What to do with a week off?

I had a whole week off in May and I filled it with many things I enjoy doing such as:

some knitting on a Lopi cardigan with a zippered closing down the front. In the photo above it is still on the needles as a work in progress. Last week I finished it - well sort of. I wove in all of the ends, washed it and blocked it and it just came out beautiful and fits perfectly. Now to just get the zipper sewn in and I can say it is really done. I had sticker shock when I purchased the zipper a few days ago. $7 and change plus tax seems out of line just for a 28 inch separable zipper. When the zipper is sewn in I will update with a new photo. Hopefully it will get done tomorrow.

Ile de France

I  scoured the remaining Ile de France fleece I picked up at the end of the winter.
I had time to spin three skeins and dye them by hand painting them.

Ile de France

Ile de France

Ile de France batt

All of these were drum carded and spun semi woollen. This is quite short stapled, about 2.5", which if you look closely, the angle of twist can be seen.
Acid dyes were used.

Ile de France rolags

At the same time I was having fun I was also working on my in-depth study for Olds College. It turns out I had more revisions that had to be done. I can really say it's finished now. It was mailed away last week and I have received my mark. I have joined the Olds College Master Spinners.

Bob

This is Bob, one of our Australian shepherds. He is a young dog only nine or ten months old and quite inexperienced in the world.
We live in a rural setting and the only way to get some new things for him to get used to is by popping him into the car and heading out to a park.
Woodstock has a lovely park and often we go there for some doggy education. He has seen fishermen, skate boarders, joggers, kids, water, walkers, lots of stuff.




You can walk in the woods or by the water. It's a really nice place.

Last few times we went out to a different park, this one a little closer. Here we met up with some horses and riders and later an ATV. Bob's socialization is coming along nicely.
More about my week off will follow in part two.

'The' Study is Finished!!

I feel like standing outside and telling the world it's finished!!

I made the trip to the post office last Thursday, April 14 to send away the 'Blending with Hemp' study, my final requirement for Olds College Master Spinner program.

I took a couple of vacation days to finish it up and spent the last day with some dye and 1000 grams of Dorset roving just to relax and have some down time before going back to work the next day.

That's what I call down time - doing the fun stuff.

I got out a new book I purchased from Susan Rex called 'Complex Colour' about dyeing and chose a colour scheme and then my colours. 10 colour recipes. Actually 4 formulas and some different depth of shades and a couple variations.


Here they are outside drying on the shrubs and then a sample to see how they look together.

I like the colours together and now I'll have to look for the right project.

Indigo X Dandelion to Myrobalan

May 19, 2014

Dye 338 gr BFL roving divided into 6 packages. Forgot to take undyed sample.

1.     Divide roving into 6 packs. Tied loosely with string. #1 will only be dandelion dye. #2-5 will be first dyed in indigo, left all day to set colour & then overdyed with dandelion. #6 will be the strongest indigo only dye. Finished indigo dyeing at 11:30 a.m. Roving aired all day.

2.     Dye Plan as outlined. Each dip will be for 15 min. then aerated for 15 min. (as close as possible).

a.     clear yellow #1. (dandelion flowers only). Prepare Monday; let sit overnight & strain. Add skein to vat after warming at 8:10am. Leave until indigo dye is finished.

b.     indigo, light. #2. Time in vat: 15 min. 

                                               i.     Start at 8:20 a.m.  #’s 2, 3. 4, 5 are going into vat together. Take out. Air for 15 min. #2 then finished & removed.

c.      indigo, mid. #3. In vat twice: 30 min. total.

                                               i.     9:02 #3,4, & 5 went back in vat. Added a little heat for 5 min. to keep it warm. Airing at 9:17 - #3 now removed.

d.     indigo, dark. #4.  Time in vat: 50 min. Added  5 ml more stock sol’n to vat.

                                               i.     Added 4 & 5 back to vat, but also added 5 ml more of stock sol’n. Timing for 20 minutes in vat. Out at 10:00 a.m.

e.     Indigo, dark #5. Total time in vat: 70 min. Added 5 ml more stock sol’n. 10:45 am taking this out. #5 is finished.

f.      indigo. #6. This one stays in constantly. Total time: 1 hr. 30 min. but aerating as with all the others.

                                               i.     Indigo only-do not put this in dandelion.

                                              ii.     #6 finished at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

Undyed BFL. Tied. Labeled. Scoured. Mordanted.

1.     Monday. In a pail filled with very warm water add 2 tsp. TNA soap. Let BFL soak 35 min. 1:40. Drained Rinsed.

2.     Monday. Mordant fibre in new alum mordant to prepare for later over dye (27 gr. alum sulphate & 24 gr Cr. Of TT) for 1 hr. at 180 F. Rinse only.

3.     Monday. Gather fresh dandelion flowers and simmer to extract dye.

4.     Monday. Weight of dandelions: ¾ bag full. No weight available.

5.     Monday. Amt. of water:  2 gal.  (for dandelion vat).

6.     Monday & Tuesday. Simmered on induction burner for 95 min. at 195F. Sit overnight. Strained into pot and warmed to be ready for #1 BFL for dandelion only roving.

7.     Monday. Prepare indigo dye vat.

8.     Made indigo stock solution. Recipe from Jenny Dean’s blog. (www.jennydean.co.uk/wordpress/?p=3611)

9.     To make indigo STOCK solution: In a large mason jar, mix 50 gr indigo powder to a paste w. 4 T. very hot water. Add more water to jar, but leave room for fizzing. Then add 2 T. sodium hydroxide (aka lye, or caustic soda). (Dangerous chemical – be careful.) Stir gently, then add 2 T. thiourea dioxide. (Thiox or can use hydrosulfite, aka hydros.) Stir. Keep jar warm & set aside.  When it turns clear amber, it’s ready.

10. To make a vat: Fill a large stainless steel pot with water no hotter than 50C. Add 1 tsp. of thiox & 1 tsp. washing soda (sodium carbonate (also known as soda ash or soda crystals, Na₂CO₃,) and allow to stand for a few minutes. Very gently add 40 ml stock solution, according to the size of the vat and the depth of blue required. The vat can then be used as usual and more indigo stock solution can be added as necessary. I used a large syringe to add indigo stock.

11. 7:55pm Indigo dye stock sol’n mixed. Ready in 45-60 minutes. Letting it sit overnight. Will dye Tues. Gently warm by sitting jar in pail of warm water.

12. Tuesday 7:45 am. Prepared the indigo vat with 40 ml. indigo sol’n added to pot of warm water that has had 1 tsp. sodium carbonate & 1 tsp. thiox added. Placed on stove to warm to 50C or 122F.

13. Tuesday added fibre as outlined at top. Note that when I added 4 & 5, I added 5 ml more of stock sol’n.

#2

 

Indigo only. #'s 2,3,4 & 5.

 

#6 Only Indigo

 14. Tuesday strained dandelion vat for later over dye. Put vat on burner to warm & added only BFL #1 roving. In at 8:15 am. Removed at 5 p.m.

#1 in Dandelion vat

#1 Dandelion only

 15. Tuesday. Dandelion vat last for skeins #2, 3, 4, 5. 

Put roving ‘packs’ 2, 3, 4 & 5 into dandelion vat at 5 p.m. Tuesday. Heated to 180 for 1 ½ hr. Cooled and left to sit overnight & all day Wed. until I return from work when I will rinse, wash, rinse with vinegar rinse all roving packs.

After looking at the result of the dandelion overdye, I was disappointed. Although skein #1 was a lovely straw yellow, skeins 2-5 appeared to have changed very little if at all.

16. Save indigo dye vat for rejuvenating with stock sol’n in closed pail. Label clearly.

17. Thursday evening. I decided to do a myrobalan over dye using 30% extract powder to 338 gr WOF. 101 gr of myrobalan in pot of water.

a.     Added dye powder to some water. Mixed. Added rest of water and heated to 130F.

b.     Added my washed & rinsed fibre. Heated to 180F for 1 hr. Let sit overnight.

c.      Steeped all day in dye vat until I returned from work.

d.     Drained. Washed. Rinsed. Rinsed with vinegar.

Top Row: #6, #5, #4. Bottom Row: #1, #2, #3.

 Note the beautiful warm buttery yellow of the myrobalan. The 4 skeins do look a green of course. I tried very hard to dye the skeins evenly, but there are places in the 4 skeins that the indigo did not take evenly; the yellow bonded in those places. I will do a sample with all of the colours & post when ready.

Indigo X Myrobalan. Ready to spin having been drumcarded.

What Can Be Done In One Day OFF Work?

Well...quite a bit I think.

This is the first day's beginning. Since I rarely (almost never) buy store bought treats I always spend some of my time cooking. My hubby loves my poppyseed rolls which I prepare almost exclusively for him. This is what they look like.

2 Poppyseed Rolls

Then I felt like we should have some fresh bread. It looks like whole wheat, but for 6 c. of flour
, only 1 c. is whole wheat flour.

It's as good as it looks!

Then I thought bran muffins with dates would be good for breakfast:

Bran Date Muffins

Meanwhile by the time the bread had its first rising I was able to get the laundry finished washing & out on the line. How can you tell we live in a rural area? I like it that way!

When I was living the life, the sunflowers just kept growing & growing. I believe they are Russian Mammoth. They tower over my husband. We have groups of them planted all over the place.

Sunflowers 2011. The tallest one is 10' plus.

This is tansy, aka Bitter Buttons. It is another very tall plant with lacey leaves & small velvety flowers. I dyed some British Milk Sheep fleece with it to see the yellow I would get.

Br. Milk Sheep Fleece in Tansy vat.

Tansy

Tansy yellow on BMS fleece

Tansy yellow w. white fence for comparison

I had to fit in a little knitting too. These heavy work socks are now done. Started last winter, then ran out of Briggs & Little wool. Soon to be on their way through our mail system to Nova Scotia.

Briggs & Little boot sock. Heavy, oh ya!!

I kept the dye pot of tansy & added the woad leaves after I had removed the indigo from them & left it to simmer for an hour. Then I added alum mordanted Br. M. S. fleece and got an interesting result - it's on the right. The fleece on the left is a delicate aqua on Br. M. S. fleece. I made a mistake & added ammonia to the vat when I should have added the thiox. Oh well. This is all the woad from this year. I will have to try again next year.

Woad dye on left. Exhausted woad leaves in old tansy vat on right.

This is the indigo dye result (powdered indigo) used in last year's woad vat I kept. The green is over dyed with indigo on Golden Marguerite.

I have some acid dye, red, yellow, turquoise on the stove right now that are ready to come off. I'm using fleece from Ille de France sheep.

Ciba Acid Turquoise

Ciba Acid Yellow 

Ciba Acid Red (?)  Looks like orange.

There's more, but that's all I'm doing for now.

Woad Experiments

With fall officially here now I had to get in my last woad dye day before we woke up with frost. Too little spare time on my hands and too many must do projects. I could not put this off. The weather surprised me by not getting the promised rain and storm, so I went ahead with the woad dye.

I harvested all of the first year woad leaves except the new leaves coming in the center of each plant. This will allow the plant to continue into its second year when it will produce the seeds in 2011.

I followed a somewhat different method of preparation as follows:
1. Gather all the leaves of the woad.
2. Drop leaves into very hot water in large pot on stovetop. Add a little lemon juice or vinegar to have it a bit acidic. Hi heat for 3 min., but keep below boiling point. Simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Drain off dye liquor. Leaves can be used to produce other colours from yellows to pinks to orangey colours with addition of alum and cream of tarter.
4. Now the baking soda is added to turn alkaline. Check with ph paper. It should be at 9 or 10. The temp must be kept at 130-140.
5. Using a stick blender aerate dye bath for 10-15 minutes until you see the indigotin is developing.
6. Add the reducing agent. Thiox or Rit colour remover. (hydrogen hydrosulfite). Dissolve it in some hot water, then add to vat.
7. Let sit 1 hour. It must be a yellow colour, even if it is very dark. Ready now for adding the soaked wool. Soak for 10 minutes, then aerate for 10 min. Repeat.

After addition of Thiox. Ready to dye.

8, Rinse the next day. If the colour is a bit greenish, 1 T. vinegar can be added to the last rinse.

Shetland 2 ply. Woad dye. Not rinsed.

Uncarded wool.

Dyeing Lately

I harvested some woad on Tuesday with the intention of dyeing my project toque & a homespun skein of Shetland 2 ply wool yarn.
This was my first woad attempt & I have to say it was unsuccessful. I got a dull pink colour. Here is what I mean:

Woad unsuccessful attempt.

That is the undyed leftover yarn between the hat & skein. The hat is made of Clun Forest wool & a dark grey Romney wool. The skein pictured is a 2 ply homespun Shetland wool.

I also took the leftover woad leaves, after the extraction & simmered the dye liquor with sample skeins mordanted in alum, iron, and alum & iron. This is the result:

Dyed with mordanted wool in woad leaves after indigo extraction.

From the left: no mordant, alum mordant, alum & iron mordant, iron mordant.

Today I picked 2 lbs. of woad again & tried one more time:

2nd Woad dyeing attempt. A very pale blue.

These are the same articles dyed again. The sample skein on the left is Clun Forest 2 ply dyed on the natural white base. The 2 on the right were pinkish to start. I have to say it is again only a small success.

On a better note, my wonderful husband prepared my new dye garden which is a raised bed behind the building where we house our hobby shops. The size is 6'x24'. I have new plants started just waiting to go in.

New Dye Garden (no soil, no plants, just building it)

It should be finished & planted next week.

That's all for now.