Righteous Rain

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

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

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

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

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....

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

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

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

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

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

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...