair I like...and I like the German heel, I could show it to you but it is felted into the footsie...but I will show the footsies manana...they are incredibly warm, made with SWS, and felted...that SWS felts like a hot damn, you have to really watch that stuff, or you could have baby footsies in no time...
also on the knitting front the best thing that happened is Elizabeth Zimmerman's DVD, I have been loving Elizabeth Zimmerman for a long time, but the DVD of her, with Meg Swanson , her daughter, prompting from the background, is a stunning piece of work. Elizabeth is just like in her books, so down to earth, creative, practical, and rather hysterical...and the relationship between her and her daughter is beautiful to behold , not to mention all the tricks of the trade she shares with you....so I started a
Tomten Jacket with mohair wool, and totally enjoyed knitting one of her patterns while listening to her talk about it... I want the other video next...this one i got through the library and it is sooooo worth it..
Am knitting on socks, and made another pair for my dh, out of alpaca/wool blend, with silk and merino mushroom dyed pattern yarn, done in stranding and these look cozy and warm...picture to follow manana again...now working on finishing my mittens, "bird in hand" then I want to make a pair of socks with the german heel, just to see if I like them as normal socks....and I also have a flower basket shawl on the table, with Frenchette's wonderful grafted pattern...my first big shawl...so will keep posting on this...well that's all folks but will show pictures and post tomorrow....

Making new neural pathways and mittens too...

Oh fun fun fun...first taught myself to knit continental and then once I had accomplished that all of a sudden knitting stranded became interesting..so wanted inspired by the interweave knits mag for boot toppers, I proceeded to make those into cuffs with variations, and then wanted to do some real latvian scandinavian mittens, and voila found the pattern Bird in Hand, merely 5.95 on the next on www.kategilbert.com and before I knew there I was downloading and knitting the mittens...when I was stuck last night, never having done a braid before, along came ravelry site, and there was a kate gilbert group, so I posted my dilema and within moments a woman replied, clarifying the pattern for my novice self...and haven't look back, so there is the mitter so far, and the name of the pattern. I am doing it it two ply merino, that I had sprinkle dyed dark purples, and white, and learned how to carry the prominent yarn in the same hand at all times, which clarifies the pattern edges better, so that the yarn coming from underneath is always in my left hand...that would be the white yarn in this case...Then had to Ml left and Ml right which I went to www.knittinghelp.com and there was a live video. Make it so....love the internet, I am learning so much on this knitting path and its a new trick or two every day, not hard to do if you are a knitter with a small "k" to quote the Harlot...so I am truly making new neural pathways and have the mitts to show for it. I love this part of knitting.

These are the latest fingerless gloves found in the interweave gift mag . Made from merino sock yarn which I dyed with mushroom dyes (except for the blue) haven;t found a blue dye yet beside indigo, but I have heard there are some Hawk Wings, and other Polypores that will give me that color...I do love the tone of thedyes...

So back to the mitten, and oh, also learned the picot edge, that is folded traditionally and looks great..

sanguinea or not sanquinea that is the question

Another round of mushroom gathering today, and a feast of Chantarelles, we keep thinking it will be the last feast but still going into December, what a treat. Gathered more northern red dye, top, and what I think are californicus on the bottom, but I am definitely not sure of that, are they western red dye, phoenicea , or californicus...they have very orange gills, and aren't nearly as red as the sanquinea. Hopefully someone , somewhere can answer this question. Perhaps Leena the queen of mushroom dyeing, in my mind, who lives in Finland, and is a great dyer.. can help me out. Even with three mushroom books in hand they are so close the two californicus and phoenicea, that it is hard to tell for a novice like myself. Also found what I think are Jack O'Lanterns Omphalotus olivascens, which I have cooking away on the stove as we speak...and the liquid is slightly orange, sort of like a pumpkin, thus its name, but gives a purple dye, mystery of mysteries....what I did get today was Carol Lee's mushroom dyeing book, and that will be helpful. Already is helpful and I just opened it. Now I think I will try and dry these new mushrooms in the picture today, as I don;'t have enough pots to put them in, and I did hear that drying is the best way for color, and Color says that the older the mushroom the more color, which is news to me...of course, its all news to me. Will post some Omphalotus olivascens tomorrow .....and perhaps wool dyed with it.