Me & My Knitting

Just a quicky to say hi and share where I've been at with my fiber. 

I may have mentioned that I've come to a decision about my 

knitting 

& 

etsy.

I'm not going to do a ton of knitting for my etsy shop for at least 

a long while.

My plant dyed 

hand spun

yarns are doing really well

and take almost, if not more time to produce

so I'm going to be putting more energy into that

and more energy into knitting for my growing family- including my growing self.

So, with that said, 

here's what I've been working on;

AAAHHHHHHH!!!!

isn't it the cutest thing ever?!?!

I just loved knitting this little romper. 

I used wool that I bought while on honeymoon in Ireland 2 years.

The town of Dingle is adorable and though it will be a few years till we can go back, 

I can't wait. 

The pattern I used is by Carina Spencer and is called Small Things Romper. It can be found on ravelry. 

I'm 24 weeks now and just finished knitting and blocking this past weekend.

It's been a really long time since I had such a connection with something I was knitting. 

I've been needing that feeling for a long time. 

I thought it was gone.

While knitting it I was able to think about the wool and where it came from-

off the backs of sheep all over Ireland, deing dyed in Donegal, it's Donegal wool- I'm not sure though, if they do their dyeing in house or in England or Germany, but in any case, it's what I thought about.

I thought about our honeymoon there and all the adventures we had- mostly sitting in pubs drinkng tea and going for walks. 

I thought about the baby boy in my belly and his increasing wiggles and what he might look like wearign this sweet romper- and how long he'd be able to wear it! 

I may knit 1 or 2 more a I have the same yarn in green and purple. 

I then got to re-working this 9 year old sweater that I made with Maine wool. 

The pattern is from the Last Minute Knitted Gifts book.

I first washed the fleece,

stuffed it in large glass containers with the Pumpkin colorway from country classics dye 

and let it do it's dye thing in the sun for 3 days.

I spun the wool and knitted this up following the pattern exactly- and not all my measurements. 

It's turned out that I don't like hiking up long bell sleeves and pulled at the waist. 

So, I frogged sleeve hems and waist hem, shortening the sleeves by 6" each and adding that rest of that yarn to the bottom. 

I'm almost finished. 

Though I don't use this dye any more, I adore this color and yarn and have been 

loving this methodical heavy knitting every evening. 

I'm noticing more and more with my pregnancy that I'm enjoying the slow process- or just making everything slower, the process of just doing things. I'm not really in a hurry as my body is slowing way down. My level of calm has been developing:)

Here's two extra tidbits;

these yarns {may} appear in the shop- 

haven't decided yet.

Just a collection of what has been sitting in my spinning basket. 

I don;t know about you, but I do love to clean house and use things up after a certain point. 

The brown is: natural Maine Icelandic.

The blue is: Navajo spun Maine mohair dyed with indigo

The magenta is: 1oz, first bath of Umbilicaria lichen fermented liquor.

The lighter pink is the 2nd bath of this lichen. 

The last two are a combo of evernia, xanthoria, and a curly green lichen I never identified, all spun together. 

All dyed in the batt form first and then I lost track of what every thing was so I spun it all up! These last three I'm not sure yet where they will end up...

Remember my last post of Operation Wool? This is another finished finished fleece, Maine Icelandic from Pondview Farm in Limington. 

It will get dyed this spring when it warms up enough. 

I cannot wait!

I go to bed at night planningout my outdoor dye space.

We'll set up the canopy,

bring out the enamal table, 

set up the pots,

etc...

This will be the first year I've worked my yarn creating into such a fine tuned mass production.

Well "mass" for me. 

Whether your a handspinner or not, you should know, it's kind of a big deal to knock out about a dozen spun fleeces in a one year. 

Operation Wool

I don't find this time incredibly creative.

But it is pretty exciting for me 

as I sift through

bag after bag

of wool. 

I never know exactly the full potential of a fleece until I've through each step. 

And here's each of my steps:

from raw fleece to hand spun yarns.

I bought this unquiely colored New Mexican Churro fleece while visiting Tierra Wools in 

Los Ojos, N.M. back in September

which I then mailed home. 

This week, I finally got around to washing it.

I love my double sinks. 

I'm able to do a whole fleece usually in one day, in batches. 

Here in winter, I dry it above my woodstove. 

In summer, outside on the clothline. 

The wire hangers work well for srapping the wool over. 

At the same time, I've been working on carding up my Maine Island fleece which is a Cheviot cross. And raised by Lee Straw out on Metric Island. 

These are the fleeces that started it all for me;

using just local fleece as the base for my plant dyed hand spun yarns. 

These fleeces are always so clean, and just a pure joy to work with. 

Long soft staple lenths. 

The dreamiest. 

This basket is "yarn in the waiting".

A Maine Icelandic fleece, also very clean, wonderful to work with and is on the wheel right now. 

I got this fleece from Pondview Farm in Limington in exchange for skirting 32 of their fleeces. 

As my handspun business is steadily growing, and now with my first child along the way, I'm moving more towards doing less knitting for the shop. 

I will always knit for myself and my little family. But I've finally realized that knitting for the shop, in the quanity I have been in the past, isn't quite working out. 

I do have a collection coming out this spring of something delicate and plant dyed. 

Below is my latest finished piece, for me. 

My 6th Hitch Hiker Shawl.

So easy and so fun. 

Knit with my own handspun of 100% Maine cashmere from Black Locust Farm and dyed by Bill Huntington at Hope Spinnery. 

I couldn't resist a green cloud of cashmere. 

I have one more fleece to wash. 

A Scottish Black Face fleece from Lilybrook Farm in Hollis.

I just have to card the brown churro, black face, contining spinning the icelandic, island, those other two and by the end I think I'll have about 60 skiens I'm thinking. 

Which I'll then have a field day dyeing in my back yard when the thaw comes. 

Creating an Heirloom with my Destash

A few months ago I made a commitment not to buy/ collect/ bring into the house/ studio any more acid dyed fibers for my work. 

Mainly because I create so much plant dyed fiber using locally grown fibers now and want to continue getting better at my craft with just these materials. 

However, this left me wondering what on earth do I do with the lovely goodness I've collected over the years? 

Materials for Nuno felting is one of three groups of fibers I'm joining all together into a large rainbow project which is two fold: 1- to destash 2- for the baby.

The other two- my yarns, fabric scraps which I'll share about another time. 

This will be a wall hanging in the nursery and/ or quilt. 

Made with merino acid dyed fibers and massaged into layers of vintage silk hankies with hot and cold water and soap. 

I collected a bunch of bamboo placemats that work really well as my roller. I used to use bubble wrap but I found it to be a pain, too messy, and too slippery.

I've tried and taught nuno felting quite a few times before but never with much purpose. Or even passion. The day I pulled my large tote box out of my closet with all I've collected AND after I took a nuno felting workshop from my friend Laura Glandenning at Portfiber, I finally felt like I could focus on a project. 

I made these three rectangles in about four hours. 

I would have kept going but I wanted to get dinner started (I was being very ambitious and cooking my first beef and onion pie which we didn't eat until nine. But it was worth the wait.) and my shoulders where killing me. 

I love how the red turned out. Thick and bumpy. The yellow is lighter but fluffy. In the end, I'm going to cut them into strips a few inches wide and attempt a log cabin style quilt. I intend to use up all my colored merino and silks that are thread bare. You know the kind, scarves that tear if wind blows threw it. Perfect for incorporating into a felt because then the silk is locked in forever. 

Something that gives me so much joy with this project is knowing I'm making fabric and it's how this type of fabric has been made for thousands of years in Asian countries. All it is is an animal fiber and friction. Put the two together somehow and you've got a felted fabric. 

Also, I don't feel the need to make these pieces of fabric perfect. 

Instead, I'm paying more attention to my focus in following through with one piece at a time, letting the design take shape and going with my intuition. 

And as I work, all I can really think about is creating this soft, bumpy fabric for my child to be cradled in from birth to kid to teenager to adulthood. 

And maybe they can pass it on to their child. 

With these thoughts in mind, my work has taken on this new focus that hasn't existed before and I'm really thankful. 

                            

Pots of Purple Carrots

So I mentioned I was on a roll with dyeing one day. 

That day I dyed with the 4 lichens, I was also dyeing with red cabbage

and these purple carrots. 

When I dye, I often go big. 

Though it can seem very daunting to get it all set up,

once I've got it set up,

the actual dyeing time is a snap. 

I just sit back and wait. 

Maybe poke at a pot but really it's just waiting. 

So I often go big, adding several more pots. 

Like this past summer when I found myself dyeing 10 pots at once. 

It was great!

This is the last of the dyeing from that day and I'm not sure what I'm going to do next. 

I've been itching to get better at linen dyeing so I gather my next days will be about perfecting my scouring and mordanting tecniques for vegetable fibers. 

Have I mentioned before in another post my plans for the dyed yarn?

I've got 12 skeins or so spun up of various Maine primitive breeds.

I've also got;

2 New Mexican Churro fleeces, one from Bob I got at the State Fair back in September in N.M., and 1 from Antonio at the Santa Fe Farmer's Market though I went to his ranch for the fleece. 

1 Maine Island Fleece from Lee Straw

1 Maine Scottish Black Face from Nina Fuller in Hollis at Lily Brook Farm

And I think 1 more from Sue Pondview Farm in Limington.

I have a feeling there is another floating around in that closet of mine...

These last two farms I had a blissful time helping them out sort and skirt fleeces in exchange for 1-2 fleeces. It was an idea I had to be near sheep, help out in a way that I knew how and get paid in fleece. I hope do do it again this spring but with a growing belly, I'll need to wait and see. 

Anyway, when I get through this winter spinning all that, and it will happen, I will then have a big ol dyeing time this spring. Just as soon as this 4 feet of snow melts. Oh and after these next 3 (!) storms we have coming this week. I always wondered what it would be like to live in a northern Scandanavian country. I think I know now...

Anyway, I cannot wait for both spring and for dyeing. 

I've got all kinds of plans for that wool. 

Logwood

mushrooms

queen ann's lace and goldenrod I froze from last year so I could use it this sring and rose hips!

And there will be much more. 

So about these carrots. 

I had wild success the first time I did this back in Santa Fe on vacation. 

Probably one of my favorite posts because it was such a time of self discovery for me to be in a completely different place and still find a way to do my work. It really inspired me.

In a place like Santa Fe, in September, working with solar methods from raw plant materials, works really well. I got temps up to 110f in the jars over several hours. It was perfect. 

As you'll read about the carrots from that post, 

I only use peels from 2 medium purple carrots I got at the farmers market. 

So when I got home and tried to find purple carrots, there weren't any availble quite yet. 

I waited a few weeks and then when I finally saw them at a local market, I went a little nuts and bought a lot. To be fair, they were very scrawny and I was a little puzzled why they were even put on the shelves. They weren't really the baby size, but more like pencil size carrots. Anyway, I stashed them away planning on using them in the spring for some Easter color:)

Well, about 2 weeks ago I discovered them in my fridge, a little moldy. 

I had been checking on them every few weeks and they did just fine up until that point. 

So I knew it was time to get to work. 

Though I'm not saying that waiting til your food is moldy means its ready to dye. Fresh is better. However, I rarely dye with good healthy foods, as I don't believe in wasting it. However, these carrots were so tiny and stringy- I had planned on getting some, using only the peels and roasting the rest but there was nothing to peel and no "rest". 

I really didn't want to take the time to peel every single one as it was a pain in the butt. I did this.

Then, because in Santa Fe my experiment was solar dyeing with them, creating a long slow heat, and here it was the beginning of Janurary, in Maine. I put them in here and then next to the wood stove. 

In this long tall jar is a skein of kid mohair silk that I get online at elann.com.

Wonderful source for yarns. Have gone there for years. And now I use them for my test yarns in classes and for test dyeing.

Also there are bits of vintage lace. 

No mordants. 

Don't you just love that color?!

It's so different than it was in Santa Fe where the color was so grapey there. 

Because I had a lot of carrots, I split up more into two pots because I had a lot I wanted to dye. 

3 skiens of hand spun Maine double ply Finn. I get Finn roving from a lovely lady, Diane at the Maine Fiber Frolic. Her tent is always off the side and she always has a few Finn sheep in a pen and Shetland lace shawls hanging in her tent. Very small, with lots of natural colored roving, and spun yarns. It's my favorite tent of the whole thing:) 

Anyway, I also had a few other vintage textiles in a pot. Again nothing was mordanted. 

I chose this path because when I did my tests in Santa Fe, I found that the unmordanted samples, especially on wool were almost brighter then the alum ones (??!!) kind of crazy I thought, but I thought I'd go with it. 

It felt so right to place them on our woodstove instead of turning on our oven, which would have been fine. But the woodstove is already there and I knew my pots could handle it, I thought why not? 

I kept a thermometer in there at all times to always keep an eye on the heat. It never got above 180 which was what I wanted. It did take longer then the oven and that was also what I wanted. A long slow heat. 

Here is everything washed and drying also by the woodstove. 

I was very surprised and disapointed at first by the grey tones in the wool when in Santa fe the wool took on a lovely deeper/ brighter purple.... Though to be fair, I didn't so an exact ratio comparison. 

But the kid mohair/ silk skein, looks perfect. 

And the vintage textiles also look perfect. 

I was very happy with those. 

As I'll most likely be using these Finn skeins for knitting something for my baby, I think I'm going to go for a deeper purple and dye them in my umbilicaria later on. 

They aren't shown here, but I continued to dye with the carrot baths another 3 times. I kept throwing in vintage cloth and lace and just letting it sit. No heat to see what would happen. 

I finally let it go and dumped it when I noticed one morning a fine white film on top. It did pretty well though for about a week and 1/2. And all it was was carrot juice:)

The batt below here is dyed with lichens that you can read about here.

If you have any questions about dyeing with purple carrots, or have done some yourself, I'd love to here your story. Leave me a comment:) 

You can also follow me on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and FB at 44Clovers. 

Decoding Red Cabbage Dye

Oh dear. 

Cabbage.

You know I really tried to avoid experimenting with red cabbage. 

I just had a feeling it wasn't going to work. Don't know why. Just a feeling.

But Pinterest got the better of me. 

I love Pinterest.

I am so inspired and love organizing my various boards and day dreaming with my computer over all the loveliness people do. 

Which includes some lovely cabbage dyed fibers. 

I just knew, I KNEW that heat and alum would not do it. 

Now I work a lot from my gut. And the notes I take. 

I did not study this in college. 

Though if I had had the choice, I know I would have. 

nor did I study science and in fact in school I HATED science. 

So much. 

Now it's really costing me because all I have to go on is my gut. 

However, a stong gut I do have. 

I drew my pre-clusions from my blueberry experiment last year. 

With heat and alum I got grey from those juicy Maine native jewels. 

But when I soaked a vintage silk hankie in a cold bath with no alum or other mordant, I got a closer purple. 

Something started to sink in.

It is tricky to know what is simply a stain and what is a pigment and what is a dye.

Golly, aren't they all the same?!

I want to know. 

But in any case I took that rotting head of red cabbage, chopped off the moldy bits, hacked it up, put it in my stock pot that I use for soup- wait, yes, I DID use a pot for dyeing that I will use again for food.

BECAUSE I used only food items in the pot, cabbage and a scarf:) No mordant. Don't worry. 

In went this strange and tightly woven silk scarf I got from Japan on ebay. 

Cold water.

And the scarf was not mordanted with anything. 

No ph mordifiers in the bath. 

After an hour or so. 

I think a few days went by. 

Every few hours I'd turn the scarf in the bath. 

Sometimes pulling it out, wringing out the dye and admiring the color work. 

When I was done dyeing it, I rinsed it and no color ran out. 

With these jars, I filled each up with the cabbage bath from the large pot,

stuck in the same amount of pre soaked samples in each jar. 

In each jar was 

wool

alpaca

kid mohair/ silk

silk

cotton

linen

and a sample each mordanted with 

alum

copper

iron 

and nothing at all. 

So a whole set.

In the top jar that is purple, no ph modifers where added. 

This is the color of the cabbage bath on its own. 

The pink jar has a splash of vinegar.

The teal jar a dash of baking soda. 

Seeing that color change was magic!

However, I second guessed my gut and set them next to the wood stove thinking that maybe the very slow warming would have a positive effect...

Ummm... not so much.

I dumped the liquid from each jar and started again with fresh dye liquid as I had plenty from that stock pot. 

Added the same modifers to the same jars and set them in my mud room 

where they actually froze over night....

That's ok, interesting things still happened. 

This here are all the samples starting with the vinegar batch

nothing batch

baking soda batch.

All laying on the dried silk scarf. 

Which really was the most successful of all the cabbage. 

Every few days or so I check in on that scarf to see if the color is still there. 

And it is. 

I'm not quite sure what to do with it. 

Not thin enough to work into a felt. 

Not warm enough to wear right now. 

And I'm not keen on putting it in my shop as I don't know when or if it will fade. 

For so now, It'll sit pretty.

So what did I learn from cabbage dye? 

Red cabbage dye loves silk with no mordant and maybe a modifer. 

Red cabbage loves linen especially with baking soda. Lovely light but bright blues.

Red cabbage and wool are not friends. Though if you sweeter the deal with a modifer, 

they learn to live togther.

Dyeing with 4 Lichens from 3 Corners of the World.

So I've been enjoying some nice down time here on Peaks.
I'm now in my 2nd trimester and my energy is perking back up.
Beginning around Halloween I was feeling pretty tuckered out as I was balancing this new life form growing inside me and just in general wrapping my brain around our lives changing forever.

Between the holidays, my time has been spent researching baby things, doctor appointments, times with family, snuggling on the sofa all day watching endless series of whatever felt nice and interesting. I blow through tv way more than is good for me. Holding my small chicken a whole lot more and just standing in my painting studio soaking up the energy in there and day dreaming about what I'll paint when I get around to it.

As Christmas neared I started to plan on taking January and Feburary off from cranking out the knitted and sewn goods. Or really any major shop planning things. I just needed a break from not thinking about creating for the shop. And it's been really good.
I still got the dye urges and one day a few weeks ago as I was cleaning out the fridge trying again to find that weird smell, I found two things that I over looked last time.

A red cabbage.

And a bag of tiny skiny purple carrots.
From September......

I had also been hankering to dye up my fermented lichen jars of reds and purples.

That is what I'm going to begin with here, the lichen dyes.

The next two posts will be about the carrots and cabbage, but seperately.

This is my 3rd post on lichen dyes and you can find the others in my archives.

Lichens.

I heart lichens
So
Very
Much.

I revisted my wonderful and so so informative book by Karen Cassleman, Lichen Dyes, A new Source Book. 
I've had it about a year or more and found a few pages where I had made all these notes on with my pencil. It occured to me that the first time I experimented with my fermented lichen dyes I kind of winged it, even though I had read what she said to do.  Also I was working with tiny amounts of fiber.

This time though, I did exactly as she said.
Started with 1oz of washed fiber : 1cup of dye liquor : 4 cups water.
From there I repeated the fiber amount in the afterbaths until the color was absorbed.

I had a different lichen in each jar.
The 1st being what I was pretty sure was
Evernia prunastri
that I collected from my mother in law's yard.
Which by the way is a lichen paradise.
 Let me see if I can pull up a picture.

I mean, come on. How can you not fall in love with this weird and strange organism?
Just
So
Beautiful.

Ok, two pictures. They live in the Sierra Foothills, California 

and going there in Feburary is such a treat. 

I also collected from the same spot a dark curly green lichen. Which may be what was in this last picture. 

A had a 3rd jar of Xanthoria parietina that I had collected from Inis Meáin, the middle of the Aran Island off the west coast of Ireland during our honeymoon in 2013. I finally used the last of that jar. 

sniff... sniff....

The 4th jar was of Umbilicaria mammulata I collected at Squam Lake in New Hampshire while teaching at the September Taproot/Squam. 

Meeting Stephanie Pearl McPhee aka The Yarn Harlot was pivotal in my lichen dyeing adventures because she confirmed for me that indeed Umbilicaria does resemble black potato chips. After she said that I knew I had seen it before. But I realized I didn't know what I was more excited and overwhelmed with. The fact that I just had a conversation with Stephanie Pearl McPhee. Or that she cracked my lichen mystery. 

Both I'm sure. 

Then on the last day of Squam before I headed home, I took another foraging walk around and there by the lake behind the big house, on a rock was a wonderful smattering of Umbilicaria mammulata and another Umbilicaria with the common name, toad skin lichen. Growing side by side. I collected a small amount and begun the soaking as soon I got home. 

On this day of dyeing, I was excited to get some dyeing done.
But to also just use up what I had.


Lichen fermentation is super exciting and everything
but we need not foget about the dyeing bit.





The Umbilicaria is the only one that really held the deep color in the first bath.
The others, turned out to be a very soft pink or purle.

I did wonder if it was because I was using loose wool opposed to yarn or fabric.
Which I think, saturates better... Not a fact, just in my experience so far.



I was super impressed with the first dye bath of Umbilicaria which is on the left. A bright magenta.
I think I did 2 after baths with an once of washed wool in each pot.
In a few of them, I added more dye liquor which made me feel like I was cheating but, I wanted some color to be drawn out.
It was fine.

The mystery lichen, 3rd from the left came out kind of impressive.



Going across the picture here, the fluffy batts are my carded lichen samples, 1 oz each.
1st baths starting on the far left and going up.

(below the batts are my cabbage experiments which I will post about later.


Here is my jar of leftover Xanthoria from the Aran Island.
After I poured off all the dye liquor, I just couldn't face dumping the lichens.
I mean, they came from such an ancient place and ancient spot.
So I filled it back up with more ammonia and water just to see what would happen.
This is it after just a few minutes.
I'll wait a few weeks and try it again.
When using something like lichens for dyes, I think it is so important to use up every last drop.

In the mean time, I've acquired a few lichen tools. 

A microscope

another lichen book

little jars for collecting and testing lichens in the field for dyeing

dissection tools

and the cutest red tiny filing cabinet from Ikea that will soon house my new lichen herbarium. 

Now I've just got to get organized. 

If you have any questions about lichen dyeing, leave me a comment and I'll do my best to answer you. 

I have taught a lichen dyeing course once at the Maine Fiber Frolic last summer. 

Lichen dyeing is a tricky course to teach, for me, because I want to fit so much information into a course and it all really needs time. 

I'm still on the fence if I'm going to teach one from my home studio this spring. 

I need to think about how I want to structure it because most likely, I need to be the one to prepare and ferment the lichens and even then it will be dyeing of little samples. 

So if there is something really specific or an area in lichen dyeing you'd like to learn in the form of a course, do let me know. 

Quiet times

I've neglected this space greatly. 

I have however been continuing my dyeing and creating 

but it in more contimplative drips and drabs. 

So here's just a little note to say I'll be back soon with some 

fresh dye experiments I conducted a few weeks ago.

All of which are purple actually. 

Also, by April, I will have a fresh line of plant dyed fluffy delicate goodies for the neck. 

As I geared up for the Holiday sale season I tuckered myself out pretty easily. As I'm now growing a human (!!!) I decided to take Janurary and Feburary off from major crank out mode. 

Though I should say I've been spinning at a good relaxed clip and have great plans to get through all 7 fleeces (and that will be washed, carded, spun, and dyed). Normally I work at one fleece at a time and then put it out in my shop. However, I excited myself at the prospect of dyeing everything at once over the course of a few weeks as soon as the weather gets warm. When will that be? April I hope. 

This way, I can hopefully have all my major dyeing for the winter 2015 season done before the baby comes in July. We'll see. 

So, like I said, soon I'll have a few posts up of purple plant dyes!!