Truly Gorgeous Woven Wrap (from handspun!)

A few posts ago, I mentioned that a friend of mine had taken some of my handspun and woven something with it.

Here's a pic of part of it, taken at an angle.  Isn't it lovely?!!  The stripes are various widths, narrower in the middle and wider at the ends, but all fairly random widths and color progressions overall.  This uses most of four batches of my handspun.  My friend had a bit of leftover yarn in a very contrasting color that had been dyed for a different project, so that got added, too.

The weaving is amazing.  The wrap is amazing -- beautiful and soft and cozy.  My friend said that weaving my not-so-good batches of handspun was like having a conversation with the weaving.  If there was a stretch that was too thick or thin or uneven, adjustments were made with an extra or an omitted throw of the shuttle.

Here are the batches of handspun.  None are particularly well spun, sorry to say.  They're all slightly different thicknesses, probably, as well as having some thick-and-thin areas and occasional neps and what-not.

These skeins are from natural-dyed roving, in cutch (brown), Himalayan rhubarb (yellow), and kermes (red), all mordanted with alum.  The roving is white merino/dorset (I think the sheep is a crossbred sheep, not that the roving is a blend).

I dyed and spun these many years ago and they've been sitting in my stash ever since.  I liked them well enough but couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with them.  The kermes is a bit of an odd color, I thought.

This is a batch of yarn I spun from a mystery batt of mixed colors and textures.  The baggie it was in was labeled as Shetland, but who knows.  The batt consisted of some mixed shades of brown and mustard and green, with some neps and bloops of the same colors and more.  As expected, the yarn is somewhat textured.

The final yarn, as I wrote above, was leftover dyed wool yarn from another project my friend wove.  It is a very dark purple, almost but not quite black.

The warp was also commercially-spun yarn, some kind of white wool.

Anyway, I think it is amazing.  It's so different from knitting.  The way the warp and weft interact really give it a different feel.  Colors that would look kind of meh if knitted up (unless added to a larger project) really pop and meld when woven up like this.

Needless to say, I'm hoping to give lots more handspun to my friend.  I'm also looking forward to seeing what happens with the other handspun skeins that were part of this first batch.

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Apparently I am knitting Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride at 4 stitches per inch, 2-stranded.  The target circumference for the gift socks is about 9" rather than 8".  So, my sock was unraveled and I started over on 36 stitches.  I'm past the heel on the first sock.  The two very similar colors of Lamb's Pride look really nice together.  They're just different enough to add a bit of depth.  I hope the tighter than expected gauge will lead to higher durability.  I'm easy on socks, but I don't know about my friend.

I've started yet another charity hat, same yarn and everything as the last one.

I'm still dithering on a Next Sweater.  And the Miami Vice shawl is getting closer to done.

Fun with natural dyes

The colors on my pics and on the screen aren't quite right (not rich enough), but it still conveys a lot.

This is my share of the dyed goods from a natural dyeing session I did with some friends last weekend.

My skeins are wool, roughly 100g each, roughly fingering weight.  My friends had their own skeins along with some pieces of fabric in wool and in linen.  It totaled up to I don't know how many pounds/kilograms of stuff.

The wool was mordanted a few weeks ago with alum and cream of tartar.  We weren't hugely consistent in our mordanting technique, as I wrote about in a recent post.  But as you can see, everything took the dye quite well.  The linen, since it wasn't mordanted, was destined for the indigo pots.

The yellow is from marigolds.  One of the group grew marigolds last summer and froze a bunch of flowers.  The dye was extracted with a long simmer and the petals strained out.

We weren't too careful in our dyeing technique.  Mostly, people wetted the yarn/fabric, dropped it in the pot, stirred it a bit, then after a little while took it out, wrung out excess dye, and hung it up to dry.  Then someone else would put something in the pot, etc.

Much later, after we got our stuff home, everything was rinsed.

Anyway, the first yellow that came out of the marigolds was a rich color -- sort of a bronze-y mustard-y russet-y yellow.

Mine is more of a lemon/banana yellow.  Later things dyed were even lighter yellows.  We didn't do any ammonia/water afterdips (or any post-mordanting, or anything at all, really) to modify colors.

The oranges are madder.  We meant to add calcium but forgot, so ended up with more orange than red, though one of my skeins (which was in the dyebath longer) has some areas that are more red.

The blues are all indigo, though the lightest one (next to the orange madder skeins) was dyed light yellow before it had a quick dip in the indigo.

I was trying for an indigo gradient, both with repeated dips (for darker colors), and quicker dips, and dips at various portions of the afternoon, in hopes that lighter colors would happen as the indigo got exhausted.  Well, it never really got exhausted, apparently!  We used indigo extract and will take that into account for our next dye day.  Ditto for the madder pot, which also used extract rather than us prepping whole roots, and which was still giving excellent color all the way through the day.

I wonder if part of why the indigo hit so quickly and well was due to the skeins being mordanted?  Dunno if that makes a difference for indigo.

We will probably get together again for more dye days, both natural and synthetic dyes.  We're also considering a weed walk, where we go after invasive/noxious weeds and plentiful non-noxious weeds to acquire materials for our dyepots.  We'd still use indigo and madder extracts, but we should be able to get a range of yellows and browns and russets/olives etc. from the local flora.  We'll see.

Rinsing off was rather messy.  I still have indigo on my fingernails since I wasn't wearing gloves when I rinsed them.  I did wear them during the dyeing.

I'm not sure what I'll do with my dyed yarn.  Tablet weaving, maybe?  Or other weaving?  Give them away to friends?  Dunno.  One of them (not pictured above) already went home with one of the other dyers, since that person has some Ideas of Things To Try..

Anyway, much fun was had.  It's been a long time since I've done much natural dyeing.  It's always more fun to do dyeing with friends.

A finished item! (the crocheted charity baby blanket)

Ooh, a post for May!  And it's an actual blog-related accomplishment!

The baby blanket I've been working on for a while is finished.  I handed it over before measuring the amount of yarn I used, but at least I got a photo!

It took a while to decide on an edging.  I ended up doing two single crochets in each gap all the way around, and then did a round of reverse crab stitch (putting the hook between the single crochets of the previous round because I'm lazy that way).

It still slightly ruffles, but it's better than some of my other attempts at a border, which either ruffled or pulled in or both (ruffle on the sides, pull in on the ends, or vice versa).

It's small, probably less than 30" square, but reasonable enough.  And it's pretty cute.

I like the variegation combined with the texture and the slight bling of the mylar.  Hopefully the recipient will like it, too.

I could have taken more yarn for another baby blanket, but I took some darker blue acrylic instead and will knit another hat or two for either this charity or a different charity.  Then maybe I'll do another crocheted baby blanket.

(The blanket is going to a local organization that works with women and children.)

My pink shawl is continuing to make progress, yay!

My green sweater is not, boohoo!

And I haven't yet started another project in any of the crafts that I write about on this blog.

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I did get together with friends last week to mordant some wool for an upcoming natural dye day.  We just did alum plus cream of tartar.

Since we all had different backgrounds in dyeing, we all had some different experiences with quantities.  How much alum and cream of tartar does one need?  What is the actual procedure for mordanting?  If you want to refresh a mordant solution to mordant additional goods, how much do you need to add to refresh?  Which alum, in particular, since different chemicals in the same family may share the name "alum" when we go to buy them?

It turns out that there are many answers to these questions.

Which means that it's a pretty forgiving process.

And I guess we'll see what happens when we do Round 2 -- Dye Day!

The longer answer is that every good dyeing book and reputable website (reputable meaning that they sell dyes and mordants and aren't just AI hallucinations or twee misinformation from people without much experience) has a slightly different method with slightly different percentages and what-not.

Anywhere from about 5-20% WOF is suggested for alum, with many clustering around 15%, and with several sources warning that too much (i.e. over about 20%) will mess up the wool.  The percentages weren't significantly different for the different types of alum that are commonly found through natural dyeing supply shops.

Cream of tartar is used to acidify the bath and reduce chances of stickiness and is usually suggested at around 5-6% WOF (and often said not to be necessary or desirable for mordanting silk).

Refresh amounts range from one-quarter to one-half for the alum, with no refresh needed for the cream of tartar, and some also suggested using a hydrometer to calculate appropriately.  Some said to discard the bath if it got cloudy or had precipitates in it, while others said it made no difference.

Time and temperature were all over the place, though all agreed that keeping the bath at a simmer or below was preferable.  Some suggested that the goods should simmer for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and then cool in the mordanting bath overnight, while others didn't seem to care.  Some people had good luck with room-temperature mordanting (a cold soak of several days to a month) while others didn't.

I have heard that the post-mordanting treatment can affect the results, too.  Do you dye right away?  Keep the skeins damp (but not moldy)?  Let them dry and store them?  Put them in the refrigerator or freezer?  I have no idea what effect, if any, these variables would have on the dyeing.  We won't be dyeing for at least another week, so we know these particular skeins will be stored for a while before getting dyed.  I don't think we have enough dyestuffs to require us mordanting up anything more for this round.  And I don't recall anything weird from former dye days where we mordanted in one pot, pulled the skeins out of the mordanting bath, and then dropped them into the dyebath.  So who knows?

I am not a professional dyer and don't care if I have a fully repeatable process or get any specific colors.  As long as I end up with interesting and colorful yarn (or cloth or roving) at the end, I'm fine.

Last Friday in October

And here we are, at the last weekend of the month. October went quickly.

This weekend is the big Halloween party weekend. Some interesting logistics have been required. We are busy tonight, tomorrow, tomorrow night, and all day Sunday, sometimes with different people going in different directions at the same time. Not all of the events are Halloween events.

Usually, we get dreadful weather for Halloween, the party weekend, or both. I'm not sure what will happen this year. We might get some snow tonight and tomorrow, but nothing major (in theory). So far, Wednesday night looks pretty good.




Here is a picture of some pretty yarn. In my last post, I wrote about the virtues of spot-dyeing. The above photo is an example.

I call it "sherbet yarn" because the colors of the roving looked a lot like orange and lime sherbet. A friend and I used cheerful spring-like shades of yellow, green, and orange. We left plenty of white. I don't remember what kind of roving we used, but I suspect it's generic Brown Sheep white roving.

We used our usual method for this kind of stuff. We mixed up dyestocks. We soaked the roving in a mixture of water and vinegar, then gently squeezed out most of the liquid. We placed the roving on a piece of plastic wrap. Then, we dribbled dye all over the roving. We rolled the plastic wrap over the roving, then steamed it for a half hour or so. We use a large canning kettle for steaming, with a steamer basket or rack set above some steaming water.

The dyed roving made us smile. I spun it up and self-plied it, and you can see the results.

As usual, I don't have all that much of the yarn, maybe 200-250 yards and 2 ounces of each. I have no idea what I'll do with it. For now, I take it out when I'm in the mood to look at something cheerful.

I think that warm shades of yellow and green are under-rated, too.

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I am almost done with the Lacy Cables shawl that I started in September. I am ready to be done with it. I decided to make it one repeat shorter than the initial pattern calls for. That's actually one of the variations recommended in the pattern. My reason? I don't want to have to ball up another skein of the yarn. I'm pretty sure I can finish with the ball of yarn I'm using now. If I am mistaken, then I'll go ahead and add that last repeat.

I'm hoping to have photos of the unblocked and blocked shawl by next week.

It's been a fun pattern to knit. I like the combination of lace and cables. I like the way the cables cause the columns of lace to undulate. The rhythm of the pattern made for pleasant knitting. I like my handspun yarn, and I like the way it interacts with the stitch patterns.

I am somewhat dubious about the utility of the shawl. What will I do with a lacy rectangular item that is about 1 foot wide by 5 feet long? It's not really a scarf. It's not really a shawl. I suppose it's closest to a stole. But I do not live the stole-wearing lifestyle.

Some of that is my own fault -- I chose a darker colored, variegated yarn. It may be a bit too informal for the pattern. If I make it again, I'd probably choose a more formal-looking yarn, something that's white or a solid color. And yet, I do like the way the yarn looks with the pattern.

I'll have about 450-500 yards of yarn left, and I'll have used about 650-700 yards. This means that I'll have yet another small batch of yarn in the stash, not quite enough for a major project.

My current plans for the leftovers are to self-ply them and then use them in a stranded-color pattern such as a hat or mittens. But who knows what I'll really end up doing.


I'm having fun dreaming of the next shawl. There are several possibilities. The most likely one is a doily pattern adaptation. I've seen a few different versions of the doily, shown on the right. It's composed of 2 or more square motifs that are joined and then edged with more lace. This particular photo shows a 1x2, but I've seen 2x2 and 2x3. It's pretty in all its incarnations. Yes, it's probably a Niebling design.

I'm going to take a single motif and do only 2 pattern repeats, to end up with a half-square triangle shawl. I thought about doing it as a square. However, I only have about 1000 yards of yarn in the batch I'm thinking of using. A half-square triangle is more likely to fit with that quantity. It'll end up being about 130-140 rows of knitting. That's a bit bigger than the Hyrna Herborgar shawl.

I'll add a narrow garter stitch border for the top edge. It's possible that the half-square adaptation won't look very good. In that case, it's on to Plan B. I'll gather enough yarn to do one full square someday, but won't worry about it for now.

I think this design looks great as a half-square triangle, as a square, and as a multi-motif rectangle. I could do it as a doily, but I think it would look good upsized to a shawl.

There are a few other candidates for The Next Shawl, any of which could be my Plan B if necessary. One is another doily, a circular pattern that is about 120 rounds and has flowers and leaves on a hex-mesh background. The same batch of 1000 yards of yarn would work well for it. Another possibility is a diamond-motif idea I've been wanting to play with. I'm also interested in doing another shawl from the Icelandic lace book, or a Shetland hap shawl using small batches of handspun for color stripes, plus several more ideas.

The yarn is from Robin and Russ Handweavers, a long-ago purchase. It's white, some kind of blend. I can't remember if it's wool/silk or silk/mohair, but something like that.

Although I dream and make plans about my next project, I am often seduced by some totally different pattern without any warning. So don't be too suprised if this shawl idea never gets mentioned again, and I start rambling about some totally different project next time.

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My other projects are progressing. The scarf is past the halfway point. It's good for productive fidgeting in public. I do like the way it looks. It should be a warm and attractive bit of neckwear when it's finished. It has satisfied any garter stitch cravings I might have unknowingly been suffering from. I'm ready to be done with it.

The Azalea doily is slowly chugging along, too. I'm finding it quite tedious to knit. I'm in the third set of petals. Will I bug out after this set is done, or will I find the fortitude to go all the way to the fourth set of petals and round 62? I probably will get to round 62, but it will take a while. Snooze city. I'm definitely not going to do this pattern as a lap afghan. I bet it will be lovely, though. Kinzel's patterns usually are.

The other stuff is still progressing, but I don't feel like writing about any of them.

I am finding it somewhat stressful to have so many projects going on at once. Usually, I have one main project and one smaller project, with occasional quickies in the middle. I might actually finish my sweater before starting another shawl in order to relieve this mild anxiety.

As you may be able to tell, I'm also suffering from a multi- mid-project malaise. I'm sure that will dissipate once I finish something.


I am thinking about doing some braiding and kumihimo posts. I'll need to be organized, though. I want to take a series of photos of the braiding process. We shall see.


(It took a couple of tries to get Blogger to upload my photos. I wonder what's going on?)