Friday, October 21, 2011

Madder Harvest

Digging the Madder roots out of the garden.

These plants are three years old.

Bucket of roots

Madder fruits. Each has a seed inside.

Here are the roots washed. We dug 290 grams today and 209 grams on Monday.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Summer Yarn

Corriedale from Eastern Washington dyed with Coreopsis grandiflora flowers and a mixed solar vat of Coreopsis and Walnut Hulls. This was a carded batt that I dyed by sticking half of it into the jar with Coreopsis and half into the jar with simmered-one-time-already coreopsis and walnut hulls left over from last year. I left it in the sun for two or three days (we had a couple of weeks of hot weather finally!).
Then I divided the dyed batt in two lengthwise and spun each sort of woolen, not worrying much about neps or thicker spots. I plied by reversing the direction so that the contrasting oranges and browns were next to each other.



Sunday, September 11, 2011

Summer Flowers/Solar dyeing

Coreopsis tinctoria (Dyer's Coreopsis) and Anthemis tinctoria (Dyer's chamomile)








Wednesday, August 3, 2011

High summer - finally!



After a wet and cold Spring and early Summer we are finally having some sun. The Coreopsis and Dyer's Chamomile (also known as Golden Marguerite) are fully blooming as is Black Hollyhock and Bronze Fennel.






Sunday, March 20, 2011

Spring Planting

Started indoors and then moved to a cold frame/greenhouse: Japanese Indigo, Dyer's Coreopsis, Red Gem Marigold, Alum Root, Madder, Weld (Dyer's Rocket),Tomatoes, Cauliflower, and Elecampane.






Sunday, February 27, 2011

Late February Snow on Thursday

Record cold temps on Friday night for the Pacific Northwest. This afternoon and evening it is raining. It will soon be time to start the dye plants for this season.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

WILDEST thing you’ve ever done for your art or your craft.

My husband is one of those non-fiber people who can’t tell if his socks are inside out or not. It’s okay, he has many other redeeming qualities! He saw It Itches! and liked the cartoons. And he is wonderful at “helping” me with my fiber obsessions.

The first time I made him, I mean he offered to, take me to look at an antique wheel for sale there were some things in the back of the pickup and I was worrying there might not be room for the wheel should I want to purchase it. Mind you, this was a scant two months after I bought my first wheel (a new modern one).

The antique in question was one of those poor spinning wheels someone had turned into a lamp and had a tall post coming out of the table, and the truck has a canopy. But I thought if the wheel were really great I could rescue it you know. He said, “Well, if it won’t fit in the truck I don’t think we can get it.” To which I stubbornly replied, “No, I’m not willing to decide that before we see it!” We almost had a fight but prudently decided to stop talking about it until we saw the wheel. It was in very bad shape: warped drive wheel, lamp post appendage, nailed tight tension adjustment piece; she said it had broken and been fixed.

My husband was very relieved I didn’t want to buy it. But I did make him stop at the nearest library so I could get on Ravelry and post that I hadn’t bought it in case another woman who had been interested wanted to go look. She had woodworking experience you know, but she decided against it.

Later that day I was unpacking and looked into the bed of the truck and burst out laughing. It would have been a very large wheel indeed to not fit in the truck! Gah! Spinning wheel fumes had finally cleared out of my head! Shortly after that I followed up on a Craigslist posting for a Canadian Production Wheel. That turned out to be a perfect wheel and we had a lovely trip involving two ferries to fetch her.