Adventures In Dyeing

 

Poke berries are poison. Do not eat. Do make a red (or purple or whatever color happens) dye. I got this idea from the book "A Weaver's Garden" by Rita Buchanan. She says berries need to ferment to give up their colors. The dye bath:

 

 

I'm annoyed with Blogger. It's all changed and I don't like to relearn. Anyway, the color is lovely, am I right? The scarf dyed with poke berries:

The fiber at the right was also dyed with poke berries but I added some pennys just to see what would happen. Kinda orangey.

So, the skein shown above is the original color of the scarf. You can see the line on the scarf where the color changes from the skeins dyeing a bit differently. Shame on me.

That yarn was on sale at 2 dollars a skein. It's Michael's Loops and Threads "Horizon Tweed
Thick and Thin Bulky Roving". I have more poke berries fermenting but don't have any more yarn!

Here we have walnuts after a 3 day soak and a 2 hour boil. I thought about cracking one open to see if they may be edible. Couldn't do it.

Here we have two pots of yarn and wool taking up the dye. With walnut splatters all about. I premordanted with alum. Each pound of fiber got 4 ounces of the mordant and was boiled for 1 hour.

And here in the dish pan we have the completed dye project. The color is so pretty. I enjoyed doing this!

This yarn was Lion Brand's Fisherman's Wool. The pink yarn on the left is also Fisherman's Wool but that was dyed with Wilton's Burgundy as well as some walnut dye. This idea came from Dye Your Yarn. She has formulas with all types of food dyes for sooo many kinds of color. Fun.

For the pink yarn I made a very long skein wrapping the Fisherman Wool around our swing outside. A pic:

The yarn was draped into 3 dye pots, 2 walnut and the pink was in the middle. I seemed to have forgotten to take a picture, silly me. It was left to simmer 1 hour and was not mordanted. Though a bit vinegar was used for the food coloring. Another picture of the Wilton Burgundy dyed Fisherman's Wool:

 

 

 

 

Well, I hope you enjoyed viewing my little dyeing adventure! Thanks for stopping by.

Oh Hell No

My Vista computer is fried. How dare it. Probably the mother board. Can't fix her right now so I pulled out the old ME and hooked that dinosaur up. Many, many glitches. Yuck. Just started enjoying Ravelry. Now I seem to be in read only mode. No responding to posts, no PMing. Not really interested in finding out what else I cannot do. But we can get online and well, that is something, I guess. Contacted HP and the dear man on the other side of the line says to me, "honestly, ~3 years~ of using a computer, truthfully that is to be expected". Mother board fried after only 3 years? I held my tongue. He did offer me a one time deal of a lap top and a computer all for about 1,000 dollars. Well damn, let me check my back pocket. Husband Darling-Dear believes a year of no central air (yeah, damn thing's also fried) is what did it. Maybe so. Maybe not so. Seem's like there's lot's getting fried at my house. Time to go fishing. Do a fish fry. I guess.

Anyone else going through hell and back? Funny thing, this is nothing compared to what my house was going through the past few years. I should shut my mouth.

On a happier note. Pulled out my fiber goods and started to do a bit of spinning again. I parked my arse right in the living room so my hubby can feel sorry for me and get that wool picker constructed. Just a little ol' box picker. The discussion proceeded this way.

HDD: "Why don't you look for a used picker online. How much do they cost?"
He's talking about one of those Fancy Pickers made by Pat Green. He likes them. I look on Ravelry (pre-fried computer) and see several. $450-500.
Me: "Good price, babe?"
HDD: "Well, where's those plans."
Me: "There's one lady who sells a box picker for $150."
HDD: "Naaa." He's now looking at instrux. I'm a bad girl.

Shoot, I need to get back on Ravelry and look for the gal who makes spindles. She has real nice directions on getting a good friction fit.

Gotta love Ravelry.

my cute hand crafted spindle

Here is a picture my tinker toy spindle. I think the small rocks lend a rustic feel.

these are the items I used to make it

These knitting needles were bought from Walmart. Useless for knitting because they kept catching the yarn even after sanding them a bit. They just never worked too good. The needle shown is a size 10 1/2. I used a size 11 for my spindle which needed glued but a 13 would actually be a nice snug fit. You can see how much chunkier the red tinker part is to the size 10 1/2. I'd have put the other 11 in the picture but it seems to be missing. And if you saw my work room you'd know why.

this is the little darling that started it all. a gift from a nice local fiber artist. her blog

these are my first, ever, wee, plyed, hand spun hanks

The one on the right, with the unintended VM included, was made first using the gifted spindle. I used a small wire doggie comb that looked like a dinky carder. Not very good at removing unwanteds.

The hank on the left looks a little better. The spindle I made was a bit on the light side at first so added the small stones to increase the weight. It seemed to help. That time I used bigger doggie combs on the wool and they actually removed almost all of the sticks and stones... 

As to the plying. That was frustrating (...wanna break some bones?). One lady used two med sized terracotta flower pots turned upside down with the yarn balls inside. You'd pull the ends through the holes and ply that way. A super idea but, alas, no funds for such. I think I may have found something that will work. It's one of those lazy susan wooden spice rack. like this Mine I picked up at a flee market. 3 bucks maybe? I already removed the lazy susan part for a (some day) home made yarn swift. Lots of free instrux on the web for that. So many smart inventors out there in cyber space. I send out a big thank ya! Anyway, I think if I lay the thing on its side, stick the balls inside the 4 slats and pull the ends through two of the holes I should be able to ply that way. I am currently combing and spinning some more wool and shall continue on.

Hope some one can use my spindle idea.

Have a good day.

times they are a changin'

fast! Yeah every time I turn around there is something new is going on. Here at my house. The list:

Not working. I have to stay at home because my grandson will soon be out of early head start. And I have custody.

Two of my sons (who used to babysit so I could work) they now have work pending. They are wielders. A real hit and miss kind of thing. They are on the last rung at the bottom of the ladder. You know the score. BUT there is work to be had. That is a good thing.

Scored some fleece. Two actually. And so a new adventure begins. Which I am loving. These fleeces were a freebie. What up with that? Yes God I Will Follow You Down Any Fiber Path. Course I do not have a clue as to what anything should look like. One fleece was very dirty. 4 hot water washes this creature took. 3 bottles of blue dish detergent. I bought 2 thin wire dog brushes and 2 steel dog combs. Guess you know what those are for. As I sit combing out this fuzzy fiber my husband actually had the nerve to say, "that looks like something a crazy, evil person would do." Well babe you better start getting used to it. Oh yeah.

The fleece was given to me when I volunteered at a local fair. click next until you see the sheep's wool! Pretty grimy. You can see my pile to the left. I am standing behind the camera. Just the way I like. But the Heritage Farm Museum shows how our early settlers lived. A neat place do a vacation at.

Have been looking for equipment for spinning. On The Cheap. I made a spindle with a short wood knitting needle, size 11, a round wood tinker toy connector with small rocks glued into it's holes around the edge and a cup hook screwed on top. Spun and plied one wee hank. Not to bad. When my rechargables are ready, will put up pictures of my stuff. My goodies.
Want a wool picker and a some wool combs. Want a spinning wheel. For as close to free as I can get. I'm thinking Make It Yourself. Which is not free but close enough, really.

Here are 2 different links for a PVC pipe wheel. Dragons Keep's wheel  This'un's free.

Doni Stuff's stuff  This one's for purchase. 7 bucks.

The other two items on my list? Got blessed. A gent sent me two of his wood working plans. For combs and a box picker. Free. What's wrong with him?! He asked me to put a close pin on my lips about this. His web site is still being worked on and will soon begin sales for his Fiber Woodworking Plan Creations. They are priced very reasonable. But for those of you with folding money right now here is Kaydessa's safe box woolpicker . Some wool pickers look like something that dude from the movie "Pit and the Pendulum" might use to torture you. Slowly. Painfully. I would say you could not use these things around kids. But the one in the above link looks very safe.

And so some changes are very good. Some are on the okay side. Some are a real bummer. Like making no money. That sucks!

Okay, have a good one.