Knit a sweater in a day, they said! It would be easy, they said! yeh right.

 I think the title says it all really.  

This wonderful machine fell in my lap and in my hubris I thought I knew plenty of knitting and this would be easier than the two pointy sticks.

yah right.

At the end of the sweater, I am overwhelmed by how much love and respect I now have for machine knitting and machine knitters.

It really is true that it doesn't matter what tools we use.  It's what the knitter brings to the yarn that makes all the difference.  

I can't wait to find out how to use my ribber.  Any ideas?  There don't seem to be many tutorials on this that I can find.

(oh, and there is dyeing and sheep in there too because, well, sheep)

False spring

 

Having a retirement flock of chickens living in part of the garden makes it easy to spend more time outside.  They are each lovely with unique personalities.  

Petrichor the rooster, has an arthritic wing, but still believes he's the strongest boy on the farm.  

Lady loves to be sung to every night but won't suffer any duck but Mrs Clint - and won't go anywhere with Mrs. C.  

Nana is the mother of so many chickens hatched on the farm.  One of the oldest animals, she is slow, wise, and loves her comforts.

And then there is The Widow Clint.  The only duck I met who was 100% monogamous and who's friendship with Lady kept her going through the worst of the grief.  That and the worms we dig for her each morning.  She can't wait for the worms.

We've had a break from winter.  Double Digit Celsius days (over 60F) in the coldest month foretells a stormy spring. 

But that's a problem for future us.  

Instead, I take advantage of the sunshine and play with some yarn.

freshly dyed yarn drying in the winter sunshine

And digging the garden for when it is time to plant.  Because gardeners are nothing if not optimists.  

It doesn't madder what colour I get

 Confession time: Dyeing scares me.

(dyeing - as in making things colourful)

There is so much science about it - and as much as I love geeking out and learning the details, I also get lost in them.  

What if I do it wrong?  What if it's ugly?  What if... 

A few months ago, I was putting my garden to bed for the winter and I was thinking about this list of what if's, probably because I was digging up some madder roots for a new garden because I love the colours madder makes and you can never have too much.  

I put aside about a third of the madder root for drying and dyeing at some later date.  Because one day I'll know enough to be able to use it.  I've never seen instructions for dyeing with fresh root before.  Maybe it's not possible.  Someone would have told me if it was.

Then I started to get angry at myself. Why don't I just do it?  It's only yarn.  I've got nearly 5 kilometres of handspun yarn ready for just this sort of harvest.  It's not like I need a specific colour, all I want are pretty reds.  What keeps stopping me from dyeing?  

The answer, I'm sad to say, is me.

So I designed an experiment based on what I know about madder.  Scared that I might destroy all that handspun yarn, but excited too that I could finally do this thing.    

It's so pretty!  

PS, don't miss out on the easter eggs at the end of the video.  

Yarn adventures - where have I been lately?

Yes, I'm still playing with yarn.

The boring obligatory bit about being away and back now.  So glad that's over.  

Why I left blogging?

1. It feels like monologuing.  There isn't much interaction with others.  Even though I'm an extreme introvert, I do need some feedback.  There is something in me that is desperate to feel useful in this world.  That I'm not a waste of space.  I'm not cluttering up the internet with my natter.

That is why youtube is working well, I get measurable interactions.  Thumbs up.  Views.  Quite a few comments.  It's all positive reinforcement to keep on creating.  That I'm adding something of (at least) moderate quality to the internet.  For such a new channel, the feedback has been empowering!

2. Blogging used to be an individual, a keyboard, a journey.  

Then suddenly, blogging became a business.  A main source of income.  And from there, popups demanding my email address, the top (odd number) best or worst whatever.  Guests posts or a whole paid staff to produce/reproduce content.

That's not me.  

The professional blogger has a place in this world, but I don't want to be that person.

I want to be the old-style writer, where it's a curated journal of things I find nifty in this world.  

I worry that by being a blogger, I might fall into that trap.  Somehow I don't think I will.  At least I hope not.  Although I do home to put some discrete ads on here to help fund my creativity.  I'm unlikely to ask anyone for their email address - I hate writing emails.  

So I've been fulfilling my need of sharing elsewhere.  Forums get good feedback and keep the momentum going.  Here are some of the adventures I've been up to.  (hint, click "read more")

Bracket fungus dyed yarn

I used that bracket fungus I found on the ground earlier to dye some yarn.

The materials:

roughly 80 grams of found fungus
5 grams of unmordanted wool yarn
5 grams of alum mordanted (20% WOF) wool yarn
5 grams of Sauerkraut mordanted yarn (yes, you read that right)

The method

• Hacked up the fungus in to as small a chunks as I could.  It was quite woody so some of the chunks were much larger than others.  Soaked in water 24 hours.
• Brought to a simmer for 1 hour, then added the unmordanted yarn.  Turned off heat, got distracted and left the vat with the yarn in it, for about 24 more hours.
• Brought dye vat to simmer for 1 hour.  Added mordanted yarns (alum and Sauerkraut) and simmered another hour.  The colour from the dye water was almost clear by this stage, so I felt that the vat was exhausted.  
• Removed and washed yarn.  Dried yarn.  Took photo of yarn.
• I should mention, I never bothered to take the mushroom bits out of the dye vat at any time, I figured they were big enough not to bother the yarn too much.

from left to right:
no mordant, alum mordant, and sauerkraut mordant

Observations:

• Unmordanted yarn was the darkest colour.  This makes sense seeing as it was in the dye bath the longest.  It's quite a pleasant, earthy orange-brown.  
• The Alum yarn was the lightest colour, almost yellow.  It also has a harsh texture, indicating that 20% WOF is way too much for alum.  I'm going to try 10% next time.
• The Sauerkraut yarn is my favourite for texture and colour.  It is much softer than any of the others including the undyed yarn.  It also has a pleasant sheen to it.  This is something I want to experiment more with in future, for light fastness and washing ability.  It might just be a fluke it worked as a mordant, but I wonder if the live enzymes and the acid worked together somehow.  

No mordant, alum mordant and sauerkraut mordant
with original yarn sample on top

How I mordanted the Sauerkraut yarn - had a very old vat of sauerkraut (live culture, not canned) that was heading to the compost, so I stuck the yarn in the juice for about two hours, then heated the entire thing, cabbage and all, to the boiling point.  I didn't even bother rinsing it before plunking it in the dye vat.

falling fungus for possible yarn dye

Here's some pretty lichens from today's walk in the woods.  Also some arbutus bark and a piece of fungus that fell from the sky.

It's a Bracket Fungus and around here they grow on old stumps and dead trees.

I've seen mention that we may be able to use this to dye yarn and even make paper... sounds like fun to me.  Here's a book that was recommended to me on that topic.  I'm still contemplating getting it as I've just got back from the post office and sending those last minute holiday parcels can be a bit difficult on the bank account.

I think I'll try this little piece and if it works, I have a big chunk growing on a stump that I keep meaning to destroy (both stump and all things growing on it).   It's a nice size mushroom; the ruler in the photo is 12 inches long.

Lichen for dye

I've been going for a walk each day to check on the maple trees (syrup making time!).  I noticed that there are a lot of bits of lichen that have blown off the trees, so I started gathering these blowdowns with the hope that I can use lichen to dye yarn.

There are a ridiculously large number of different kinds of lichen that grow in  this kind of forest, far more than even the professional lichenologests (fun new word I made up) have had a chance to catalogue.  So basically I'm trying to sort them by shape and a bit by colour, though with the larger, flat lichen it's a bit difficult to know which are different kinds and which are just variations of the same kind.  The thin beard shaped lichen have more distinct characteristics and are easier to sort.

Lichen is absolutely fascinating.  It's also creepily beautiful.  It is a symbiotic life form, consisting of fungus and algae living together and 'lichen' it (ha ha, lichen sounds like like'n... it's a naturalist joke).

So far I'm gathering about a pocketful a day, separating out any bark or debris I can find, then sorting them.  

I don't know how to dye with these, so I have a lot of research to do.  But I'm looking forward to seeing how this experiment turns out.

Stinging nettle dye for wool

4 Lb stinging nettles (gathered early-mid spring, overcast weather)

1/2 lb wool mordanted with 1/2 oz alum

Bring nettles to boil for 1 hour, leave to cool over night, strain.  Add mordanted wool to dye bath, bring slowly to almost boil (took 3 hours), turned off, left to cool in dye bath.

Washed dyed wool.

Very mild yellow-green.  Kind of feeling it wasn't worth the effort

2012 goals and dreams

My goals - my crafting, fibre arts goals  that is - for the rest of this year look like this at the moment.

Spring

• polish my etsy shop (especially banner, feel of shop, policies and profile).  Get it established so that it can just sort of continue on at a moderate pace.
• Wash and process fibre like mad.  Maybe acquire a few more fleeces if something special comes along, but otherwise work through my stash.
• Mostly work on the farm

Summer

• Participate in the Tour de Fleece
• Try and find some people for an indigo-a-long, either online or here in town.  Really want to dye with indigo, but nervous about doing it on my own.
• Play with some natural dyeing - whatever plants and such I can find around the farm.
• Wash fleece like never before.  Fleece dries quickly in the warm weather.
• Spin like a mad woman

Fall

• Spin yarns to sell in the local fibre arts shop: Knotty by Nature.
• Participate in Fibrations
• re-join the local Handweaving and handspinning guild, I let my membership lax due to health issues this year.

Winter

• Learn to use my knitting machine!
• spin away those long winter nights.

All this is subject to change of course.  What are your fibre goals for this year?

KbN - Knotty by Nature

Visited Knotty by Nature today. This is a very happy place for me. It's full of yarn-ie goodness.

Here's a few photos of the things I saw. As always, there is so much stuff, it's overwhelming in there and I only had 10 minutes. Still, I managed to capture a few fascinating things with my camera.

This is really interesting. I think I'll have to get one next time I'm in.

And then there was this just lying on the table.

Absolutely beautiful... I suspect Ryan has been at the dye-stuff again. Wonder what fibre it is.

The reason why I went to Knotty:

Silk and merino fibre. Hope to spin some lace from these.

Wild Carder at Knotty by Nature.

Got a chance to go to my favourite Fibre Arts Store EVER! (notice the capital letters increase as enthusiasm mounts?) Knotty by Nature is owned and run by people who have similar values to myself. They understand the importance of making things by hand. They value local community and the environment. They sell quality supplies from around the world, but also ensure a nice selection of locally produced supplies and locally hand made finished objects.

At knotty, every stage of a craft is available to you. A crochet hat. Some yarn, pattern and crochet hook. Learn how to crochet book. Prepared fibre for spinning your own yarn. Or for the most adventurous: raw fleece, dye stuff, spinning wheel, crochet hook, pattern, and inspiration.

They moved locations a few months back - actually longer than that - and I haven't had much of a chance to look around.

I didn't have much time today, but I did manage a few minutes to stop by and pick up a new drum carder. Finally sold enough yarn lately to afford the Ashford Wild Carder. It is worlds better than my rusty old carder that we found at the back of a garden shed and someone gave to us free and my dad fixed up for me, and although it works well with regular wool, it won't card alpaca as it needs new carding cloth - carder. New Ashford carder just eats up alpaca.

I guess this means I have to spin more yarn now.

Wish I had brought my camera with me and taken loads of shots of the store, but as things have been crazy lately, I'm lucky enough to remember to take a sewing machine with me for consignment - fixed up an old vintage Hudson Bay electric sewing machine. It's from the late 40s to mid 1950s and designed after what was (and still is) Singers most popular model: the Singer 15. It's really beautiful - meant to take photos of that for you too... what are you going to do with me?

Send me right back to the shop with camera in hand!?! That would be a suitable punishment.

Onion skins are the gateway dye - indigo's next

Still improving the photos for my etsy shop, slowly, slowly...slowly.

From this (which is very nice on it's own):

To this:

A far more accurate depiction of the real life colour. I never dreamed madder could be so vibrant. The pre-industrial textile world must be far more colourful than I ever imagined.

Madder dyed, true worsted, lace weight, handspun yarn

From this:

To this:

That's much better and helps tell the story that the yarn was dyed with onion skins. I think it also gives a more accurate feel for the texture. What do you think?

Hand spun, home dyed using onion skins, sock weight yarn

Both these yarns are hand dyed. Not something I do very often. But it got me thinking; I have a lot of white fleece and a lot of white yarn - maybe I should dedicate this summer to natural dyes?

I can dig up some Origan grape roots from my woodlot. I can pester the neighbours by letting the stinging nettles grow (on our side of the fence) next to their manure pile.

It would be nice to make a bigger challenge for myself.

What about Indigo?

I think it would be great fun to start an indigo vat and discover it's magic. June, July and August here are very warm, perfect for a fermentation vat (or two?). I'm off to spin as much white yarn as possible.

Anyone up for an indigo-a-long this summer? Maybe as part of the Tour de Fleece?

My etsy destash handspun and any other key words I can fit in the title post

In order to scrounge up enough money to treat myself to some birthday presents, I am doing what knitters call a destash.

Today and for the next few days, I'm putting many of my hand spun yarns for sale on etsy. They are my prize best-spun-ever-saved-for-special-occasion yarn, but given how my hands have been lately, I don't think there will be much knitting in my future.

I will most likely put a few other objects online like vintage knitting books and perhaps some washed suri alpaca locks. But I don't want to push myself as it's difficult enough as it is to see these yarns go.

So please, tell your friends! Maybe even buy something for yourself and then let me know what you made with it. I would love to see what happens with these yarns.

And pst! just a hint, this one is my favourite. There is no photograph in the world that can do it justice.

I hope someone really nice buys it.

Three homespun yarns

Yesterday was a very strange day. 10 inches of snow may not seem like much, but it's enough to knock out the power and worse, even when the electricity comes back on, the cable, phone and internet remain offline most of the day. Yesterday I was snowed in with almost no contact with the outside world. It is a weird feeling.

But, not all was lost. I got to shovel the driveway, see to the animals here on the farm, and play with yarn.

I've been spinning yarn to sell at Knotty by Nature. It is very nice of them to sell my yarn. I cannot make huge amounts like a commercial mill, but I do think I make quality. I aim to make something that a large company could not make, and maybe that's why it takes so much more time to create that special yarn.

I've been playing with different ways of pricing the handspun yarn. I think I've found a way of pricing that I'm happy with. It's determined per yard and per times it goes through the wheel. So a plied yarn will be more than a single, and the like. It's works out to be less expensive than people sell on Etsy.com, but more than commercial yarn. Still, I'm only getting about $2 per hour of work I put into the yarn, but when I priced it so that I get around $5 per hour, it didn't sell.

Even still, I hear complaints that it's too expensive, it's not the exact colour they want, I'm not fast enough at spinning, stuff like that. (so far no complaints about quality which makes me happy - mostly just complaints about there not being enough which I suppose should make me happy)

I am not a huge spinning mill. I can only make it the colour of the fibre I have available to me- I use dyes very seldom and when I do, it basically doubles the price because of the kinds of dyestuff I use and my lack of facilities. Quality handmade goods, yarn included, take time and skill. Because of that handspun yarn comes in smaller batches and cannot always be made to order and ready the next day.

But, no matter... I complain too much.

There is compensation for my rantings. Yarn photos:

These two photos taken prior to blocking

So pretty! I love how this Single Boucle turned out. I feel that I am really getting the hang of this technique. This last batch turned out much better and stronger than the yarn I spun before Christmas. This is spun from English Leicester. I buy the locks already dyed, and thus the yarn has a random colour sequence and effect.

There is more of this Singles Boucle at the shop already, I just forgot to take photos of it before I sent it off.

Someone had recently given my some samples of Alpaca. So I hand carded them into little rolags and spun a random colour sequence of natural colours.

Aren't alpacas amazing to have such a variety of colour? I love it!

My aim with this yarn was to give it a homespun effect. I left in small slubs and encouraged slight variation of texture throughout the yarn. The different lengths of the fibre that I was given helped to achieve this effect. It also fluffed up quite nicely when it washed, so I imagine it will provide a nice halo to the finished fabric.

Each colour lasts for about 2-4 yards and the total length of this yarn is over 300 yards. As I spun it I imagined it being knit into a lace scarf, but it would look good as anything.

This is not a yarn I can produce any more of as I only had a handful of fibre. It's limited edition. However, my new alpacas are very similar colours, so if someone likes this yarn, I should be able to make something like it when they are shorn in late spring.

And then there is the grey Romney.

I had intended to spin this with a lovely homespun texture like the alpaca, but I stopped paying attention early and it ended up as a rather constant yarn.

There are over 400 yards of this heathered yarn. It has a wonderful hand. It would be lovely as lace, mitts (maybe with some brightly coloured yarn?), or maybe someone could dye it for that lovely depth of colour that grey fibre adds to any dyeing.

To be honest, I'm not altogether certain I want to sell this yarn. It would be strong enough for warp or weft and given the amount of weaving I've been doing lately, I could see using it for my own project.

I'm actually rather attached to all three of these yarns. But, I could do with the money. I hear a rumour that there might be a half day Saori workshop twice a month. Now, it's just a rumour, but it sure would be nice to have some money just in case it turns out to be true.

Madder

When I think of madder, I think of rich, earthy reds and deep, mysterious browns. I think of walking into a deep woods and smelling the soft smell of leaf mulch and Grand Fir.

I don't tend to think of madder as being orange.

I read that if you mix madder with ox blood, the lining of a cows second stomach, and a whole host of minerals, than you might be lucky enough to get Turkey red or a red-orange. I never imagined that I would manage it by accident.

The yarn is handspun Cotswold, true-worsted singles. I used 20%weight of fibre (WoF) for the alum mordant and 100% WoF for the madder dye stuff. I didn't heat it much about 50C, and cooked the yarn in the dye for 1 hour. I should have heated it up more to get a browner colour.

I dyed some other stuff after to exhaust the dye vat.

Now it is very pretty; but, sadly, this colour is totally inappropriate for the project I have planed. I think I'm just going to give up on the whole thing and stash this orange yarn.

I have just enough fibre left to try spinning another warp. But to be honest, I've lost my enthusiasm for this project. Natural or synthetic - dye stuff never seems to do what it promises.

an idea for Lyme

This is cross posted from my Lyme blog. Since it's fibre related and has a positive tone to it, I thought that maybe you guys would like to read it as well.

Knitting, spinning, weaving and crafting in general has done so much good for me over the years. Especially since I became really ill, it has provided me with nourishment that no medicine or food ever could.

Being a member of the yarn related community, both local and online, provided me a link to steadfast friends and wonderful support.

Yarn encourages me to accomplish something in my day. I'm not just wasting time waiting to get better, I am making socks, or a skirt, or something else. I create something tangible - and I know that's nothing to most of you who can do that any day, but to me, that's a huge accomplishment! It means the world to me to be able to pull on a warm sweater that I knit myself, or to adorn myself with vibrant socks that I not only knit myself, but I spun the yarn. It fills me with a sense of love and self worth that otherwise leeches out of someone with a long lasting illness.

But it's more than that.

When I am so ill, I'm nothing but a useless waste of space, I can still create something. I can knit a few stitches, or pull myself out of bed to lay on the couch and spin yarn. Even if my arthritis is so bad that I can only manage sparse five knitted stitches, it is still a contribution. It's marks the difference between being a worthless waste of skin to being human.

I wish I could explain it better.

Lately I've been spinning some yarns for sale. I want to make a bit of money so I can afford Christmas. One particular yarn, is rather challenging. It is involves making two yarns at once and plying them together simultaneously. I feel like an overtaxed octopus trying to do all this at once, but the results are gorgeous. And, it gave me an idea.

Now, this is just an idea at the moment. As I said yesterday, I'm not an organizer of big things. I realize that of myself. Give me grunt work, and a task I can do in the background, and I'm happy!

The idea:

It began by thinking that making yarn and other crafts to sell is one of the few things I can do to make my own income. I don't make very much - just enough to buy more supplies for my hobbies - but even that little bit says to me that I can one day become a functioning member of society again.

This got me thinking about how much better things will be when Lyme is understood. When the political controversy no longer governs treatment and an accurate diagnosis method is available. Organizations like CanLyme are working towards this, and wouldn't it be great if I could donate money to help them help people like me?

So I imagined myself spinning a special series of yarns, all different kinds and colours, all with at least a fleck of Lime Green in them to symbolize Lyme. And I take this yarn and put a little write up about Lyme in Canada and how lack of research is causing harm...stuff like that. I sell the yarn, and take a good percent of the profits and give to CanLyme (or the like) and a percent to pay for my health care. (note: most Lyme patients in Canada have to pay for their own medical expenses!)

That could be a nifty idea and a great project for 2011. It would help raise Lyme awareness, help support my health care costs, help raise money for charity, and most importantly, make me feel like I'm doing something to both help my state in the world and help the greater cause.

I think I might do this. I know I can usually get fleeces for free, and I don't mind washing and preparing the fibre for spinning. Dyeing the fibre might be an expense and it's beyond my skill set, but perhaps someone might volunteer their time and facilities? If I want a long wool like Cotswold, Romney or a Leicester, I might have to pay for that. But all in all, it's a low cost investment as all it would take is my time (something I have plenty of) and my energy (a resource that waxes and wanes) .

The more I think about it, the more I feel it's a good idea.

But, what if...

What if it went a step further?

What if several people with Lyme did something similar, all organized under one umbrella? Not just spinning, but knitting and weaving as well? Then we did as above? Sell the yarn, give a percent to a Lyme related charity and a percent towards our own treatment. Could this work? Could, given our illness, we do this? Would a project like this not only raise awareness of Lyme in Canada but also give those victims this this vicious pathogen a sense of purpose and a way to feel empowered?

It's not just the people with the illness who feel hopeless, their family, firends and support network also need a way to help. This might be the kind of thing.

I see problems with this greater idea: One thing that comes to mind is that I'm not a leader of men, woman or children. If we did this, I would need someone to take the lead, but I would still want to be consulted in it's organization and implementation. Not to mention, the leader of this movement would have to have a non-Lyme brain. There are other problems I see already, mostly where money is concerned. And who would do the write up about Lyme awareness and the project? How would it be presented to the public? Free knitting, weaving and spinning lessons would be needed for those who do not yet know how to do these things. Plus equipment: spinning and knitting are affordable, but weaving certainly isn't.

There is a lot to think about.

Thoughts anyone?

Tour de Fleece 2010 - end of week one

It's the end of the first week of the Tour de France, which means it is also the end of the first week of the Tour de Fleece. Time to reassess my goals for the tour.

1. Spin every day the Tour de France rides - so far so good.
2. Spin and ply at least 100yds of silk tatting thread - done, blocked and ready to send. All I need is the address.
3. Comb and spin an entire Shetland fleece. - I'm approaching the half way point on this challenge. Considering I have two more weeks left to go, I'm feeling pretty good about this. So I have a choice, do I slow down my spinning or add another challenge? I'll take the latter, like I don't have enough to do already.
4. Spin White - A friend of mine is preparing an Indigo dye bath and will invite some of us over for a dip party. We all bring something to dye and dip it in the indigo vat. Pretty cool eh? I hope to spin up some fine silk, two ply, one ply bombyx and one ply tussah. They each take the colour differently so it should create a beautiful finished fabric. Also, for a weft, I would like some cotton singles spun on my Charkha. This isn't a mandatory, must get done part of the Tour de Fleece challenge. It's more an extra credit kind of thing.

Today, I wound off my second bobbin of Shetland singles, hand combed and worsted spun.

Instead of using my Nid, I transformed my warping mill into a yarn blocker. It's a bit hard on the back, but far easier than the Niddy Noddy. The yardage, nay mileage, of this yarn is extraordinary. It took about 25 minutes to wind off the yarn going at full speed. I'm very happy with how it it turning out.

Yarn

I've just taken some yarn down to Knotty by Nature, our local fibre arts shop.

It's all hand spun by me and it is lovely. But I'm selling it - except the light blue one, I couldn't part with it. It's lace weight and, though tiny, there is lots of yardage and I'm certain that I can find a use for it.

From the top going clockwise: wool, two ply, woollen spun - (my favourite) 60% alpaca, 20%wool, 20% silk, two ply - wool, cool aid dye, woollen spun, two ply - baby camel plied with silk - light blue lace weight that I'm not selling after all - pastel colours, 80% wool, 20% silk, navajo ply. I spun the last one for socks but realized just in time, that pastels are just not right for me.

EDIT: the picture posted sideways. I don't know why. Oh wait, yes I do. It was because I was thinking that this bloging program hasn't given me any trouble lately. Any way. the above description is from the blue one on the right side going clockwise.

I hope this yarn finds a good home. If one of you lovely people end up buying it, feel free to let me know what my yarn grew up to be.

Dye

I've been haveing fun with yarn:

This is from madder useing different mordants and assists on some hand spun suffolk wool. From left to right; Rhubarb, Copper, Alum and iron, and Alum.