Woad and Jam

On Sunday I got to pick raspberries. They were just starting to ripen but there were enough to make a batch of jam. One jar didn't seal properly so that became the tester. It's pretty darned good. Hopefully there will be enough raspberries ready tomorrow so I can make another batch. This time I'll try sieving part of the berries to remove some of the seeds. I didn't really notice them in the jam when eating it, but it looks really seedy in the jars!

I picked some early woad leaves. With the cool, damp and somewhat dull weather, I was curious to know if they had much pigment in them this early in the season. I found some silk habotai that I'd hidden away and decided to try dyeing it. The colour I achieved was really pale turquoise shade of blue. I added a tiny bit of dried woad powder and let it reduce a second time. I tossed the silk in the pot for less than 30 seconds and pulled this out! Darker than I'd expected but absolutely gorgeous.

Today my daughter and I did a practice run for her wedding cake. We made every mistake that we could have and ended up with a 17 lb, 3 layer monstrosity of a cake that shows promise for being wonderful next time round. My son hoped I'd bring him some cake home. I did.... all of it. I hope he's hungry 'cause I can't bear to eat the cake after I've iced it!

A few small things

Look what my daughter made for me! She decided to combine my birthday cake with an exercise in working with marshmallow fondant. This is what we'll be covering her wedding cake in as it was less expensive than purchased fondant, was easier to work with and was actually reasonably tasty. The only thing I don't like about fondant covered cakes is the fondant. It's so heavy that I peel it off the cake. By the time I've done that, I don't want to eat the cake any longer. Not that that is a bad thing.


Last week I found this beautiful poppy growing in a barren spot in the garden. I let it go to seed, wanting to save them for the new house. Yesterday I went to check on it to see how it was maturing and drying. It was gone! The little patch was mowed down and my poppy was no longer there! As long as it was flowering, it was safe. Not that I blame whoever mowed, as it did look pretty scraggly once the petals had fallen.

The first tomatoes were harvested. They were tasty. The weather has been cool and damp. I was amazed that these ripened so early. There are more green tomatoes on the vines but nothing that looks close to ripening other than the 2 I picked and ate immediately. Half the plants in the herb bed love this weather and the other half seem to have gone on a work to rule campaign. The Golden Marguerite is ready to harvest, so I should actually chop off all those blossoms and stick them in the freezer for winter use.

I finally finished hubby's new tunic. He chose the colours. It's linen and long seams are done by machine but the thing is all hand finished. Ick.. that took forever. There are reasons I love my sewing machines and my serger! It is sitting on some yellow linen which one day will hopefully become a new undergown for me. . Although I'm not particularly fond of yellow, the shade is a wonderful weld yellow that I couldn't resist. As an under tunic, it should be perfect.

The Week Went Where?

The week has flown by once again. Canada Day weekend is normally the Ealdormere event, Trillium Wars. I really wanted to go this year but it was my daughter's BBQ to introduce us to her fiance's parents. They seemed like very nice people however when his mother pulled out a stack of about 200 photos and started to show me pics of her relatives that I "might" meet at the wedding, I did really, really wish I was sitting around a campfire with good friends, dressed in a tunic, perhaps listening to bards or just enjoying the atmosphere.

I had a go with a vague attempt at embroidery for a new tunic for hubby. After 3 days of effort, I hadn't warmed to the results of my efforts and hubby mentioned that he really wasn't an "embroidered tunic" kind of guy. That particular piece - part of one cuff was tossed and he's now got a new plainer tunic in woad blue with madder neck facing almost done. He thought that my finishing all the seams by hand was an awful lot of work, but I pointed out that I do it while I'm sitting around anyway, so it's not like it's a specific time out of my schedule. I really dislike sitting still watching t.v. or movies, sports etc, unless I'm doing something else at the same time.

The garden is growing, mainly weeds. I've gotten the leeks weeded and started on the 2nd woad bed. The cool and wet weather seems to favour weeds over the other plants, although the herbs are looking great! There are a few green tomatoes on the vines. The Arctic poppies that I worried about earlier this year have sprung forth abundantly..... everywhere... like where they should be and where I least expected them. They are supposed to be in the front garden beds but they are in multiple places in the back yard, woad bed, herb garden, sprouting out of the part that I experimented with landscaping cloth to keep the weeds at bay!

I spun up some corriedale that had been mordanted in case I needed it as extras for a demo a few weeks back. I spun it much thicker than I normally do. Every once in a while I need to remind myself that I can spin to size and chose something out of my normal range and spin off a bobbin of it. Since I only had 100 gms of the corriedale, this became my "thick" skein. There are 192 yards in it. Because it's mordanted with Alum, I feel obligated to dye it although if I hadn't mordanted it ahead of time I would leave it plain as it turned out to be a lovely colour on it's own.

I spent 2 days washing fleeces. They are both pretty when washed up. This is Jillian, a Shetland lamb from Kalwa Taure. It's a pretty grey which will be part of the shawl project for Tammy. I also washed Rolo but right now, with grey, cool weather and a move on the way, it's a little much to do the washing. I've decided that I don't really "like" washing fleeces. I ended up tired, wet and smelling like dirty, wet sheep. While I actually do like the smell of fresh fleece very much, it turns out that I DON'T like smelling like fresh fleece myself :)

Small accomplishments in a busy week

I decided this week was a good week to get back to the spinning wheel. It had been sitting rather forlornly in a corner for a few weeks before the Ontario Handspinners Seminar and then again after, except for a sampling of the polwarth varigated wool. I finished up the one bobbin and then a second. One has been blocked but not the other one. The fibre is quite nice to spin once it gets loosened up as the dyeing process and stuffing 500 gms in one bag must have compacted it somewhat. I'm a little concerned about how I'm spinning it as I fear it could be a tad thin for what I was planning. I don't want to ply it as it would muddle up the colours. Weaving with singles would hopefully give a random plaid effect. Yes, this is for an every day garment, not reenactment clothing :) Interesting how the colour way has shifted in the two bobbins.... sort of the same but different. This is only 2 bobbins full, with the unblocked skein measuring about 648 yds and the blocked skein about 500 yds. I guess I'd better figure out a pattern and weaving plan so I know how much yarn I need to spin.

I also tossed a small project on the loom. It's a narrow 2 inch wide warp about 5 feet long. I'm sampling different patterns using a straight twill threading. I was getting incredible bored and dissatisfied with the project until I found a straight twill, 4 shaft threading for krogbragd. Krogbragd is normally a 3 shaft twill. Now if I can figure out why the selvedges are curling under I will be a happy camper. It's a pretty weave, fast and interesting looking. I'd read that the underside was unusable and I thought it was because of long floats. However, this one is fine, just not the same at all as the good side of the fabric.

The garden is happy with all the rain. The only thing I haven't enjoyed is that everytime I head out to weed, the skies have opened up. I've gotten wet a few times this week! The dog doesn't seem to care though, unless it thunders.

Campfire Dyeing (that's with an "E")

This past weekend I got to try out my new iron dye pot! It is an incredible piece which is not only functional but so beautiful and based on an extant piece as well. It was made by Sir Edward the Red. Cenred forged a little metal ring to go around the handle so we would be easily and unobtrusively able to differentiate between the dye pot and any cooking pots which might be of similar construction. Apparently my idea to put a little piece of dyed yarn on the dyepot handle didn't go over well with the blacksmiths!

I used the dyepot twice. I've certainly used iron as a mordant before but never used whatever free iron might be absorbed just from a pot. I'd read several accounts of varying degrees of success or suitability but not enough to formulate any pre-conceived ideas. The fibre was wool yarn, pre-mordanted with Alum. The first dye was Sorrel and Dock seeds. The dye liquor itself was made up in a Stainless steel pot and transferred to the iron pot. The dye struck quickly and depth of colour depended on length of time in the vat, giving a range of colours from yellow to dark olive green.

The second dye vat was done by cooking crab apple leaves in the iron pot itself. The dye started off a pale "apple" green and got deeper as the dye liquor cooked over the fire. When I poured out the last of the dye, it was a deep, dark green. There was less variation of the colours with the apple leaves though, probably due to starting off with the iron pot. The crab apple, iron green colour is awfully pretty though. I ended up dumping a whole bunch of sample skeins into the dyepot in order to have enough of the green yarn to do a project with!

I was talking with Foote the potter about a celandine glaze he uses. The greens were in the same colour range of the Sorrel and Dock seeds with iron colour. It turns out that the glaze has iron in it. The percentage of iron used in the glaze is exactly the same as what I would use when mordanting with iron in a controlled manner. I'm pretty certain that using an iron pot is a rather uncontrolled use of iron mordant :) but in a stainless steel pot it is entirely controllable.

Romeny Icelandic Cross Fleece

The Romney Icelandic X fleece came with a tag labelled Greystones. The receipt had no contact info at all! Later I asked about it and someone said it was Gord English, who had bought someone else's flock. I might be wrong about the first name, but the last was definately English. So I've no idea who owns the flock or where they are located. I've not even found any vendor's list in the information from the seminar packet.

The fleece is very crimpy and has a fair bit of lanolin. It ranges from 4-6 inches long. So far it seems to be mainly on the longer side. There is next to no VM so far. Okay, I found one skinny bit of chaff which was about 1.5 in long. I've only check part of the fleece but there seem to be few 2nd cuts.
The tips are bleached and in a few places slightly matted. The vendor warned about this both verbally and on the tag. However from what I've seen so far, it pulls apart easily. This means that in carding or combing, it shouldn't cause any problem. The colour ranges from a soft silvery chocolate colour but mainly the silvery grey.
I washed some up yesterday to see what it was like and while the lanolin and dirt washed away easily, the colour was exactly the same! A plus in washing was that while it was dirty... I mean it is a raw fleece after all... it wasn't so bad it left the water muddy like I often find. I'm guessing that perhaps these are coated fleeces? If so, the hassle would be worth it 'cause I'm already impressed.
I'd hoped to have time to card up a bit and spin it to show the final result but I just haven't had time. Soon perhaps :)

Jody - Any other info that might be helpful? I wish I could tell you where it's from but I couldn't even find the info on-line.

I'm tired. It feels like I've been on the run and not home for a week. Oh, my, it's kind of been that way. Between house hunting and having signed up for the Ontario Handspinners Seminar, this past week has been exactly like that. The seminar was in Kingston and it was an interesting trip. I loved the smell and feel of the wind, coming off the lake. The seminar was at Queen's university, with accomodations in a rather musty smelling residence and mattresses which weren't conduicive to a good night's sleep. Yawn..

While I told myself that I wouldn't buy much at the seminar, I put far too much $ in my pocket. I came home with several things. Among them was totally modern, brightly coloured roving called Wild Berries. I spun up a little bit last night and it's somewhat more subdued now, which is kind of nice. Right now I'm planning to spin it as singles and weave it into yardage for a sweater or vest. I learned a technique for varigated threads called Serendipity plaid, which this should work well for.
I hate it when a bag of fleece screams at you "Take me home!". That's because a 2 kilo bag of raw Romeny x Icelandic fleece in an incredible silvery moorit colour, with bleached creamy white tips and what so far seems to be little if any chaff, is really hard to hide.

In between I did accomplish a few things. First, I made sourdough bread: real sourdough, not like a Herman friendship bread. It is from a culture that was first started in 1847 on the Oregon trail. It was the first time I'd trusted a bread to rise without commercial yeast. It had a different texture that the bread I normally make from a generations old family recipe. It was however delicious and will become a staple in this household.

The poppies are blooming here. First the Icelandic or Arctic poppies have started budding out. This was the first but with the number of buds and new plants I'm seeing coming up, there should be many more. They have such a fine petal structure that seems to almost glow in the sunlight. The Oriental poppies have started as well. These pink ones are my favourites and are huge this year.