Busy, Busy but not a lot to show

Woolly Wednesday again and although May has been a busy month but I feel that there isn't a lot to show for all my hard work!

First the solar dyeing now one month on and really not a lot of change except that the dye stuff has lost colour so hopefully some colour has leached into the yarn.

 

Red cabbage has produced less colour than I had hoped for.  This is the yarn modified with iron is probably the best of the three so far....

 

 

The garden has taken up more of my time than spinning but hopefully the results will be well worth the effort...

 

This what I grandly call the 'veg plot' originally everything was sowed in nice straight rows, but Molly decided that she prefer the more random look - so the rocket and lettuce have spread over a much larger area than first envisaged!  Currently she is completely confused by the netting cage we have erected over the veg - she keeps pushing her head against the net and walks round and round looking for a way in!

Here is the fruit bed and where our first strawberries are plumping up nicely and finally the new Dyers Garden

In the left front corner I have sown Anthemis Tinctoria  (Dyers Camomile) and the other four corners will have Rubia tinctorum (Madder), Reseda luteola (Dyers Weld) and Coreopsis.  All are good for bees which is another plus as we have a steady stream of bees visiting our garden.  I am probably being over ambitious but my philosophy is to cram in the plants so as to not leave room for the weeds to grow!  The sticks are an attempt to stop Molly re-organising the seeds!  So far so good....... 

My new wheel Miss Bliss has been put to good use spinning up the natural dye samples and so far I am loving the wheel, it is very light to treadle and seems to cope well with what ever I have tried so far.... and a big bonus is that I can spin from my wheelchair comfortably.....

This was yesterday's production of samples, nettles, onion skins and cochineal.  Most of the red cabbage is still on the bobbin and will get plied later this afternoon.  When I have finished mordanting the next lot of fibre I shall be trying my luck with the colour I extracted from the leaves of Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple' (Smoke Bush)!

            


I did finish my St Kilda Shawl in May, it is one of the biggest shawls I have knitted so far this year

and another view this time with the first shawl pin Mr S has made - American Cherry for the ring and Indian Rosewood for the pin

I also got a big surprise on Monday evening when I was presented with a very large Texel fleece - I vaguely remember saying how nice it was in comparison to some Texel I had spun and that I wouldn't mind trying some!  Note to self - do not to make encouraging noises when presented with lovely fluff! 

I am going to try dyeing fleece in the grease with this one - which will have to be done with Mr S out of the way as the method uses vinegar - not tried this method before, but the idea of getting a clean fleece ready dyed does appeal..................



No news is not Good News

I have to report that I am still waiting for delivery of my Bliss spinning wheel 10 days since I ordered it and 7 days since it was dispatched................... 

As you can guess I am not a very happy bunny, although I have been told that it will definitely be here by Friday - if it isn't expect an eruption of volcanic proportions over the West Country.  Despite the tracking stuck at 'sorting for country of destination' I have had to wait until today to get any sense at all out of the suppliers and TNTPost Netherlands - the man at TNTPost UK was very helpful, but unable to actually to do anything because the parcel was still in the Netherlands and until the tracking change to arrived in country of destination he couldn't chase it up!  It does come to something when I can remember the long tracking number, so many times I have entered it....  Currently nothing has changed.........................

This situation was made worse by the fact that wheels ordered after mine were all delivered last week! So it wasn't much fun reading all the excited posts as wheel after wheel arrived, was unpacked and put together.....................

There were a lot of very disappointed faces when it failed to show at the spinning evening last night.

Not being able to play with my new toy I did make progress on the St Kilda Shawl

This the main part completed so not a small shawl by any means - before the border it is about 30" deep and 68" wide.  I say 'about' because it is impossible to stretch it out even though it is on my longest cable.  It has been a real labour of love the pattern isn't easy to memorise and because it is in garter stitch not easy to see a mistake until you run out/or have too many stitches when you hit the marker.  Am now on the Old Shale border which is easy to remember but I am waiting for another ball of yarn to arrive having decided not to do the border in the first darker Boreray/Soay.

I am going to use that for another shawl this time done in a traditional Shetland style which begins with a garter stitch triangle with a wide border knitted from stitches pick up around the two long sides and finished with a picot edge.......

Hopefully I shall have GOOD NEWS very soon................

Experimenting with colour the slow way..............

Wednesday May 1st - so a Woolly Wednesday and a quick update on happenings in Chez Sassy.

Besides spinning at a Model Railway Exhibition for two whole days in the main April has been a month of shawls and experiments.  Four shawls completed and a start made on my St Kida Shawl using the very expensive, but very beautiful Boreray and Soay yarn.

Two Romi's A Mysterious Shawl Kal - one in hand-spun and the other in MCN dyed by me.  The other two are designs from LindaCC - Siberian Iris and Spring Maple, both a delight to knit.

I have been experimenting with blending colours - inspired by Deb Menz's excellent book Color in Spinning which has a section on blending colours on a drum carder.  One of the things that I find really amazing is the way that black can disappear when mixed with other colours

This blend (the photo is lighter than real life) In Space...... consists of more black than the colours, but it is nearly lost once blended.  The proportions are 60grams Black (Merino and Silk) 30grams Amethyst (Merino and Silk) and 5grams of Fuchsia and 5grams of Rainbow Trilobal - so more black.... but where is it?

The second experiment is Solar Dyeing - that is using the heat of the sun to dye yarn in a sealed jar - so free energy.  As the weather forecast suggests that the temperature might actually get above freezing I thought today would be a good day to start the experiment.

First I soaked 100 grams of Merino and mordant the fibre in a solution of Alum 100 mil at 1:10 and Cream of Tartar (11/2 teaspoons).  But my Alum solution had crystallised so first I had to dissolve the crystals!

After allowing the fibre to cool a little I placed the fibre and some of the liquid into a Kilner Jar with 10 daffodil flowers, 20 mixed Peppercorns (Black, Red and Green), 1 Bay Leaf, 2 tiny strands of saffron and 1ml Botanical Colours Natural Dyes - Himalayan Rhubarb.  This last one is a but of a cheat, but at this time of the year there isn't a lot of natural stuff around so as you can see I have raided the spice cupboard.. 

This now gets left in the sun for several months........................ 

Oh, yes I did go to Wonderwool and had a fabulous time - retail therapy a real pick me up after a long winter!