The Power of the Perfect Project

I've been knitting for 20 years 

and

for 20 years

I never stopped.

I have constantly had a project (or 5) on the needles. 

But this past year I slowly 

ran

of

steam.

There have always been good reasons happening in my life where it would make since to slow down. 

But knitting has always been a safe haven, a respite, an outlet. 

So I never have.

Until now.

This summer I decided I needed to make myself a sweater, with a fair isle yolk, with my handspun yarn. 

I had been creating yarn for my shop for a number of years but I never saved enough of it to make something really special for myself. 

I carefully hand selected various colors and packed them away and spun a whole shetland white fleece to compliment my plant dyed yarns. 

I searched and searched for just the right pattern. 

I searched and searched for just the right designing tools. 

Because really I couldn't make up my mind if I should design it myself or do something simpler.

Then last week as I finally choose a pattern and cast on, frustration set in as I struggled to work the 200 stitches. 

I let it sit for a few days and then I started day dreaming about socks, hats, and mittens knit in two colors. White and yellow. White and green. White and pink. 

I knew what I needed to do. 

As I sat on the floor of my studio with my toddler by my side rummaging through a box of ribbon, I frogged the few rows of my sweater. Added the yarn back to the basket and set it aside for later in the week. 

It felt so good to change course. 

Next, I went through my yarn chest and quickly but ruthlessly set aside half of my yarn 

to give to a friend who 

knows how to knit, 

really wants to knit more, 

but only owns 1 pair of needles and 3 skeins of yarn. 

Friends don't let friends be yarnless.

She needed my help 

and it felt so good to pass on what felt like almost 

10 pounds of yarn and a handful of needles to her. 

Some of this yarn I had had for 20 years. 

I could still tell you where every single bit came from. 

She was overjoyed to receive such booty 

and I was overjoyed to give it to her. 

While putting all my yarn back into the chest, 

I was reminded by these three little balls of silk kid mohair 

I had dyed with lichens, mushrooms, and then indigo. 

Back in August I had attempted this pattern but I messed it up right away so I frogged it.

Seeing the yarn again, 

I was reminded of what I had wanted to make and decided to give it a try once more. 

That evening I had everything set up so that after I put my son to bed, 

a new episode of my current series was set up along with pie, tea, the lighting, my pj's and slippers.

I cast on as Queen Victoria brooded and pined for her M

and I was in heaven.

Finally a project I knew would work and I knew I would enjoy. 

And one word would float through my mind as I worked on this: 

gossamer. 

  

Late last night when my husband returned home from a weekend away, I showed him my new project. 

As he picked it up, he said,

"Wow, it's so.... gossamer like. 

You can find this pattern, here

Happy St. Patricks Day; a natural rainbow dye tutorial

When I was very small I used to say that Rainbow was my favorite color. 

Or depending on how I felt, I'd also say Clear. 

I was fascinated with both features that I found in my paint box, my barbies' clothes, my Rainbow Bright doll and the stuffed butterfly I had. 

Also since I was small, I always associated rainbows with Ireland and Ireland with rainbows. 

The first time I actually saw a rainbow in Ireland,

 I was experiencing The Burren for the first. 

Seeing those magical colors soar up and through the grey blue sky over Kinvara, 

the world around me was illuminated even further. 

Standing at Dunguaire Castle with the other tourists, 

gazing out over Galway Bay's low tide. 

I swear the seaweed rose up and sang with happiness because it was practically glowing. 

Sigh... I knew I was destined to return to that area. 

And I did 3 more times.

But more on that later. 

One day last week, I played around with color blending with my natural dye powders 

to create a rainbow self striping yarn for one of my up coming 

classes- 

Natural Dyeing for Knitters.

And a sampling of the rainbow spectrum

using only 3 dye pots that featured the 3 primary colors. 

I used:

indigo

madder root

and 

osage orange

After I dyed up my samples for the knitting class example Judy has made,

I played around with creating a rainbow self striping skien. 

I love how it turned out! 

I'll try and lay out the basic movements I did to achieve the secondary colors.

for the rainbow skien:

Pictures it: your yarn wrapped in a skein. Eyeball it in thirds. 

Start with indigo 

(because in my experience with the vat I have going- it has rite color remover in it which is the same as theoria dioxide- If I dye fiber in another color first and then dip in this indigo vat- it strips the color and then adds indigo.... not my idea of a good time)

So with that said- I always dye with indigo first. 

I dipped a third of my skein in this first. 

I left it for about 15 minutes. 

I pulled it out holding it with the blue downwards and let it drip in the pot for a few minutes as it oxidized from white to yellow to green to blue.

I then gently squeezed the yarn so it wouldn't drip in the next pot. 

I then placed another third in the madder root pot AND set up another small pot right next to the burner with a jar inside- just trying to create a sort of stand. You can use anything though. 

It's important to let the yarn NOT in the dye pot be higher up than what is in the dye pot. 

Otherwise, water will travel up the yarn and find the outlet, pouring all over your stove. 

I also let 1/3 of the blue soak in the madder bath to create purple. 

I had let the yarn sit in the madder for about 20-30 minutes before I pulled it out. 

Again, I gently squeezed only enough to not let it seep into the osage which was my next step.

With the osage, I dipped both the remaining undyed 1/3 AND 1/3 of the other end of the blue- to make green and 1/3 of the madder that was right next to the osage into the osage to create orange. 

One might think this takes a bit of math- but I like to think it takes visualization.

When all is said and done with this dyeing portion, you will end up with;

1/6 red- (madder root)

1/6 orange (osage + madder)

1/6 yellow (osage)

1/6 green (osage + indigo)

1/6 blue (indigo)

1/6 purple (indigo + madder)

You can use many other blending variations to achieve the tones that you like most. 

I'm excited to continue my experimenting with these pigments. 

Many of these results will be for sale in my etsy shop. For example :) 

Alternatively, if you want to create a single color like green, orange or purple with your natural dyes,

follow the color combos above or create your own with whatever makes those same colors. 

For example, you could use indigo + fustic to create green. 

Logwood grey + osage or fustic to create green, 

and so on. 

As far as that magical rainbow skein, I re-skeined it to shuffle my colors:) 

A fun trick to apply to any of your hand painted, dip, space, or vat dyed yarns. 

Thanks for reading and please let me know if you have any questions or comments by leaving a comment here. 

I love hearing from you. 

Sláinte!

Thank you 2013

I have always loved calendars. I love picking one out each year. Writing special events and appointments down, I keep it in a spot I will always notice. A few years ago I started a New Year's Eve tradition: I take down my calendar and go over the year just lived. And this year, 2013, was one for the books. I don't think I've had so much excitement, or extended my family, and felt so loved as I have in this year.

January~ As Jubal and I continued to plan our wedding, I also worked on dye samples, new yarns, and figuring out how to build up my Etsy shop from part-time to full-time. And it was during this month that I was given a tremendous opportunity to teach at Squam Artworkshops :: Taproot Gathering that took place this past September. The year certainly started off with a bang.

     

February~ More wedding planning took place, and I became most obsessed with wedding flowers and table settings. I always knew the obsession would kick in, but I tried hard to keep it at bay. Then it was all I could think about. Pretty boring for anyone who had spent time with me, as all I had were flowers on the brain. We did take some time away from the Maine winter too, and I traveled with Jubal to his hometown in California to see his family and so he could attend a work training. Spending time in the Bay Area and with his family is always such a treat, and I know I am so lucky to be able to do this. 

  

March~  Became a bit of a flurry of shopping, meeting with wedding vendors, packing for a three-month trip, and checking out. Sweet, sweet bliss mixed with excitement for the coming month, mixed with anxiety about the Big Day and our crazy retreat. It was also a month of parties, get-togethers, last days at my part-time job, birthday dinners, and such an unreal feeling.

   

April~ The first of April started with celebration of welcoming family and friends as they trickled in from all over to help us celebrate our day. On April 6th, Jubal and I married, and the following day we left Maine to spend our honeymoon in a cottage on the west coast of Ireland. 

We found our way to our cottage that first day, lit the first peat fire in our stove, and took a nap while the harrowing west wind came over the bog. We were so struck with how surreal it felt to have arrived. We made it through dating and finding each other, deciding to marry, planning a home, planning the wedding, and now planning this trip. We were exhausted, and I don't remember when I'd slept so well as I did when we had first arrived to the cottage with the red door in Doonagore village, near Doolin. 

        

(wedding photos: Jennifer Searles Dumont

May~ We found our groove and delighted in driving all over Ireland to visit pubs, shops, museums, farms, random castles appearing on the horizon, and much much, so much to our pure delight, we witnessed the Burren come alive with the most sweet and delicate wild orchids. Such a treasure and blessing to witness such natural beauty.

We made new friends and spent time with old ones. Everywhere we went, we were our own version of a sponge -- soaking up every detail, color, historical fact, vernacular, dessert, and sounds that we could. 

June~ It started to sink in we had to leave at the end of the month. I packed even more in including a trip to the middle of the Aran Islands. I cannot pick one amazing moment of those three months. But if I had to, if I really did, it would be that side trip to Inis Meáin.

    

Leaving at the end of the month, I looked back on all that we had done, but mostly on all that I had thought about. I left feeling so grateful, refreshed, and inspired to do so many things on our return. The thing is, as much as we both were ready to go home to our home, our island, our state, our families -- we so badly wanted to stay. It was a very weird place to be. It was my fourth trip to Ireland, and each time I've gone, I didn't want to leave. But this time, this time, I felt such a strange pull that was ten times stronger than the last trip. I think it had something to do with living so near to that ancient bog that had seen and held so much. 

July~ We settled right back in and it felt as if we had never left. Getting back to our familiar things felt very sweet. I saw friends, family, and took a watercolor class at a nearby farm. Jubal got right back to work and even traveled for a bit. I returned to Medomak for my fourth year to teach fiber arts classes with my good friends. It was a wonderful week, as always.

 

August~ Jubal had to travel again for work, and I became more used to taking care of things in his absence. We held a yard sale. I harvested my first indigo crop of the year and held a small indigo dyeing party. My sister, mom, and two good friends came to learn about the process and dye a few pieces -- something I look forward to doing again next year. It was a lot of fun, and I look forward to taking advantage of our garden beds and the Peaks Community Garden to grow more dye plants. Also, my youngest niece came for a sleepover for the first time. We had the best time, and I didn't want her to leave.

September~ My interest in foraging for mushrooms flourished, and a new obsession was born. Jubal and I attended a fun fungi fair in north-central Massachusetts to learn more. Then I packed up my pots, samples, books, aprons, and nerves and drove deep into the New Hampshire woods to teach natural dyeing at the Squam Art Workshops. It was a wonderful time of self-discovery, new friendships, and explorations. I also forged a new connection for a project that I've been working on since, and which I hope to share more about in the future. I attended the Common Ground Fair (again) where I picked out two fleeces for myself and pumpkins for Jubal. He makes a killer pumpkin pie. My oldest nephew came to stay for a sleepover for the first time, I taught him how to skirt a fleece, and he taught us how to pick up a chicken. We adopted two hens from neighbors the week before, and we didn't have much of a clue. I also held my first natural dye workshop at the house, which was a lot of fun.

October~ For 20 years I have dreamed about learning to play the fiddle. I finally decided it was about time I try. We took a small road trip up north to visit friends, and did more mushroom foraging, and it was particularly fun for Jubal as he had never been that far north in Maine. I spent more time with family and friends too.

    

November~ We took another road trip, but this time to Prince Edward Island. A wonderful scenic trip and more time with family and friends. Also this month, I hit an all time record high for sales in my etsy shop.

December~ Early on in this month I decided to spend more time trying to take things slow. The holiday season can make me feel crazy, stressed and like I'm not doing enough. I made a conscious decision to do less in the way of my shop and blogging so that I could do more in the way of creating more holiday cheer around our home and make time for friends and family. I wanted to soak up every moment of December by watching Christmas movies, listening to music, baking, trying new holiday crafting projects, and taking more time to really enjoy a season that could whirl right by.

     

Looking back on my year, I feel I am so blessed, and am inspired to unfold even more possibilities for 2014. 

And speaking of 2014, I'm so happy to share with you some fun plans I have in store for my shop, 44 Clovers, my blog which will soon be a website that Jubal's been building, and workshops that will be on offer here on Peaks, local shops in Portland, and beyond.    

Thank you, 2013, and all that you've blessed me with. 

ox, r

Fiber Workshops on Peaks Island

I'm so excited to start offering various fiber workshops at my home on Peaks Island, Maine. The idea has been cooking away in my brain for a few months now and it's finally going to happen. This past weekend, as you read from my prior post, I hosted an indigo dyeing party which was a blast and a great learning experience for everyone including myself. This coming September 22nd, I'll be hosting my first workshop at the house. It will be just short of a week from my return from teaching at Squam The Taproot Gathering. I've entitled this workshop, Home Dyeing Made Easy. We'll be dyeing with madder root, logwoods, black walnuts, indigo, and osage orange. I'll talk about and demonstrate simple steps for preparing for the dyeing, tools and techniques that just make things a bit more manageable when you don't have a dyeing space set up all the time. Sample yarns will be used including merino, cashmere, angora, mohair, and alpaca. You can bring your own as well if you have something you'd like to dye up or have been itching to change the color of. Not a fan of your yellow yarn? Come drop it in the madder root to create orange or the indigo to make a green. Bring your bag lunch and hang out on the porch and chat away in the breezy afternoon while the pots simmer away.

If this date and time does not work for you but you'd like to take a workshop or private lessons in dyeing or other fiber related forms, let me know, I'm happy to work with you to create a workshop that can accommodate your schedule, skill set, or group.  

Feel free to email me with any questions! 44clovers@gmail.com

Hope to see you in September!

Indigo Party!

This past Saturday was a very special day. A lovely gathering of specials ladies came to the island to participate with me in the first indigo harvest of the year. My mom Karen one of her best friends and my childhood neighbor and my second home, Elaine. Shannon, my younger sister, and Kasey one of my closest friends. Kasey drove down from Northern Maine the night before to spend a whole weekend we me. I felt especially blessed and just so lucky to have such wonderful visitors. They all left their routines and families to come spend the day to extract color from leaves in a very mysterious and magical way. 

We had a very specific agenda. And that was to harvest my first batch of indigo leaves. Back in very early June, I was still in Ireland on my honeymoon. With the help of two sweet ladies, these indigo plants made their way from the fiber frolic with the help of my mom and then made it into the ground with the help of our friend Judith who was staying at our house at the time. 

I waited to just when I thought they'd be perfectly ready for harvest. Not too late and not too early. Once we were all present we waisted no time in clipping away. We cut the stalks a few inches from the ground.

Then we stripped them from the stalks and put them into a pot. We poured 2 gallons of water over them. 

I then put in a pot, creating a double boiler effect on my stove inside, I let the temperature climb very slowly for an hour to 160 F. 

The leaves where in two gallons of water. I added two ounces of ammonia. We all took turns passing the liquid back and forth between two pots to incorporate oxygen. Immediately the water was turning blue brown and then more blue and foamy.

I then popped it back on the stove and added a teaspoon of spectralite. Also known an rite color remover. I needed to get the temperature to 130 F. And I needed the color of the bath to go from blue to yellow green. This spectralite does something to the bath. I don't know what exactly (I was awful at science) but it reduces the oxygen. When it turned yellow green, and smelled like grass, I knew it would be ready. 

I brought it outside and we dipped various small items in that had been soaking in plain water. 

They gave a lovely color!!! The yarn on the bottom edge was a soft pale lavender. It turned a lovely pale blue! 

However, as we continued to dip our items in, I was worrying more and more about our color. It was fading and it felt like something was wrong. I put the pot back on the stove thinking the temperature dropped. I tried to baby it and pay attention but nothing more was happening.

Did I not add enough of something? Where there not enough leaves? What was I missing? Did I just need to keep dipping? I'm not sure. So to supplement I got my indigo powered pigment vat from the basement and woke it up. I hadn't used it in a month and it was still great! Heavy results too.

I let everything dry over night outside and was about to rinse everything by hand under the faucet in the kitchen when it occurred to me..... Put it in the washer!!! It's not wool or yarn, it will be fine. I thought maybe I would have to wipe out the inside of the washer afterwards or run the clothes through 3 times to set the dye but I didn't. 

The all turned out beautifully the first time. And the inside of my washer was perfectly clean. No blue!

My mom's shibori dyed tank.

Now, I'm going to go play with my indigo leaves vat and see if I can remedy anything. 

Umbrellas and Indigo

Last Sunday I attended a free tutorial at Z Frabrics on how to make an umbrella. I love umbrellas and was intrigued. In a nutshell, you use an old umbrella, a cane style, not one that is compact. You remove the nylon fabric being carful to save at least one panel. You use a seam ripper to obtain one panel and that is your template for all eight panels.

Small O rings are used at the top along with some clear chalking gel from the hardware store. The best fabric to use is that lovely newer laminate cotton. It's more flexible than oil cloth and is BPA free. You can use regular fabric and then either use some sort of spray to seal it or not. You could also use lace for a parasol... Oh the possibilities.

The next day I found this cute umbrella in Salvation Army for $2. It was made in Japan and was a funny compact umbrella, folding upwards. I figured out how to not fold it all the way so it's compact but just fold it part way. It works! I got to work.

I still need to seal the top but for now I just like opening and closing it and scrutinizing my seams. I bought the rain drop fabric at Z Fabrics a while ago. Maybe a year? Maybe more? The small polka dots I got at a shop in Cliften, Connemara, Ireland. The two work well together. This Sunday I'll be stopping by my favorite flea market for more umbrellas and then I just need to find the right fabrics. Look for them in my etsy shop soon:):):):):)

I was planning on inserting the link here but once I got to the website, I could not find the pattern anywhere. I assume it was a free pattern as we all got hand outs at the tutorial. However, after doing a quick search for other umbrella patterns, there are a ton out there including one by Martha Stewart. But really, if your crafty enough, and determined enough, you can figure it out. All you do it take a part the old fabric, form the 8 panels, and attach them back on the same way the old fabric was. With the addition of the sealing on the top, it's really easy.

Since I've been home and in preparation for teaching at Medomak in a few weeks, I've been itching to start indigo dyeing. Two days ago I created my vat using a super easy recipe from another fiber artist here on the Island. If you'd also like the recipe, let me know in the comments and I'll happily email it to you.

I gathered a huge pile (probably too much) of bits and bobs that I wanted to give a face lift to.

I even tried my hand at Shibori. A lot like tie-dyeing if you ask me. Speaking of which, I'll be going to my mother's for a family fun day on Sunday where we and all 6 of the littles will be tie- dyeing.  I'm going to give this technique another go.

Lots of old white or fugly handspun I've had for years. I also have LOOOOOOADS of linens I've collected and that my grandmother keeps giving me.

Really really pleased and happy with the results. Stay tuned to see what I'll be doing with all these bits and pieces. Also more dyeing to come.