Curative Cashmere

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

snow capped

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

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

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

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

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

Ramaria formosa? for dyeing for mosa...

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

oops

here is the site

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

A must see

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

Mycelium blossoms still abound

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

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

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

Dermocybe madness!!

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

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

Oh Oh Oh Oh Obama!!!

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

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

west coast lobsters

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

Excitement abounds...

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

Big Butt Rot

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

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

Getting Green

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

Mellow Yellows..

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