but is it butt rot??

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

Going Green

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

dyeing to dye

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

Take Two

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

I could hardly wait

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

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

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

lac se daisical

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

anti depressant yarn

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

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

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

fussing with fustic

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

Silk Road Tour de

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

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

purple plus

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

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

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

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


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

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....