dyes and flax loooove!

 I totally can't believe that almost a month has passed since my last post.    I've been busy but still feel like I haven't accomplished much.   As well, we've had a lot of rainy and stormy weather which tends to knock our wifi connection out until the weather clears again, making blog updates difficult.    The weather has been really odd.  Flowers are blooming early and our trees look like they do at the end of the summer.   

The garden has been a partial success.   The green beans and salad greens have loved the straw bales.   I've had issues getting cucumbers, zucchini, radishes, beets and carrots started, not because of the bales, but because something was eating all the young plants down the night after they sprouted.   Next year I'll have to work out some way to protect all the seedlings; maybe cloches pinned down or something.

After an extra week of delays due to backorders, the new dishwasher has arrived.   It also arrived while my sweetie was working from home, so while I had an afternoon with the hookers (rug hookers) in the park, he installed it on his break.   He told me that there was an issue with it though as it was so quiet that he couldn't tell if it was running!

I did some spinning.  I finished up the superwash merino.    Then  I did a sample dye vat of Japanese Indigo, to  see what sort of colour it had.  Just a bit early maybe, and I was using up old Thiox, so it was a bit of an iffy experiment.    But there was colour, lots of colour.    

I dyed 2 skeins of the superwash merino.   It is a lovely soft blue.  I'm happy with this colour.   My indigo vat wasn't fully reduced.   I'm thinking it was the old Thiox, but it could have been that I jumped the gun a bit on timing as well, so it may not have had the extra time needed to be fully useable.   Still, it's the sort of blue one would expect from a woad or indigo vat, so yay for that.    

Then I shoved a handful of merino/cashmere/silk in the vat to see how much dye was left.  The photo is actually a bit lighter blue that in reality.   It's super soft of course, but the colour is lovely.   After this came out of the vat, there was more colour, however after a late start, the light was fading, so I ended it there.

A day trip to the Fibre Garden , my favourite spinning supply store was my birthday present.   I got some extra heddles for the 8 shaft table loom and some lovely Finn sliver.   Best though, was some long line flax.    Flax strick is really difficult to find here, but sometimes the shop has some long flax sliver.  It's processed, but with 12 inch lengths of flax.  It's super slick to spin and really it feels like it spins itself.    

I absolutely love spinning this stuff.   It feels like flax. It spins somewhat close to spinning strick spins like.  And it smells like flax.    This skein is 76g of long line flax sliver.   There were 3 packets in the shop.  I came home with all 3 of them.   

Hiking, jam making and other things have happened.   I'll try to post things more frequently.

Spring Garden Colour

 I started some woad seeds a few weeks ago.  The seedlings took forever to germinate.  The weather however has been generally cold and wet, with tons of wind.  I put the seedlings outside on the  few good days, but when it was hovering at just above freezing, with rain, winds and egads, even snow and ice, I had to keep them inside.  They started getting leggy, so much that I worried the stems would break. They were much smaller than I'd have liked, but I got the cheap plastic cloches from storage, prepped the bed and planted the woad seedlings out.  Of course this week the weather is supposed to be well below normal in temperatures, with frosts and possibly some snow.   I think I'll have to cover them at nights, just to help them out a bit.  I left a couple of plants from last year to go to seed for future harvests.

The lettuce and peas that I direct planted in March are now coming up!  They do like this cooler weather.  I'll plant more lettuce seeds in a couple of weeks for multiple harvests.

 The Scilla is starting to grow out to carpet the lawn in the spring. It is so beautiful with that blue colour.  I'd wanted to do this by planting Crocus bulbs through the grass,but hubby wasn't impressed by that idea.  This however is happening courtesy of Mother Natures, so I'm not complaining and he's putting up with it.

The black currant bush is starting to flower.  I had issues with the European black currants that I'd planted when we first moved in.  They would flower early, we'd have a few cold days and the flowers would drop off before they were pollinated.  Thus I had huge, healthy bushes and never any fruit.   My son dug those up for me and I replaced them with North American currants, a similar plant but supposed to be much hardier.  Last year I had a handful of tasty berries which I ate off the bush.  This year it seems to be loaded.  I hope the weather this week doesn't harm the flowers.   There is a volunteer currant bush on the other side of the yard, which is at a similar stage of development.   I'm hoping it's a black currant bush too.  The red currants aren't flowering yet, so fingers are crossed.

The hyacinths are blooming.   It's been such a cold and windy spring that there hasn't been one of those warm, still days where I can sit out on the deck and just enjoy the hyacinth scent.   No days like that in the next week or so weather forecast though.  I hope the blooms may last long enough for at least one cup of tea with hyacinth perfume wafting through the air.

Singing the Blues

 I started the Japanese Indigo seeds in February, in hopes of getting some seed.  I planted it in the garden a bit early, putting it under plastic cloches from the dollar store.   I planted a couple of plants without the cloches to see what difference they really made.   The Indigo plants under the cloches were definitely happier, with more growth, larger, and noticeably more lush.   This enabled me to do a small dye vat the other day.   I cut 550 g of leaves and stems.   I took some of the leaves from the stems, but I'm not horribly careful about it.  It's a lot of extra work and I don't think it makes a lot of difference.

I set up a double boiler system with my dye pots, putting some water in the larger one and then setting the smaller one inside it.   This makes it much easier to keep the Indigo leaves from getting to hot.    I put the leaves in the pot and filled it with lukewarm water.   I use a candy thermometer to keep an eye of the temperature.   It needs to cook for about 2 hours, getting up to about 160° F, and no higher than 180° F.

Every once in a while, I stir and squish the leaves  to make sure every one of them gets time covered in the hot water.    It's also important to keep an eye on the water level in the larger pot, to make sure the water level doesn't drop too low.

When the temperature gets warm enough and is there for a bit, the leaves start to look a bit wilted and a scum forms on the top.   This is a good thing as you know the pigment is being released.  The scum is a brownish colour, sometimes with a bit of blue or green in it.

When the 2 hours of cooking time is up, it's time to drain the leaves into another pot.   Using rubber gloves, squeeze the hot leaves to get as much of the brown liquid as possible.  They are really hot, so I take very small handfuls, which are easier to squeeze out anyway.    The remaining leaves can be boiled up for a second colour, but I`ve only ever done that with Woad leaves.  Because the Japanese Indigo has so much more pigment, I`m usually ready to clean up when I`m done with dyeing blue.

Anyway, take the brown liquid and add some soda ash or baking soda.  You can also use ammonia, but it smells.  Baking soda works just fine.   Then you need to aerate the liquid by either pouring it back and forth between two buckets, or I use a dedicated stick blender.  It`s permanently dyed blue, so easy to know it`s not for blending foods.

When I`ve aerated the liquid from Woad plants, I usually get little specs of dark blue sitting on top of the foam.  With the Japanese Indigo, the foam often just goes a pale blue, greenish colour.

The final step is to add a reducing agent.  I use Thiourea Dioxide (Thiox).   It`s neat to watch the foam break down and disappear almost immediately after adding the chemical.  You can use spectralite as well, but thiox is available more readily around here.

You need to let the vat sit for a while while the air is worked out of the vat.  A metallic looking scum will form on the top and the vat will turn green or greenish brown when ready.

I had put some fibre in a tub to soak part way through the initial heating time, so it had been soaking for over an hour.   I put it in the vat, let it sit for a few minutes and then pulled it out, carefully squeezing out the excess liquid near water line, just as the fibre came out of the dye.  This supposedly helps eliminate excess oxygen getting into the vat.  

It comes out green and as the air hits it, it starts to turn blue.   If you want darker colours, you need to use multiple dips with airing time in between each dip.

Eventually, I ran out of fibre and the vat was giving lighter blues, taking several dips to get to where I wanted the colour.    Indigo doesn`t need a mordant.  Although it is a little bit of a fussy process, it`s fairly simple if you follow the steps put out in most of the natural dyeing books.  I like Rita Buchannans  A Dyer`s Garden.   Look at the pretty blues!

Spring Flowers and the start of gardening

There is a green haze on the bush lots and many of the trees.   I was beginning to wonder if we'd have leaves by Mother's Day.   We usually do have them, but this year everything seems a bit slow.   We've been getting one reasonably nice day and then day after day of cool, grey, wet weather.  The spring bulbs came out en masse.  Usually it's a lovely progression with first the crocuses, then the Siberian Irises and the Scillia.   This spring they all bloomed at once.  Then the Hyacinths come, and then the daffodils with the tulips finally showing.   Again, these all bloomed at once.    Usually I get several days to sit outside with my tea and enjoy the heavily scented hyacinth blooms, but this year, I got a whiff in passing because it's not been warm enough and the stupidly strong breezes just keep happening.

This year, thanks to our very active squirrels I'm guessing, there are daffodils in the ditch, by the neighbours field and hyacinths in our front flower beds.  Both of which are similar to what I've got in my gardens elsewhere.   I don't really mind that they've done that.  I was considering planting a few daffodils out on the edge of our property anyway and the hyacinths up front aren't a bad thing.  Although I do like to be able to drink my tea outside to their scent.  They are one of my favourite spring bulbs.

I've been playing outside the the garden.   The raised beds have been dry enough to weed a couple of times, so I've been pulling out quack grass and something else with long stringy roots but no growth yet at this time of year.    I need to add some compost and manure, but I found some cell packs of started lettuce plants, so picked up a few and planted them already.  

Earlier this spring, near the end of March, I planted some woad seeds.  This seed is at least 10 years old.  It's germinated well in the past but this year I wasn't so lucky.   I had already over planted, with 3 or 4 seeds in a pot, but it was slow to start and then only a few came up.   I soaked some seed over night and planted that at about 5 per pot, in the same pots as the first ones.   I got enough to come up for use and there may be extras to give away.   The one woad plant that came up last year, is getting ready to flower, so I will have fresh seed.  Yay!

  I'm going to be away for the long weekend, and really can't rely on my menfolk to water my seedlings, although they will do it if they remember.   I figured I could get them to water the garden, so I planted out the woad early.  It's cold hardy and I put it under little plastic cloches from the dollar store.   So far it's holding it's own.   It will be much easier to get the garden plants watered than the little tray of
pots inside the house.

There are now 24 green cones protecting the woad. The large clear cloches has Japanese Indigo.   There are more in a second bed.  This is a bit of a risk as the plant is much less tolerant of the cold.  However, I have enough to replant, as well as some extra for a friend, should the cold weather be too much for the Japanese Indigo.  However, if it survives the next week or two, the plant will have an advantage of a couple of extra weeks growing time, when my garden gets full sunlight.  Hopefully it will make a difference to both seed and indigo production.

I've been spinning and plying Merino - both white and natural grey.  I don't have photos yet.  I will say that the grey has an odd texture that almost feels a little dry, that I'm not sure about, but it's a lovely colour and quite soft.   The white is lovely as well, but it's also obviously more processed thatn the grey. 

Rant -   Mainly, other administrative type things have been taking up my time, which has been a little frustrating.  It always gets a little bit frustrating and then poof, it's done and I get to spend a long weekend with friends, hoping all goes well and unwinding. It's never felt too much though until this year.  This year it's been compounded with not only organizing the classes for the event FOOL, but also with teaching a 3 week spinning class and prepping for a historical cooking class.  The cooking class is a non-issue since it's really just reading cookery books and doing an occasional cooking experiement ahead of time, figuring out a time line and documenting it.  I actually found it the most relaxing in the few days that I devoted to it.  The spinning class was where the pressure was, since the dates were sort of shoved at me.  If I'd really had a choice, I'd have waited until after the long weekend, when I had less on my plate.    But it is what it is and it's done.  Now to figure out where I found all the supplies and get them put away again.

Spring berries and blues

The red currants have started ripening.  Usually they all ripen at once and I simply have to strip each little hanging bunch off the branches.  It's fast and easy.  You don't have to take the berries off the stem to make jelly.  This year however, the berries are ripening at different times.   I have to get out there and get them before the Orioles and the Red Wing Blackbirds eat them.  They can strip a bush of it's berries in a day.  So, I've gone out picking individual currants.   Two days of picking has netted a whole 340 g of currants.   I skipped today in hopes that I'll be able to get a larger amount tomorrow.   I'd love  to get a kilo of currants, but I'm not counting on it this year.  The bushes seem to have far fewer berries than other years.  A kilo will make a decent sized batch of currant jelly.

This past winter I started some Dyer's Knotweed seeds much earlier than normal, in hopes of getting seed to set this year.   Usually it blooms in September and there isn't time for the seed to set.   The seed that I started in February germinated nicely.  I transplanted it into large pots and again into planters, though the last one went into the garden.     I noticed that it's starting to flower!   Yay!    However I decided to snip off the stems that weren't flowering in hopes of a) encouraging more growth and b) to see if there was viable pigment in the leaves. 

  I harvested 14 oz or just under 400 g of leaves, which  I weighed once I'd stripped them from the stems.  Although I don't think it's a necessity to do so, it takes less space in the container to cook the leaves without the stems.  I stuffed them into a glass jar, set a trivet in the bottom of a large pot filled with warm water, and set the jar into that pot, making a double boiler.  I cooked the leaves at 160° F for about 2 hours.   As I was lifting out the jar, the bottom sheared off the jar, which was startling to say the least.  Luckily, the entire mixture dumped into the large pot, saving an enormous mess.  I would have added more water to the dye vat anyway, so it was all fine in the end.

I did have photos of the entire process, but some how I managed to lose them when I transferred them to the computer and deleted them from my camera.  Normally I check to make sure they are where I want them before I hit the delete button, but for whatever reason, I convinced myself it was all good today.


At any rate, there was a reasonable amount of pigment.   I don't know if I aerated the mixture long enough though, so it might have been a little more.  I didn't weigh my fibres before I tossed them into the pot, as I was just playing around.   There is Blue Faced Leicester, a Cashmere/Merino/Silk blend and both cotton sliver and spun cotton in there.

Putting the Novel Down, finally -

Purple superwash Merino

All that dark, grey, miserable, wet, foggy weather was making me lethargic.  Instead of doing all sorts of cool things, I ended curling up with my favourite blankie, reading and drinking gallons of herbal tea (mainly peppermint yum!).    I'd put some commercially dyed merino on the Minstrel wheel but it just wouldn't spin itself.  Finally I got off my duff and began spinning.    I started off doing a very careful short forward draw, keeping it all consistent and lovely.  Then I realized that I'd be spinning this into July, to have enough for my samples, so I switched to the long draw.   It's going much faster, although not quite so consistent.  At least it feels like I'm getting somewhere when I spin for an hour or more.   I'm hoping that I'll have enough of this yarn to weave sett samples with.

white flowered Japanese Indigo seeds

I ordered some Persicaria tintoria or Japanese Indigo seed.   This is the white flowered variety.  (The pink flowered type is really pretty).  I've started a small batch early, in hopes of planting it a) in a planter and b) planting it early enough for it to go to seed, even if I have to drag it inside for a while in the autumn.  I looked for a heating pad, to help germination, but it seems a little early as I was lucky to find the little peat moss cells for planting, let alone any other garden supplies.  I'll start more seed in March, to plant in the garden.

bottles sitting on the hearth for carbonation

This morning I bottled up 2.5 gallons of amber ale.   I coudn't get into the kitchen yesterday because hubby was painting an area which needed to be finished before he installs the sink (fingers crossed for this weekend).   I filled 10, 500 ml bottles - the plastic ones.  I have to admit that I totally forgot about  underestimated the effect of the overwhelming scent of the beer, before 8 am. Yuk!

Mid afternoon, I mixed up more sanitizing solution and bottled up the cider.  There was only about 3.5 L in the carboy, so it seemed like a huge mess and effort for such a small amount.   I had 5 small bottles and 2.5 , 500 ml bottles.   The half bottle became a tester and it was pretty good.  It's cloudy though, despite letting it crash on the rather cold sun porch for a while.   I used a siphon and bottling wand to fill these bottles and that sure was an exercise in futility.   I wasn't tall enough to prime the siphon and make sure the bottling wand was securely in a bottle.  The siphon kept losing it's prime, so I needed help to do the job, which kept the mess on the floor to a minimum but the frustration level quite high.   I'm considering a bottling bucket for next time.  Using the capper was fun though ;)

Apple Cherry Cider, Day 1

Speaking of next time, because I had the sanitizing solution made and all the equipment out, plus the ingredients, I made up a batch of Unicorn Blood (apple cherry cider) based on a recipe found on the Home Brew Forums.  The batch is just over 12.5 L, because I'm not sure if the carboy I want to use for a secondary fermenter, is in Imperial or U.S. gallons.    It's sitting the the back room, which is quite cool.  I've read in a few places, that low temperature, slow ferments, help in keeping the flavours of the fruit.    Right now the room is just under 14 C, since 55 F is the temperature called for, I'm hoping I'm in the ballpark.

I have the ingredients for a 3.25 gallon batch of amber ale, but I only have a 2 gallon fermenter, so until I get another, or the cider is done, I'll have to wait.   I suppose I could use this time for weaving .....

Spinning and more spinning

 My friend Kai went visit her family in Japan.  She brought me back this lovely gift of fermented Japanese Indigo leaves and the chemicals with which to process the dye vat!  I'm so excited about this.  I'm researching the how's right now because I don't read Japanese and the terminology in the translation of the instructions is different that what I normally use, so there is a bit of a disconnect with procedure.  It will happen though and it will be lots of fun.  Plus of course there is the research part, which is fun in itself.

 Merino in a colour called Beansprout.  It's very pretty and was easy to spin.  There was supposed to be 4 oz of it, but I'm wondering if there really is.  While Kromski bobbins are supposed to hold 4 oz, I've always found it to be completely full or even sometimes just a tad over full to get the full amount on.  This is just not quite there in my mind.  I'll weigh it after it is plied.  Yes, I'm going to ply it from a centre pull ball, and no I won't get any pig tails happening, because I've found keeping the tension even is all you need to keep pigtails at bay from any plying method.

More spinning, this time a Merino/silk blend.   Apparently it's supposed to be super slippery and hard to spin.  I've found that it drafts nicely and spins easily.   It's so pretty too, with a lovely mix of brown colours and the white silk.... and soft... lusciously soft.

Demonstrating spinning at the local Renn Faire on the school day.   My kirtle is too large by several inches around.  If I'd assembled it with opera seams as I'd intended, it would be an easy adjustment.  I like to write a little list of assembly steps when I make a garment.  However, I missed ready that particular item on my list of instructions and sewed the bodice together by rote, so instead, I'll have to rip the bodice half apart to make the adjustment.   It's way too much work for right now.  

Victoria Day Weekend activities

The May long weekend is a busy one.   I spend the months before hand organizing a 3 day medieval educational conference - boy that sounds awfully posh.  Really, we dress up in clothes of various degrees of accuracy, spend the days teaching and learning mainly hands on skills in all sorts of various areas.  We've done brewing, calligraphy, illumination, sewing, print making, paper making, spinning, dyeing, heraldry, embroidery, glass bead making and everything in between.  This weekend, I wanted to do an Indigo vat.   The last time I did it, most people decided that they just wanted to watch and I found it a rather dull class as there was no interaction from the participants.  Indigo is a dye which deserves a hands on approach.   So, I did Shibori techniques in an indigo vat.  Shibori is very hands on as it's essential medieval period, Japanese tie-dyeing.   The class participants were fabulous, the weather was perfect and the dye vat exceeded my expectations.  I am only sorry that I didn't get photos of all the items which came out of the vat.    We had cotton, silk and even tencel yarn which all dyed up beautifully.

I'd been working on spinning up 12 oz of North Country Cheviot roving that I'd picked up last summer at the gift shop in Upper Canada Village.  It's black, except in the sunlight, when it has a distinct mahogany cast to it.  Sooooo very pretty!  Anyway, I was practicing the longdraw as it's fairly short fibre and had to quickly finish up the bobbin before I left for the weekend.  I brought the roving with me in case I had time to spin, but while I did have time to spin, it wasn't enough to get to finishing up the black Cheviot.  I started a new bobbin yesterday while I figure out what sort of distaff I want.

The spinning I did do on the weekend was a fun bit of one on one instruction, on spinning flax.  Once flax is spun, it is renamed linen.  It's a very different beast from wool, which is my comfort zone.  I've spun flax before but I like to get as many different points of view on spinning techniques, especially one so specific as flax.   Wendy showed me a different way to dress a distaff - she loaned me one of hers to try out - which was in some ways, a lot easier than the way that I'd learned before.  There were a few smoothing hints and spinning hints which I can see coming in handy.   The best part of course, was sitting and spinning together.  It was a lovely, relaxing break on a hectic, busy and somewhat stressful weekend.

Finishing things up

I used up the last of the indigo vat by tossing in some silk hankies and a bit of leftover North Country Cheviot roving.  It's really a bit too coarse for my liking as a spinning fibre, but there are times when it's useful to have.    The blues are gorgeous though.

 The 2 long scarves are off the loom.  I still need to twist the fringes and wet finish them before I call them done.    I left the warp on the loom and tied it in front of the reed in case I want to do the white scarves next, so I can just tie them on.  If I decide to put on the tea towels, it will only take a few seconds to clear the old warp off.

The Louet Northern Lights is plied and skeined.  It's a lovely, subtle colour, with the pinks, blues and greens still showing through.  I was a bit worried that they'd blend into a grey mass, but it's very pretty.  There are 249 yards so enough for something useful.  It might have to age a bit before it tells me what it wants to be.

Early Spring Blues

 I was outside today and noticed these true signs of spring.  Even though yesterday was blustery and snowy, today the world has transformed.    These are daffodils and possibly some hyacinths.  Nearby there should be crocuses growing but nothing this year.  I'm guessing that I'll have to replant this year.  I love crocuses in the spring.  One day I'd like to plants them all over the lawn for a wonderful spread of colour.  I've to hope that they'd grow before the lawn does though.

 Shibori samples!  There are more but they are paler in colour.  These ones I popped into the indigo pot this morning and started on chores.  I only remembered them after lunch, so they had a good long time to develop colour! 



The socks are done!  It's always a good thing to have a new pair of wool socks in the drawer.  I've been knitting and dyeing an awful lot of blue lately.  I definitely need a shot of some other colour right now.  Not that I'm complaining about the blue, because look at today's blue sky.  But I've been dyeing with indigo, weaving with indigo, knitting with indigo, the shibori is indigo and the socks may not be indigo, but they've indigo stripes.  I'm even rather fond of indigo blues, but  it's time for a project in another colour.  Maybe pink?    One can never have too many pairs of pink socks!

Another week flies by...

 I'd been looking at these socks and thinking how long it was taking to finish them.  I'd cast them on before the big blue Milk Run shawl and I was still at the same first heel as I was two weeks ago.  Then I realized that I hadn't picked them up at all in that time.  So in some down time, I started knitting them again.  Only half a foot to go!  Hurray! or perhaps that should be hurry :)  Normally I enjoy knitting socks, but I'm not having the sock karma with these ones.  Maybe it's that it should be spring outside and instead it's snowing again.

 I did get a warp wound.  It's a simple project using up a bunch of handspun and naturally dyed skeins that I've collected over the past few years.  It's two scarves.  They will be about 7 or 8 inches wide and 96 inches long, plus fringes.  I'd made one for my daughter like that and it's garnered lots of compliments but she said she'd have preferred it 1 or 2 inches wider.  The blue is indigo and the coral is madder, while the grey and black are natural coloured fibres.  I have enough similar weight skeins to do a set of 3 or 4 of the same design, in white with other colours.  Then I think it will be tea towels so I can try a friends favoured towel draft, which works up with spectacular results.  I am hopeful I can get something nearly as successful as her towels.

It's been ages since I've played with this and it has been tons of fun digging up new techniques and trying out lots of samples. These are all cotton fabrics.   I did spend a lot of time hunting down a piece of silk that I knew I had hiding away but when I finally found it, it was obvious that Kevin kitten had played with it.  There were little claw mark holes in it and a bunch of kitten hair adorning the silk.  There is enough to use for a sample though but not enough to make into a scarf.   There are more samples made up, in different patterns.    If I get industrious, I might even wind a warp and try some Ikat wrapping.    In the next day or two, I'll do up an indigo vat and drop them in.  With any luck, there will be all sorts of nice surprises from that dye pot.  I'm using a few different weights and weaves of cotton, so the outcome of all these samples are anything but certain.

Sneak forced peeks of spring

This week we've had torrential rainfall causing the rivers and fields to fill up with run off, since the ground is still frozen.  We've had an Alberta clipper system blow through, leaving us with frigid temperatures, on top of all that rain, blowing snow and icy roads.  We've had a day with a few moments of sunshine, but still cold and more snow flurries today.   Spring sure is taking it's sweet time getting here.  Last year, at this time, I was pruning raspberries, planting the peas and hanging laundry.  It will be a few weeks yet before I can get to any of those jobs this year.

The scent of hyacinth filled the room

Ruffled pink tulips

However, every year at the end of winter, like a sweet, sneak peek of spring, a few of the grocery stores carry pots of forced spring  bulbs, for only $4 or $5 each.    Oh what a glorious bit of colour and beauty which lasts several weeks.   If I'm careful, I can grow them on until the ground thaws and then plant them outside.  Sometimes I'm lucky and they'll come back the next year.  Usually it takes 2 years before they're fully established, but it's sort of nice knowing that you didn't have to compost them.  They are pretty and colourful, plus these pink hyacinths smell divine!

 I found this self striping yarn in a bin of sock yarn.  It's a little to fussy with the skinny stripes to do any sort of fancy pattern, so I'm knitting it in a plain 2/2 rib with 2 simple cables for interest.  However, the busy stripes really mask the cable.  Can you see the two cables in the sock cuff?  Just barely and I know where there supposed to be!  Good thing I didn't do a fancier pattern.  I'm working on the gusset decreases of sock one right now.

Several yeas ago, I used up a few skeins of grey Patons Classic Wool yarn to exhaust an indigotin dye pot.   I say indigotin as I didn't write down whether it was Woad, Dyer's Knotweed or Indigo proper.  I'm pretty certain it was Dyer's Knotweed, but since I didn't actually tag the skeins, I can't be certain.     It's an interesting varigated blue.  It's worsted knitting yarn so a bit thicker than I like to weave with.  I've been checking out knitted shawl patterns and kept coming back to a plain garter stitch shawl pattern called Milk Run.  Despite the hours upon hours of mindless  knitting to do the main body, I finally started it.   This is halfway through the plain knitting.  I'm just on the second last increase before I start the border.  It's used almost 3 skeins or 600 yards of yarn so far and will probably use the 4th skein before I'm done.   So it will be a heavy shawl, but warm and hopefully comfortable. 

Friday Night Sew In

Once a month, Heidi hosts a Friday Night Sew-In.  It's a personal challenge to set aside some time on a particular Friday night, in which to dedicate to project finishing.  I find this useful, especially when a project is getting fussy or frustrating and it would be easier to set it aside than to dig in and work through the issue.   Last night, I did just that.  I signed up for the Sew In.   Only, I was going to knit instead of sew.  The sewing room is a tad cool at this time of year and most of the sewing projects I've got going were started on a different machine.  There is definitely a difference in stitch and seams between machines and the projects might actually show  the difference.

After supper, I made myself a huge mug of herbal tea and sat down with the lace shawl I'd started.  It's the first time I've done a huge lace project like this and only the second lace attempt at all.  My first was a rather easy pair of socks with an intuitive and easily memorized pattern.   With only 4 repeats, and no increases to deal with, it was easy peasy.  However this shawl thing was getting me down. 

I'd tried with a single strand of the indigo yarn and I couldn't discern the pattern at all, which made it difficult to follow along.   As well, did you know you must be able to both count and follow a pattern at the same time in order to knit lace?  You also have to marker the bejebbers out of it and lifelines can be very useful.    So I had frogged the single strand of yarn.  I doubled it up and started again, this time with the two strands being about the weight which was actually called for in the pattern.   Note to self - you likely won't see the pattern emerging until you've done a whole repeat of the first chart!  If I'd done that with the first try, it might have been better.

First lace project, other than one pair of socks.

I'd gotten halfway through the first chart and found out why lifelines were recommended.  It was so easy to frog back to a known correct row and go from there.  In the end, by buckling down last night and knitting, I got 1 1/2 pattern repeats down.  I got comfortable with this particular technique and with the idea of counting rows and repeats with obsessiveness and using markers that I didn't even know I had hiding in my knitting bin.

What is amusing me right now, is that the idea that this little bit of a knitted thing, will actually block out to be a shawl!

Marker shows the "right" side, for keeping track of increases.

I emptied a basket which had been collective "stuff" since late last summer. I found this hidden in it.  Okay, it was hidden in plain sight as I didn't even bother to put it in a project bag, but it was underneath a couple of fibery things, so it sort of blended in.   It's another shawl, plain garter stitch, made from handspun, generic grey top from RH Linday.   The fibre was nice to work with and I remember spinning this as it spun up quickly and easily, more so than I'd anticipated.   Obviously with garter stitch, this is a mindless knitting project, a break from the plain socks I normally drag out to meetings and such.   However, there is enough of this yarn that I'm considering frogging the whole things and tossing another shawl project on the loom instead of knitting it.

I started another spinning project on the Mazurka.  It's just plain white yarn again, but this time at about 10 wpi or so.  I've nothing special planned for it, but it's a good project to practice consistency and variety in grist.  Besides, the fatter yarn fills up the bobbin more quickly, which gives me that instant gratification feeling.  That's kind of nice sometimes.

Play Time!

The mandatory coursework for the Master Spinner course I took last spring is in the mail.  I can now only trust that I did enough work to at least pass.  Hopefully, I did better than just a pass though.   After taking a few days off, I felt like I was missing something.  So.....  I picked up some sock yarn and proceeded to try to knit a pair of socks.  It took 4 tries and finally I changed my pattern and grabbed some slightly thicker sock yarn than I normally use, just to get something on the needles.  I prefer lighterweight sock yarn as it is more enjoyable to knit with and makes a nicer sock.  These ones feel a bit like boot socks, however they flew off the needles, which I needed right about then.  They are comfortable enough but not so much so that they'd ever be my favourites.   The pattern is a simple 2/2 rib, with a cable running down both sides of the foot, simple enough to just wing without a written pattern.

Then I took apart my travel wheel.  It's a Kromski Mazurka and a very pretty little thing.  It weighs only about 9 lbs so it's really light and easy to haul around.  I got it unfinished.  I stained it and finished it with a Scandinavian Tung Oil.  I used several coats the first time and it was nice and shiney.  However, a couple of years of hauling it around, general use and of course winter with a woodstove had left it looking a bit dull and dusty.     Most of it just pegs together, but I didn't bother to glue the legs in so that I could disassemble it almost completely should I need to.  So I took the poor old gal apart.  I rubbed down all the pieces with fine steel wool.  Then I wiped them down with damp linen to remove the dust and Kevin hair as most of the time I was working on it, he was unsuccessfully hiding under the wheel.  Then I put a fresh coat of Scandinavian Tung Oil on it and after a difficult 24 hour wait, I put her back together.  With a nice bit of oil on the axles and leathers, she runs as smooth and as quiet as ever.   She is a sweet little wheel.

I might mention too, that I'd left the tin of oil in the garage from the cupboard project.  With the really cold weather, I'd worried that it might have frozen.  I called the company's tech line - Behr and had quick, friendly advice telling me basically, it can stand being frozen a few times but try it on a scrap to make sure.   I hadn't want to waste the time experimenting if getting cold would ruin it.  It is obviously a flexible product because it worked perfectly. 

While I was waiting for things to dry, I started spinning some white Falkland fibre on the Minstrel.
I'm anticipating needing over 200 yards of white for a dye project later in the spring.  Better to spin it now, before I forget about it and have to rush it, two days before the event.  This is the first bobbin - short forward draw , which I'll ply to get about 4 tpi.  There is no rush on it though, so I'm taking my time and enjoying the process.

Then of course I needed to try out the Mazurka, because I'd not have known it was running as smooth and quiet as ever, if I'd not tried it out. 

This is the roving I dyed as extras for the shawl.  The roving was a little bit compacted so it took several tries to figure out how best to use it.  I tried just loosening the fibres, but it was still difficult to draft.  Then I pulled it apart and hand carded it into rolags.  This worked okay, but the staple length is approaching 5 inches long and that made it a bit difficult to card.  Finally I walked by the diningroom table, which I noticed that I'd left the drum carder set up.  It's not like I don't go right by it 10 times a day, but I guess somethings become invisible after a while.   The drum carded batts drafted best of all.  It's also less work than rolags.   I'm half through the second bobbin and will ply them together.   It's still a lovely shade of blue.


Shortly after the socks were done, I started to knit my daughter a pair of fingerless mitts.  However the Shetland yarn I had spun some time ago, albeit nice yarn, was too thick for the intended pattern.  Instead, I made myself a pair since during the cold spell, our house was rather chilly and my hands were periodically a bit cold.  These are thicker than I'd normally make, but flexible and I spun in them last night, despite my hands not actually being cold.  They'll be useful, should the temperatures drop outside again.