dyeing – Page 6

>Finishing Projects

August 27, 2009 | 4 Comments

I have been home for a little over a week, in which I’ve spent a few days with my younger son (attending the all-John Adams concert at Alice Tully Hall, seeing the Julia movie and basically relaxing!), a little time catching up with friends, and perhaps even less time attempting to finish some projects before we head back up to Maine for another couple of weeks of sailing.

BRAZILWOOD DYE EXPERIMENT
Today I’m finally dyeing with the Brazilwood sawdust that I began soaking in February. I was advised to let the sawdust soak for 6 months so this is the right time to revisit my dyepot. I had the dye liquor covered with plastic film to prevent molding, and it seems to have worked!

My instructions (from Deb Bamford) called for heating the sawdust and soaking water together for about 30 minutes at 80C. Alas, I inadvertently let the mixture boil, which means the color will shift to into the brown range of reds. Frankly, the dye liquor already looked quite brown before I began heating it! After that initial boil, I turned the heat down to a simmer and let the dye continue simmering for about 30 minutes, after which I turned off the heat. When the dye liquor had cooled a bit I strained off the liquid into another dye pot and have saved the solids for a possible future dye. I then put in 2 oz. of my pre-mordanted yarn (Henry’s Attic ‘’Texas,’ wool/mohair blend previously mordanted with alum and cot) which had already been wetted. It immediately turned a medium value of dull orange. I have been reheating the mixture more carefully now, trying not to exceed 80C, and it is now simmering at about 75C for 1/2 hour. The color on the yarn has become a deep red/brown…more red than brown! I like it very much!

The flash washed out the color quite a bit….it’s a much deeper red. Who knows, it might be this color when rinsed, but I’m hoping for darker!

KNITTING
While dyeing I have also been finishing up a simple vest project that I’d like to wear in Maine on cool evenings. It’s a vest knit entirely in stockinette from yarn that I got from DBNY (Discontinued Brand Name Yarns). I have sewn on the zipper now and am now sewing a decorative ribbon (from LFN designs) over the zipper to add some visual interest when the vest is open.

SPINNING
My dark brown/grey corriedale which I washed and sent out to be processed into bumps, and which I was spinning during out last sailing trip, is not the right color for the stranded knit sweater I have in mind for the multi-colored roving, in a colorway called “Grapevine” which I got at MDS&W from Gale Evans. Earlier this morning I sat down to spin a little of the dark charcoal Shetland roving that I recently got from Hatchtown Farm, and it appears to be just right for the Grapevine. I am considering doing this sweater from the Twist Collective.

I think I will use the grey/brown Corrie to make a lace cardigan sometime in the future. It’s a dream to spin, but I will put that project aside in order to spin the Shetland for the the stranded sweater. Well, now! Aren’t I being mature?

And there was a very happy occurance in my inbox! Linda Lee has written to tell me that she will soon be dyeing my cotton sliver in her colorway “Phoenix Garden.” I can’t wait to get back to that project! Maybe the package will be waiting for me when I return home!

WEAVING

I’ve been thinking a lot about weaving, but not actually doing any since I returned from the Mid-Atlantic Fiber Conference in Gettysburgh, where I took a 3-day class with Jason Collingwood on 3-end block weave and shaft switching. While I am thinking about what sampling I’d like to do on the rest of the warp from that class, I have also been thinking about future tapestries. I have some ideas brewing….

I need to leave some time today for packing since we are leaving tomorrow morning! I hope this weekend’s storm is the only difficult weather we experience during this sailing trip!

>Bit by Bit

April 16, 2009 | 5 Comments

Cochineal Dyeing… I think if you click on the first photo you can just barely see the color of the dye with the little bugs in the pan. I used distilled water to simmer the bugs for releasing the dye, and according to Michelle Wipplinger’s recipe (which I got through Deb Bramford), after extracting the dye with distilled water I could use tap/well water for topping off the liquid. This did not work for me as I believe my well water is the source of what turned my bright red dye into plum/purple yarn. It’s a lovely color, but I wanted red!

Three dyebaths…not much change between #2 and #3.

My progress on Hudson River from last week to this week. I’m done with the boat (yea!) and can now focus on the trees/cliffs/water/sky. The trees are a bit fiddly but once I work out a system I hope I will at least be able to make steady progress.

Now I’m finally going to take a photo of the ‘Arwen Cardigan.’ I don’t know when I’ll get to frogging and fixing.

Some big collar, right? Anyway, the rest of the sweater fits well (better on me than my svelte dress form on which it hangs badly!), and I like the zipper! Of course, I have to take out the zipper and completely frog the collar since it was knitted sideways onto the neck opening. I picked up a stitch from the neck edge every other row, but when I re-do I will either:

A. Pick up a stitch from the neck edge every 4th row

OR

B. Knit the collar separately to a length I like and sew it to the neck edge, easing it in to make it fit.

I’m leaning toward “B.”

>A Productive Week

February 6, 2009 | 3 Comments

>It’s been a good week here! Wish I could say that more often. Both tapestries are showing progress, even if it is very slight!

My biggest thrill this week was dyeing without anyone holding my hand, and being pleased with
the outcome! This is quite a hurdle for me.

So, first is the green: I took two skeins of my weld-dyed handspun (a romney that I spun for tapestry) and overdyed it with my indigo. I made the indigo vat with a friend over two years ago. We dyed one day and the vat has sat ‘idle’ ever since. I re-constituted it with soda ash and thio-urea. The weld skeins were dipped twice for 10 minutes with a 30 minute rest in between.

The lovely blue silk was dipped three times for 10 minutes each, with a 30 minute rest between. I thought I would have gotten a deeper blue, but I’m pleased because this shade will be lovely for enhancing the edge of the pink shawl which has lain dormant since about Sept….because I needed to come up with something to finish the edging!

I’ve made great progess on knitting the ‘Cardi for Arwen,’ but I feel that needs its own post, so I’ll save that for now.

The days are definitely longer! I’m waking earlier and feeling more energy! The sun is higher in the sky, and in spite of another bitterly cold week, I can tell the sun is stronger.

>What’s going on here?

November 12, 2008 | 2 Comments

I just returned from a six day trip to San Francisco, where I indulged in a trip to Art Fibers and Britex, along with the typical sightseeing: the seals on Pier 39, Union Square, Chinatown….

Dyeing with weld has been on my mind since early summer when I realized my second year plants were going to flower. This is my first attempt at dyeing weld. It was a multi-day process. First I chopped up the dried branches from plants that I harvested back in July. Immediately after covering them with water I realized I meant to cut the branches into much smaller lengths, like 1″ – 2″ lengths, but it was too late! Sometimes I wonder at my lack of ability to concentrate! The color I got after simmering the weld did not look promising, like weak tea. I let the pot cool and sit for a couple of days and then heated it to a simmer again. I never did let it boil, and both times I simmered for only about 1 hour. I strained off the liquid from the plant material, gave the plant material a good pressing to extract all the liquid I could before disposing of it. The dye liquor was an unappealing dark tan. In went the wet yarns, most of which was my handspun romney and one 250 gram skein of fingering weight Palette from Knit Picks. This simmered one hour for a very awful tan. I then let the yarns cool in the pot and sit overnight for a second try the next day. Still very boring tan. I then resorted to my very expensive, $37/oz. powdered weld from Earthues. I had one ounce which I dissolved in a small amount of water before adding to my dye pot. The color got darker, but no better. Back in with yarn to simmer for about an hour. The color of tan got considerable darker and had an olive tinge to it. I still hated it!

I then consulted the internet on weld dyeing and what could be done to shift the color. The recommended additives were ammonia or sodium carbonate. I opted for ammonia since I could get that locally. I do wish I’d taken a ‘before’ photo! I removed the yarn from the dye pot in order to ‘glug’ in some ammonia, and the color change was instant and shocking! When I added the yarn it also changed right before my eyes to something quite lurid! It’s a lot more yellow now, but that olive cast is still there, making for a bright “French’s” mustard with an olive tinge. I rather like it! It’s certainly shocking.

I’m looking forward to over-dyeing with indigo, though this time I will only dip my little 1/2 oz. skein for a test before submitting all my precious handspun to what could potentially be a really nasty color!

I’m thinking about how to write up what I’m doing with my ‘Cardigan for Arwen,’ but can’t seem to make myself sit down with the graph paper to document my changes. I’m much more of a design-on-the-needles knitter, who struggles to then document what has already been done….

I bought some silk/mohair (76 % silk, 19% mohair, 5% merino) called Sylph at Art Fibers and had to immediately start working on a Clapotis. I was knitting everywhere in San Francisco, and obviously not paying attention well because I’ve now come to the fourth set of dropped stitches and those stitches won’t drop all they way to the bottom. It appears that I did a k2tog quite a fews rows down that is interfering with the dropping. I discovered this last night at almost midnight, while watching tv since I couldn’t go to bed when my body was still on West Coast time. I threw the whole mess into one of my knitting bags and hope not to think about it again too soon!

In the past couple of weeks I have worked on both the historical tapestry and H. Rob, but with no real progress to show for it. Baby steps are better than nothing though, and I have also done a small sample for my Hudson River Quadricentennial piece. Slow and steady…..

I do not understand why certain photos get sideways when the original was not!

Can you see here that I’ve drawn in the shape of the boat that will get woven next?

Ah, and I’ve just remembered that I promised an article to my study group at Complex Weavers….so I’ll sign off now to take care of that!

>Wedding Shower

June 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment

>
I finished the cover kimono from Knit Kimono in time to wear to my future dil’s shower tomorrow. I’m not happy with my photos, but I’ll try again. Bob and I are still hurtling ourselves around, and I had to find the camera in his packed bags in order to take this photo! I’ll be camera-less for the weekend….

He’ll be sailing in the Shelter Island area of Long Island, and I’ll be on the Connecticut River at the shower and then visiting my sister. Hopefully we’ll be buying a flower girl dress this weekend! Poor mother of the groom is going to be the last one to get her dress!

Tapestry is beginning to seem like something I used to do. I’ve started a new warp for a small sample project while I have two larger projects in various stages of woven incompletion (my neglected historical piece and ‘Handsome Rob’), and there’s a Hudson River design that is dying to get out of my head onto some paper. sigh…..

My weld is huge, and I’m ready to dye. I’ve got some handspun single-ply Romney for tapestry, as well as some commercial merino/mohair and some commercial wool, both of which I’d probably use for knitting. All I need is some time at home!

My dog Riptide continues to take up much of my time on weekdays. He’s not failing yet, but he needs to be monitored fairly regularly to see if his liver function can improve enough to get him back on his chemo therapy schedule. If he doesn’t improve soon it will become too late to accept him back into the program. It’s a clinical trial being done by Abbott Labs. He’s done very well on it for nine months before chemicals began to build up in his liver. He still acts perfectly healthy, although a bit more subdued than he was before getting lymphoma.

On that note….I have to get ready to take him for his blood work….