Gathering natural dyestuff - or - The adventure in which I get poison ivy

I've been up to more dyeing. The other day, I gathered more marigolds from the garden along with some wild goldenrod, and threw the flowers into the dye pot along with some onion skins and some marjoram from the herb garden. All of these things make yellow. Here's the hodgepodge in the dye pot:

It dyed my superwash BFL roving a nice goldish-yellow.

Yesterday, my daughter and I went on a little adventure to gather more dyestuff. I've been dying (ha!) to get out to a place I know where a ton of cleavers grows. Cleavers is related to madder, and like madder, cleavers roots will make a red dye.

So, off we went, bushwhacking our way through waist-high brush and brambles. The dog was smarter and took off on his own. We learned that he found the deer trail right away that we had been hoping to run across. Next time we'll follow the dog.

While crossing the railroad tracks, my daughter spotted some sort of buried egg nest that had been dug up by a coyote (we found dung nearby). The round, leathery eggs had been eaten. We guess they were tortoise or snake - anyone out there care to take a guess? Some of the eggs seemed to have bluish speckles, but that may have been something other than speckles.

Here's the dug-up nest:

A close-up of one of the egg remains:

Anyhoo, we did eventually reach the cleavers. Digging cleavers is hard going. It's hard to find a clump of cleavers that will yield a substantial root. And interspersed amongst the cleavers was poison ivy. We tried to be careful, and we washed with Tecnu poison ivy scrub when we got home, but I woke up with poison ivy on my forearms this morning. Good thing I make the best ever poison ivy itch relief spray.

When we got back home, I sprayed the dirt off of the roots with the garden hose outside. Here's a nice root:

And here's our clump of roots, all washed and ready for soaking. You can see how they're reddish in color:

We gathered about 4 ounces. I was hoping to get at least 8 ounces, but we decided to cut the gathering short when we began to feel raindrops. I'm hoping the 4 ounces of roots will dye at least two ounces of wool.

Our gathering wasn't done for the day, however. My daughter knew where we could gather a good amount of pokeberries. I've recently read about a method to make a really nice reddish dye using these berries (which are poisonous, so no eating!) using vinegar as a mordant. I've been wanting to try it, so off we went to gather pokeberries before the sun set.

We gathered about two pounds of berries. Amazingly, this will only dye about one ounce of wool. The ratio of dyestuff to wool for pokeberries using this method is high - 25:1. Here's a peek into one of our bags of berries:

Today I'll be busy dyeing.

We also found a patch of blooming tickseed flowers on our wanderings. Tickseed flowers are yellow, but make a pretty, orange dye. We may go back for those. Not sure yet. I'll be busy enough today as it is.

Dyeing wool with marigolds

I have a multitude of marigolds blooming in my faraway garden. I planted them in hopes of using them as dyestuff. So today I walked out to my community garden plot to harvest marigolds. I came back with a large basketful.

I measured out about 12 ounces of marigold flowerheads. I put them in a pot and covered them generously with water. I read that marigolds make an intense dye bath, so I wasn't particularly worried about it being too diluted.

I simmered the marigolds for about 30 to 40 minutes (click on any picture to see it larger, then click back arrow to return to blog):  

While the dye bath was simmering, I mordanted my wool. I measured out 4 ounces of superwash Bluefaced Leicester roving, and also grabbed a handful of rolags I had lying around, some from my Christmas fleece (a local wool of unkown type, given to me last Christmas), and some made from Cotswold sheep fiber that I have.

Mordanting about 4 ounces of wool meant measuring about 1 tablespoon of alum powder and one teaspoon of cream of tarter into a pot of water, bringing it to a simmer, adding the wool, and simmering for about 30 minutes.

After the marigolds had finished simmering in the dye bath, I strained them out:

I had lots of leftovers which didn't make it to the dye bath, so I'm freezing them for later use. Here they are laid out on a pan in the freezer, ready to turn all frozy:

With the wool mordanted, and the dye bath ready, I plunked the mordanted wool into the dye bath. I simmered the wool in the dye bath for about 30 minutes:

When the wool was done simmering, I took it out of the dye bath and let it cool to room temp. Then I rinsed it and hung it to dry:

The two rolags on the far left are the Cotswold wool, next comes a few rolags from my Christmas fleece , and the looped-several-times-over-the-bar stuff is the superwash BFL. I've found so far that superwash BFL takes natural dyes up really nicely into slighty richer colors than other things in the same dye pot.

Rolags (fiber carded with hand cards and then rolled off for spinning) are probably not the best form in which to dye fibers, but I mostly did it to see how the Christmas fleece and the Cotswold would take up the dye. It hasn't dried yet, but I think the superwash BFL is my favorite, followed by the Cotswold, and then the Christmas Fleece.

Book giveaway begins tomorrow, Sept.1st!

My Goodreads givaway for My Twelfth Christmas starts Sept. 1st and ends Sept. 30. Enter for a chance to win one of three copies being given away!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

My Twelfth Christmas

by Linda Ash

Giveaway ends September 30, 2011.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

I'm getting a drum carder for my birthday!

I just bought this through an auction on eBay:

It's my birthday present! I can't wait 'till it gets here. I have a lot of fiber that needs processing. Ever since I gave myself tennis elbow while weeding dandelions from the front yard last spring, the combing with the wool combs has slowed down.

Carding fibers will produce a different end product in the spun yarn vs. combing the fibers, so I won't give up combing altogether. I'll still prepare fibers both ways, depending on what type of yarn I want to make. And I have lots of alpaca, wool, and angora waiting to be prepared and spun!

Grow Your Own Clothes: The Fibershed Project

Read about The Fibershed Project, textile artisan Rebecca Burgess's one year commitment to wearing clothes made from fibers found within a 150 mile radius of her home, here.

And visit the Fibershed blog, here.

Truly inspiring.

Far Away Garden Update

Here's what my far away garden (which is what I call my community garden plot) looked like about a month ago in mid-July:

And here it is as of today, in mid-August (the plethora of tomatoes to the left are not mine - they're the next garden over; and the garden to the right of mine has been overrun with weeds):

I love my two rows of sunflowers. Someday in the not-too-distant future they'll bloom. I have two varieties, Mongolian Giant and Titan. They've gotten so tall!:

Here's a shot looking up between the two rows of sunflowers.

I planted pole beans with them so that the beans could use the sunflower stalks as poles. I've had a lot of Japanese beetle damage to my beans. They love bean foliage, especially if it's high up. I have to squat and move between the tall sunflowers in order to gather beans from time to time. I love being in there between the tall stalks. It's like having a little sunflower hidey-hole.

I'm getting beans and okra and peppers and tomatoes from the garden now. The corn will be ready to pick soon, and eventually the beets (if the deer leave me any). I've been cutting my marigolds as they bloom and hanging them to dry. I'm hoping to gather enough with which to dye some wool.

I've had some deer damage. They really love the beet tops and okra. I'm glad I planted three rows of okra. The first row is taking the brunt of the dear damage, leaving the other two to produce.

Dyeing wool with elderberries

Yesterday, I dyed just about 4 1/2 ounces of wool with elderberries. I had about 1 pound of berries with which to make the dye bath. I mordanted the wool with alum and cream of tarter.

I added about a tablespoon of vinegar to the dyebath. I read that adding vinegar to the elderberry dyebath will strengthen the red/purple color, and adding salt to the bath will turn it more toward the blue hues. I was going for the red/purple. I knew that the final color would be much lighter than the bath color, and I didn't want the blue hue to end up more of a pale slate-blue/gray on the fiber.

I  almost-simmered the mordanted wool in the dyebath for an hour and then took it off the heat and let it sit in the bath overnight. This morning I rinsed the wool and it's now hanging to dry:

On the left is almost 1/2 ounce of wool from my Christmas fleece that I combed up during demonstrations last weekend at The Crooked River Fiber Fling. On the right is 4 ounces of superwash Bluefaced Leicester.

It came out a very nice color. The color on the superwash BFL seems more pronounced. Different fibers will take dye up each in their own way, and superwash will take up dye differently from non-superwash.

The Crooked River Fiber Fling

Over the weekend my daughter and I sold our wares at The Crooked River Fiber Fling in Peninsula, Ohio. It was a hot and muggy weekend, but it was a lot of fun.

Here's our vendor booth - I was The Roving Spinner:

We displayed various fibers, spinning tools, and gave demonstrations (click on any of the pictures to make them bigger, then hit the back arrow to return to the blog):

I combed wool with the wool combs and Jessica demonstrated carding. Here she is loading the hand cards:

I also brought along my Kromski Fantasia wheel and demonstrated spinning. There were lots of wheels there amongst the vendors, spinning all weekend long:

Of course, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to bring my books along, a few of my salves, and my poison ivy itch relief spray. Here we are on the second day, taking a lunch break behind all of our non-fiber wares:

We had a great time talking with people about processing fiber and spinning, and my daughter was a great help. We sold quite a bit of everything, and on the last day, the last set of musicians who played over at the live music tent did a shout out for Linda over at The Roving Spinner. They played one of my favorite songs - Marie's Wedding. They had all come over to our tent earlier to ask all about processing fibers and spinning, and when they said they played Celtic music, I had asked if they knew that song. It was so fun to hear them play it for me!

There were animals there, too, alpacas, sheep, and angora rabbits. I scored three or four pounds of fiber - raw suri alpaca fleece, raw baby alpaca fleece, angora, Romney roving, and an angora/wool/silk blend. I can't wait to get spinning with all of it!

Hand-painted roving

Yesterday I dyed some roving. Roving is fiber processed into a form that's ready to spin. I had 7.8 ounces of superwash Bluefaced Leicester which I divided into two 3.9 ounce sections.

Here I am laying out the roving on my outdoor work surface:

I have a very affectionate helper:

Here are the dyes I used. They are weak acid dyes, set with vinegar:

Placing the dye on the roving:

More placing of dye. It was a hot, humid day, so I was going for cool, melon colors:

Another helper strolling out of the garden:

Another helper, waiting for someone to throw the ball:

After the dye was squirted on, I wrapped the rovings up in plastic wrap and microwaved them for 4 minutes to set the dye.

Here they are after being rinsed and hung to dry:

Here they are dry and waiting to be braided up. I think I'll call this mix of colors 'melon patch':

Now I have to go - I'm off to the farmer's market to spend some money!

Our new rose is blooming!

We have a few rose bushes in the front yard. My son added a new one this year that he saw in a catalogue and liked. It's a Dick Clark grandiflora. We got it as bare-root stock, so it took a while for it to wake up out of dormancy. Two buds were just about to bloom about a week ago or so, but just before they opened, some deer came along and nipped every bud and bloom off of the roses. That was frustrating, we were anxious to finally see the flowers.

Well, the Dick Clark quickly put out another two buds, and they've bloomed! The blossoms are beautiful and have a mildly spicy scent (click on any of the pictures to see them larger, then hit back arrow to return to blog):

It's so pretty!

Our Princess de Monaco has one bloom right now. It's also lovely:

At the garden center earlier in the season, I found these delightful petunias. I lost the little tag, so I don't know the variety, but I love the colors:

Here they are cascading out of a planter:

What are some of your favorites from the garden this year?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II

All I can say is, if you go, don't forget the tissues.

Night sky timelapse over the ocean

This an amazing timelapse:

My Far Away Garden

Here are a few pictures of my far away garden. It really only takes a few minutes to walk to my plot in the community gardens, but since it's not one of the gardens in my yard, I call it the Far Away Garden. Strider likes to come with me when it's not too hot:

This is my plot, such as it is. It needs another good weeding. The lush plants to the upper left, alas, are not mine:

In my plot I have sunflowers, corn, tomatoes, peppers, okra, beets, marigolds, and a handful of cosmos flowers. I also have beans, peas, squash, and watermelon planted among the sunflowers and corn. I'm sorry to report that it looks like the squash vine borer has already begun to decimate my squash plants.

Here are some tomatoes beginning to show on one of the plants. The tomatoes I have here are heirloom varieties left-over from the veg. garden in my back yard. They stayed a little too long in their starter pots and are a bit stunted compared to the ones in my yard. I started them from seed:

Beets. What a lovely color:

Okra, I believe this is a variety called Silver Queen:

One of my three cosmos flowers:

A neighboring gardener in the community plots last year gave me some of the seed heads from the flowers in her garden. I planted two rows, but only three plants came up (actually, I think four came up, but I accidentally pulled one while weeding).

Those lush tomatoes in the neighboring garden are always the talk of the community plots. They are all heirloom varieties, and there are many varieties present. The reason they are so lush is because they are planted with Tomato-tone, an organic kind of fertilizer:

Only organic practices are allowed in the community plots. I added compost to my garden before planting, but I have come to realize how important manure is, too. I neglected to blend it in this year, and I can see the difference. I won't forget it next year.

There is one particular wild apple tree in the park in which the community plots are located. It always has the richest, reddest-looking apples of all. They're already beginning to ripen:

At least I think it's a wild apple. It may have been part of the farmhouse garden of the old farm that used to be on this land. In any case, it's wild now. The fruit is too buggy to eat, but it's always tempting because it's usually a gorgeous color.

I'll show more pics when things are bigger and beginning to produce.

Spinning Yak

I recently got a hold of some yak down. It's the fluffy undercoat that keeps the yak warm. It's incredibly soft. I have 4 oz. which I carded up yesterday and made into rolags, ready for spinning (you can click on any of the pictures to make them bigger):

Here it is on the wheel. Did I mention that it's really soft?:

I've been spinning it woolen style. I want to ply it into at least a three ply, I think.

The single is pretty thin, but I want it to be at least a sport weight yarn. Worsted weight would be better, but it's hard for me to spin things thick enough for worsted weight anymore. Everything seems to come out thin, it's easier than spinning thick, it seems.

Although I did recently spin up some colorful polwarth rovings into worsted weight, 2-ply yarn. I love polwarth, it's cushy and soft. The two on the right are Navajo plied, the one on the left is just plied the regular way:

I have to say that I really like the yak. I have 10 grams of musk ox which cost me about $25 (yes, that's 10 GRAMS for ~ $25). The yak is very much like the musk ox and it's so much more affordable. I haven't done anything with the musk ox yet. And if you think yak is soft, you haven't felt soft until you touch the musk ox. It's also touted to be the warmest fiber in the world. Yak, I think, will make an affordable substitution for musk ox.