Last of the summer dyes

 Blog

Marigolds

Autumn has been a mellow affair. Trees are only starting to turn colour and drop leaves. Flowers continue to bloom and there is plenty of natural dye stuff still to be gathered. It’s time to get a basket and take a walk to find some dye stuff to try out now or over the winter.

Coreopsis

I’m drying dahlias, marigolds, calendula and coreopsis from my garden. Acorns and walnuts are both good for dyeing as are sumac leaves, rhubarb roots, carrot tops, willow leaves and bark, chrysanthemums and pine cones. Not all plants will give you color and some that do–especially berries–are not colourfast. Don’t waste your time dyeing with blackberries or beets, for example, because the colour will fade quickly.

Dahlias

Lichen is also an option, but not all lichens give a dye. Sally is planning an in depth post on lichen dyeing so I will just give a few pointers on lichen gathering and preparation. Do your homework before you go out to identify lichens that give a dye. If you’re not sure there is the bleach test. If the lichen turns red when treated with a drop of bleach it should give colour for dyeing. Here is a helpful link on lichen dyeing.

Personally I’ve had no luck with lichen. Any pointers are appreciated!

As Autumn becomes winter there won’t be as much dye stuff around. However ivy berries and leaves might be worth a try along with mahonia berries. And there is always the humble onion skin. It gives a beautiful golden color and is simple to find and use. Other household items that give color include pomegranates and avocados.

For those of you who need help identifying plants I suggest a book that has pictures and descriptions of plants local to you. As Sally found out it’s properly identifying plants and trees is pretty important.

I use River Cottage’s Hedgerow book for identification. Books like the Ashford Book of Dyeing and Jill Goodwin’s A Dyers’ Manual give a lot of information on what colors certain plants give and whether they are color fast.

One other project for the budding natural dyer is to grow your own dye plants. I’ve started madder this year, which I need to re-pot into a larger container. Other flowers like dahlias, marigolds and coreopsis have all given loads of lovely yellows and gold colors this year. They’re all easy to grow and inexpensive. If you have space you might also try woad, indigo, St John’s Wort and safflower. It’s easy to find seeds online or from another natural dyer.

Summer of craft: portable projects, children’s activities

 Rachel Wolcott

 Blog

Only a few more days of school to go and the UK branch of Sheep Cabana is getting ready for the summer holidays.

I tend to travel with fiber, handcards, a drop spindle, knitting and a crochet hook… you can see where this is going. No wonder my bags are always inspected by the TSA! When we go camping later this summer, my Ashford Joy will come with us.

Last year I considered bringing my 15″ Cricket loom with me on holiday, but decided against it. There are more portable weaving projects like tablet weaving, small tapestry looms and pin looms that are better suited to travel. One of those (or two) will be in my suitcase in the coming weeks.

Pin looms are also a great way to get children interested in weaving. They’re small and easy to handle.

Kids love rigid heddle looms

That said, I recently set up the Cricket for my six-year old boy and he loved it. Imagine me glowing with pride as his project grew. Amazing!

First project

The May/June 2015 issue of Handwoven featured two fun-looking projects for children. One was a Hula Hoop rug. I found this tutorial on YouTube posted by a young woman who made something similar for a girl scout project. I love the idea of children sharing their craft knowledge online.

The other Handwoven children’s project is sort of a mini-tapestry necklace or decoration by Jennifer Lee. All you need is some cardboard, yarn, a tapestry needle and maybe some beads. There are plenty of similar projects demonstrated online. I’m going to try this out with my little one. Once he gets into something, he tends to go into manufacturing mode. We shall see how many of these we have at the end of the summer.

Mini tapestries

There is also a free e-book on the Interweave site with weaving projects for kids. If you are massively ambitious and have tons of Lego, check out this automated loom. Wow. For those of us who prefer something low-tech, don’t forget the ultimate portable and child-friendly fiber project: pompoms!

Pompoms!!!

Here’s another idea from Handwoven that caught my eye: grass cloth. For those of us wondering what it is, grass cloth simply is cloth woven with dried grass in the weft. Apparently grass cloth wallpaper is trendy these days. Who knew.

Weaving grass cloth is not really a portable project, but it does require grass that you might find when you’re strolling along the beach or through the countryside as part of your summertime ramblings. Handwoven’s grass cloth journal instructions for the rigid heddle loom can be found here.

What I love about this project is it can be made from materials gathered either in your neighbourhood or while on holiday. It’s sustainable, eco-friendly and a keepsake.

Many ways with warps on a rigid heddle loom

 Rachel Wolcott

 Blog

Getting creative with warp yarns is a great way to make the most out of your rigid heddle loom. Using different coloured and textured yarns in the warp, ordering those yarns in a certain way or not at all will yield different, beautiful results without having to worry too much about pattern.

plain weave plaid

Let’s start with texture and colour. In this sample, I used two smooth yarns and two handspun boucle yarns in the warp. From right to left– black, magenta, then the lighter

boucle and the darker one. For the weft I used the four yarns in the same order to create this nubbly plaid-like sample. Simple to weave, but lots of potential as a cloth. I could easily weave something similar and turn it into a Chanel-style jacket.

Randomly placed many-coloured warp

Next up is a piece I wove

recently entirely out of handspun. The plan was to make the warp yarns the feature. I randomly wound the three colours of yarn—pink, purple, green— onto the warping board. On the weft I used a single colour—a grey mohair and wool handspun with a few dollops of green and yellow as a feature. What I like about how this piece turned out is the strong warp colours slightly muted by the greyish weft. Also the slight unevenness of the handspun give the whole piece a subtle speckled effect.

Choosing handspun or many colours of yarn in the warp is one way to use colour and texture in the warp to great effect. A variation on this theme is the multi-coloured warp. Instead of using a few different coloured yarns in the warp, wind on a neutral coloured warp, carefully remove it and then put it the dye pot and apply colour.

Dyed warp

In this sample, I used a commercial silk warp thread and dyed it with gold, purple, green and a little pink. Woven with a camel/silk handspun, with some saori-style accents, the warp still comes through, but this time with different colour pools.

Dyed warp, Saori-style accents

You could take this technique further and go for an ikat-style weave by tie dyeing the warp or even painting a design onto it, then threading the warp onto the loom. Another approach is to take some self-striping or variegated sock yarn and wind your warp so that the colours sit together. There’s a great description of that technique here.

log cabin weave

Log cabin weave is a rigid heddle loom classic. It’s simple, just alternating blocks of light and dark yarns (LDLDLDLD DLDLDLDL etc) in the warp and then weaving the same way. More about log cabin in my November post.

Using multi-coloured handspun or variegated sock yarns that have less contrast also create a nice effect. Check out this blog post on this variation on log cabin weave. I’ve also seen log cabin done with some saori-style embellishments that look fantastic.

One last technique that emphasizes warp is using the variable dent rigid heddle reed. It’s a reed that allows you to mix up the dent sizes in the reed to then use different weights of yarn. I haven’t tried out this tool myself, but apparently one of the effects you can achieve is a ribbed fabric.

All these techniques bring a lot of interest and texture without having to mess around with pick up sticks. Don’t get me wrong, pick up sticks are great, but don’t think you need to use them to get the most out of your rigid heddle loom.

Some resources for rigid heddle weaving:

Ravelry’s rigid heddle weaving group

Schacht spindle blog

Weavezine

Turning handwoven fabric into a garment

 Rachel Wolcott

 Blog

Handwoven awaiting transformation

Rigid heddle looms may not be fancy or complicated, but do not be deceived. You’re not going to weave acres of jacquard, but don’t think placemats, table runners, scarves and hand towels are your only options on a rigid heddle loom.

Two years ago when I bought my little loom I had no idea that with some experimentation, practice and patience I’d be able to make a garment from fabric I’d created. For one thing, the idea of cutting my handwoven cloth terrified me. Also as relatively inexperienced seamstress, I wasn’t confident I could create a wearable garment.

I took the small amount of fabric I’d woven on a 20″ (50 cm) Ashford Knitter’s Loom up to Clacton-on-Sea for a lesson in sewing with handwoven with Sarah Howard. Sarah, along with Elisabeth Kendrick, is the author of Get Weaving, which I blogged about earlier this year.

Sarah helped me find a pattern that would work with the 175cm of fabric I had. We used a commercial paper pattern to get an idea of size and shape and then made some modifications for fit and the fabric.

The next step was to make a paper pattern to use to then sew up a calico to see how the garment looked. I used some denim for the calico. It allowed me to see where changes were required (in the armpits!). Once that was done, I went a way with instructions to test out the pattern on store-bought fabric. Sarah says it’s important to do a trial run before diving into your handwoven. Lots of issues can be sorted out on the sample piece. For example, I found I needed to change the shape of the side pieces slightly. Making a sample made me think about bias binding and lining too.

sample garment

My sample looked pretty good, but I realised I would have to do the pockets a bit differently on the final piece–ie with biased binding and the fabric backed by iron-on woven interfacing. I also decided that gold/black lining would not look good with the handwoven and went for a solid blue silk.

Here’s a couple things to keep in mind when you’re placing your pattern on your handwoven:

– Make sure all the pieces fit. Measure the length of fabric without the fringe.

– Think about the best use of your fabric’s selvedges and hemmed ends to reduce the potential for fraying and binding.

– Make a note of the direction of warp and weft in your fabric. How does that influence how you place your pattern on your fabric? You probably want all your pieces going with the warp.

My layout looked like this:

layout

I was careful to place the pockets to match up with the stripes on the two front pieces.

The next step was to cut out the pieces.Once I did, I carefully applied strips of iron-on woven interfacing to the fabric to prevent fraying. Then I zig-zag stitched over that.

I sewed together the fabric pieces as well as the lining. I didn’t sew in the lining, but bound the piece together all at once with bias-binding tape. I made it myself, which wasn’t difficult, but it was time consuming. However, store-bought bias tape is pretty poor so I do recommend taking the time to make it yourself.

Et voila! Garment!

finished garment!

A few things to keep in mind when sewing with handwoven.

– Remember your woven fabric may be quite thick. How is that going to impact your seams? Will your garment work well with chunky seams?

– Use iron-on woven interface to prevent fraying. It also makes it easier to sew.

– Go slow! Once you machine sew handwoven fabric, it’s really hard if not impossible to pick out without destroying the fabric.

– Handwoven is stretchy. Think about how that might cause difficulties when sewing up or when putting in a lining.

applying iron-on woven interface

Onion skins, madder & gorse blossom

 Rachel Wolcott

 Blog

Onion skins

Natural dyeing is something I’ve wanted to try since one of my fellow guild members —Jackie Crook–gave a talk and demonstration last year. I’ve been saving onion skins, trying to grow woad, looking out for natural dye stuff as I’m driving through the Essex countryside. A few weeks ago after the first gorse blossoms appeared I got out my dye pots and started thinking about a dye garden.

I’ve borrowed Jill Goodwin’s A Dyer’s Manual from the guild library. I followed her instructions for mordanting–I used Alum–and dye stuff to fiber ratios. I soaked madder, made a gorse blossom liquor an

Melon color from madder

d boiled up some onion skins.

simmering gorse blossoms

I used some White-faced Woodland and fawn-colored Shetland fleece as well as some BowmontXDorset (BoDo) and angora yarn to test.

The BoDo/Angora could have used a little more dyestuff to bring out a deeper red color. Next time I’ll be more careful about my dyestuff:fiber ratio.

top: gorse, bottom: onion skins

I was most excited by the onion skin result on the fawn-colored fleece. I gave a brilliantly rich green/gold/brown tone. The onion skins dyed the white fleece a lovely brown/gold.

Onion skins with two colors of fleece

The effect of the gorse blossom was much more subtle. The white fleece took on a soft lemon tone and the lighter parts of the fawn fleece did too.

One reason–apart from lack of time–I hadn’t gotten into natural dyeing was I thought mordanting the wool would be a pain–it wasn’t. I also wondered whether natural dyeing could possibly yield better results than acid dyes.

Well. Natural dyes yield much subtler tones. You’re not going to get fancy multicolored roving using this method. And that’s OK.

What about the dye garden? Well madder, woad, weld and polygonum tinctorium (indigo) seeds have been found. It’s still too cold to plant anything here, but the ground is being prepared.

Guild Challenge: The Electric Kool-aid Fiber Test Results

 Sally Williams

 Blog

The test results are in! At our February Guild meeting, everyone brought their projects from the Kool-aid dye challenge.

Here are the winners, as voted by the Guild members:

Leaf shawl, from different strengths of yellow #6, then overdyed to mitigate the obvious stripes. Lovely.

Leaf shawl, from different strengths of orange, then overdyed to mitigate the obvious stripes. Lovely.

Saori scarf woven on rigid heddle loom, using blue and red dyes for a purple effect.

Grand prize winner. All colors used. Too adorable!

Here are some examples from people who have dyed with Kool-aid before, and know that it takes a lot of dye to get a lot of color:

Child’s jacket made from mitered squares. Love the intense colors.

“Sunset Colors” yarn. The turquoise shade is great.

Knit cowl. The charcoal grey tones down the vibrant colors.

Sophisticated roving with color blending.

A pair of green and blue hats.

Here are some examples of using less dye to nice effect:

Knit cowl with pastel colors and grey alpaca for a tweedy look.

Nuño felted sky blue cloth with lavender undertones.

Tea cozy topped with knit flowers, which were hand painted with Kool-aid, just as one would marzipan.

Some excellent examples of blending with neutrals:

The same hat-and-mitt set, two ways.

Knit socks, blue and orange. The heathered blue tones down the orange.

Felted bag with sheep. Lined and reversible!

What did I end up doing? My initial attempt at using Kool-aid ended with yarn that I hated. I went off on a tangent and dyed a lot of fiber with candy. I made this project bag. I got Spinner’s Block. I got over it. And in the 11th hour, I spun and dyed this:

Targhee two-ply, dyed with a jawbreaker, tic-tacs and sprinkles, then gradient dyed with red-to-blue Kool-aid.

I didn’t win, but I learned a lot, including an appreciation for dying spun yarn, not just wool. Up next: bring on the natural dyes!

Nuno felting part one: rub n’ roll

 Rachel Wolcott

 Blog

Nuno felting is one of those techniques I’ve always admired and wanted to try, but never got my act together to do. A couple of months back I bought Felt Fabric Designs by Sheila Smith and again my interest in nuno felting was piqued.

I was particularly interested in some of the techniques Smith shows “laminating” fabrics using felt and also upcycling thrift store scarves and fabrics into felted patchworks.

But I haven’t tried any of those techniques yet. Usually I dive in and try techniques even if they’re a bit complicated, but this time I tried some of the simpler nuno felting processes.

After a rummage in my closet I found a scarf I’ve never worn. It’s an open weave and 100% silk–ripe for nuno! Here it is on the table before felting. It’s on a strip of bubble wrap. I’ve spread light layers of Wensleydale roving and silk fibers on top.

100% silk open weave scarf readied for nuno

The next step was to cover with an old net curtain, wet down with cool water, smooth some olive oil soap over the net curtain and begin to rub!

My good friend and avid felter Gaynor was on the scene to offer advice and lend her fingers for rubbing!

Gaynor flipped the fiber-covered side face down onto the bubble wrap to give it a little extra rub

The bubble wrap provides the friction to felt the fibers into the silk scarf. Rubbing the fabric and fiber through the net curtain starts the felting process. Once you can peel the netting off without the fibers sticking to it, you remove the netting, place another layer on top then roll it up and begin to roll.

Gaynor’s tip for rolling the fabric in the bubble wrap was to roll the whole thing in a towel and roll it and then roll it some more. We didn’t keep an accurate count but I’d guess we rolled it a few hundred times in each direction?

What do I mean by rolling it in each direction? Well, once you roll your piece of fabric a few hundred times, unroll the bubble wrap bundle and re-roll it from the opposite direction and start the whole process again. It’s good to have a friend to help with the rolling if your arms get tired or you get a bit of finger ache.

Once you’re satisfied the fiber has mingled (or stuck) to your fabric give it a rinse in very hot water. Wad it up in a ball and throw it into the sink a few times. Then rinse with cold water. Take a look at your fabric. Have the fibers you’ve applied felted into it as much as if you would like? If not, give it a few more rolls in the bubble wrap and then the repeat the hot/cold rinses and throwing process.

Gaynor and I found that with this scarf, silk felted really well but the Wensleydale took a lot of persuading. If you’re after a shiny or even metallic effect go for more silk, less wool. Once the fabric is dry give it an iron, which brings out the silk’s shine.

Here’s my final product. I love how this technique has turned a drab unworn scarf into something I’m now wearing all the time. Interested in some amazing nuno felting? Check out the Sheep Cabana Pinterest board.

Finished scarf: drab to fab!

Get Carded Sideways

 Sally Williams

 Blog

In one of the rabbit-warrens of the internet I stumbled across this blog blurb by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (aka the Yarn Harlot) about sending fiber through your drum carder sideways. I immediately alerted Rachel, that this might be a thing. We had to put it to the test.

I started with a Corriedale batt that I’d already sent through the carder normally:

Corriedale batt

I split it in half and sent one half through again sideways:

What! That orientation is wrong!

This is the result. The sideways batt feels thicker and fluffier. I should also note that the fiber piled up in the middle of the drum instead of being spread out evenly.

Left, standard carding, right, sideways carding

As a different test, I sent an assortment of different staple lengths and fibers through. Longwool, and very crimpy short wool. I didn’t pick the crimpy short wool apart.

Sideways potpourri. This makes it scientific.

Here’s the resulting batt. Then I spun it all up.

Assorted wools batt

Rachel here: Excuse me while I butt into Sal’s post. First of all can I just echo the WTFness of this sideways drumcarding development. Imagine me sort of open mouthed and wondering wha??? and ??? And thinking, well if the Yarn Harlot AND Judith McKenzie say this is The Done Thing, well….

Like Sal, I had to try this sideways drum carding myself. Sal has already described what happens–smaller, fluffier batts. That’s what I found too. Instead of thick and sometimes compacted batts you get fluffy rolags, like the ones you would make on hand cards–but bigger.

These were very easy to spin, like rolags. There was none of that peeling apart and fussing around with a big batt. It was all the good aspects of a hand carded rolag, only bigger and no sore wrists.

Some of the fiber I used was polwarth/silk roving that’s been in my stash for awhile. It opened up nicely when carded sideways and was a breeze to spin.

Lastly I put some scoured fleece (just washed, undyed, still a bit of a mess) through sideways. Here I didn’t see a huge difference putting unprocessed fleece through sideways. The batts were about the same. Having said that, once I get to the stage where I’m going to blend some of this fleece with another fiber or other colours, I’ll be doing that sideways. I like those big, fat rolags!

Longwool single, twist set

Sally here again: I agree with Rachel, it does make easy-to-spin batts, especially with the longwool blend I tried. I suspect this may be because, by sending the wool through sideways, I’m actually spinning on the fold with the long fibers. I was also able to maintain some of the crimpy locks, which would have been carded apart going through aligned. I think this is definitely a great way to do an art batt.

Test single, both standard carding method and sideways

When I was spinning the batt that was half normal/half sideways, I noticed a definite difference in how the yarn felt while spinning, which I would attribute to a worsted vs. woolen preparation. The sideways portion looked like it was going to have more of a halo due to the fibers not being lined up. If I look very closely, they may be slightly fuzzier, but after washing and setting the twist on the single, there is really very little difference.

So what do you think, Rach, is this actually a thing? My take, it’s definitely not NOT a thing!

Rachel: Sal, I have to agree with you. Not a Thing. I wouldn’t advocate a sideways-only approach to drumcarding. If you want to spin rolags, yes go sideways. If you want to open up some compacted roving, go sideways. But sideways only? I’m not so sure about that.

What I would suggest is being careful about how much fiber you load onto your drumcarder. Don’t overload.

Spinning in the grease

 Rachel Wolcott

 Blog

Sally and I talk about fiber preparation a lot. Conversations usually start off with a confession.

Rachel: “Um I just bought more fleeces.”

OMG! Where did these come from???

Sal: [laughs] “What are you going to do with them?”

Rachel: “Well right now, they’re in my closet.”

Then we discuss all the processes we could use to turn the raw fleece into The Ultimate Yarn. There’s scouring, combing, carding, dyeing and blending. Then there are infinite techniques–have you heard of the Fermented Suint Method for scouring fleece? Do you card your fleece or comb it? Do you put your fiber into the drumcarder sideways?

Last fall, after buying a few more Shetland fleeces I was so excited to try them out on the wheel that I pulled off some locks and started spinning. No fiber prep at all.

Spinning in the grease isn’t something I usually do, but a lot of spinners do. These are the people who look at you funny when you start talking about scouring fleece and the other fifteen steps you’re going to take before you spin any yarn.

What I learned was spinners who advocate spinning in the grease have a point. One is, if you have a beautiful fleece with nice crimpy locks, it’s a shame to process that out. It’s fine just to tease the locks out a little with your fingers and start to spin. I would recommend, however, picking through the fleece first and removing the dags (poo) and larger bits of vegetable matter. You don’t want that.

Here’s some Shetland spun in the grease. The yarn plumped up nicely after washing.

Shetland spun in the grease

Shetland after washing

Here’s some Zwartables I spun in the same way.

Zwartables spun in the grease

Zwartables fleece

Yes it is a bit smelly and you should clean your wheel afterwards. Really the final result is the same as if you’d spent days scouring and carding and combing and all the rest.

Safety Note. You do need to be careful handling raw fleece. Pregnant women should not handle raw fleece. Be aware that raw fleece is likely to have sheep excrement on it–so avoid handling that with bare hands. Choose from the sections of the fleece that’s not near the animal’s rear end. Give your hands a thorough scrub when you’re finished. Then wash them again!

Saori-style weaving on the rigid heddle loom

 Rachel Wolcott

 Blog

fork, scissors, tapestry needle

While I still have loads of yarn piling up and access to the guild’s Ashford knitter’s loom I’m putting both to good use. On Friday I threaded the loom with almost five meters worth of warp and set forth on another weaving experiment.

I won’t call this Saori weaving–rather Saori-style. It’s hitting a lot of the right themes for me–using up stash yarn, making use of the Ashford loom, thinking about color combinations (in this case pink, orange and brown) and learning new techniques. Saori weaving is also a perfect canvas for art yarn– you know all that fanciful stuff we love to make, but sometimes struggle to use.

art yarn

Saori-style weaving is ideal for those of us with rigid heddle looms. It’s a plain weave, experimental, free-style approach to weaving pioneered in Japan. (The Saori website has all the history.) Saori emphasises finger manipulation techniques, color, texture and self-expression. I’ve seen it likened to painting with yarn.

I threaded (warped) the loom with some commercial mohair and boucle yarn from Texere. Loading five meters’ worth took awhile, but I’m hoping the length of fabric will give me something useable for a garment at the end.

warp

For the weft yarns I’m using a mix of handspun and blue-faced Leicester pencil roving which I dyed. The roving is lovely and soft–well-suited for weaving. What attracted me to Saori-style weaving was the clasped warp technique (useful video here) which would allow me to make a zig-zag weave.

clasped weft

And as the “plan” for this project crystallised I realised it would be a perfect time to use this handspun that’s been in my stash for three years or so waiting for a project.

Using a fork as a beater and a tapestry needle to weaving in extra color here and there the fabric is shaping up. I’ve alternated the colors on either side of the fabric–pink and orange first of the left and then on the right, swapping the brown over. Then I’ve used the brown tailspun art yarn for some additional interest.

filling in

One of the preconceptions I’ve had to jettison is the idea of pattern. There are some themes in terms of color and texture in the piece so far, but no pattern. How is that going to translate into a garment? My guess is that while I would like to make a jacket out of this piece, I might have to challenge that idea and make something else!