Beautiful Sunshine

This weekend will be the official start of the dye seasons activities. The indigo (Japanese) are about an inch tall right now. I'm planning on putting together the green house, moving them outside, and getting some of the other dye plants started. Ditto for the garden plot. I just need a few days of dry weather (Its rained so much these past few weeks that they have to announce the road closures on a daily basis.

Our house is on the market and I have a little time now. I was shown a new way to keep track of colors generated by the various natural dyes by Pallas from Ravelry. She makes cards of plastic. Then punches one hole for each type of mordant she is going to use. Alum, Alum + COT, iron, tin, copper and rhubarb. These are all along the bottom of the card. (About the size of a 4x6 index card). Center left, she uses an unmordanted control and top right a hole for the ring that she uses to bind the cards together and keep them managable.

Info on the plants, which mordant is which, and pertinant dye info (such as process, parts of plants used, ...) are written in sharpie or some other indelible marker. Then she mordants a skein in each of the dye baths. After she unwinds a length (say a couple feet) and makes a mini skein through the proper hole. She makes a bunch of these in advance and with each new dye experiment she puts one of these cards into the pot. That way, she knows the colors possible with each of the mordants with out having to do an entire skein.

So, thats what I'll be doing this weekend. Mordanting the skeins and making the cards so as my plants start to flower and grow and I'm doing my dying I'll have them all ready to go, THANKS PALLAS!!!

Despite the rampant flooding in our area, I'm pleased to announce the appearance of forsythia , daffodils, and some other flowers in my gardens. This is a small garden year. Only a few food plants, and my dye plants. I want to chart where things are located in the existing gardens before I start doing a lot of planting.

Thanks for the listen.
Live well and dye happy.
Leah

Rain Rain Go Away, Leah wants to go out and play

I have seeds sitting in soil, hopefully germnating even as we sleep. I have bulbs that are secreaming to get to the soil. I have strawberry sets, and small grape vines trying to get throught the screens of the door to reach the sunshine. So what am I doing? I'm sitting in the studio on a computer. Fussing because its rained for 3 days and I can't get to the soil and plant them.

The house we bought lives at the bottom of a hill, so I can't get the beds ready yet. Still, the woods invite me. There will be mushrooms for eating and dyeing soon. Chantarelles can do both I've heard. Lichels are growing so thickly on some of the trees that They are beginning to create small waving curtains of seafoam green. I'm excited to see if any will yield the coveted fuscias and purples I've seen on ravelry.

Lots of flowers are making their way to the top of the soil, I'm starting to think that my predicessor was a gardener!

Enjoy the rain and hope for it to stop soon!

Live well and dye happy,

Leah

Went to a Seed Swapping Party

Hi Folks, I went to a seed swapping party last night. My dear friend Barb is an avid seed collector. You can see her carefully gathering seed pods at the botanical gardens, friends houses and gardens, and just about any place a garden large or small can be grown.

Most recently, she started a gift for me. Natural indigo (not Japanese Indigo), but the bushy kind that is a perennial in some parts of the world. The plants are still tiny, but determined, and I've placed them in windows all around the house to see what they like best.

My plant and seed orders are starting to come in, and despite the forcast for 3 days of snow (starting tomorrow), I'm starting to feel optimistic that spring will actually make an appearance.

The pictures will come soon!

Live well and dye happy.

Leah

Placing my 2011 seed orders

The time to start sending out the seed orders is upon me. Since this is a new home, I'm not planting a great deal until I go through a spring and see what comes up on its own. Mostly the dyers garden. Speaking of the Dyers garden, I have an extra copy of that particular book if anyone out there is interested, please let me know.

I have indigo (wild), and Japanese (Knotweed) indigo, coriopsis tinctura, BES, QAL, Sulfer Cosmos, and the pots of last year's Madder to go in this spring. No pictures yet. Mostly, I'm spinning wool right now so I have something to dye when the pots are ready. Going to do some orange and black for my daughter ( Princetons colors). Maybe a hat or a scarf. The little one wants a tyedyed effect with blue yellow and green. Milkweed and goldenrod are abundant in this area so the yellows aren't a problem.
I'll grow the indigo, and then overdye for the bright green that she wants.

Still trying for the wonderful BES olive, though I'm starting to think it isn't in the cards for me. I know we have some rhubarb around here somewhere. I'll let a couple go to seed. The dried seeds yield a particularly lovely dark bronze color. Greens from the leaves, berries and bark of the buckthorn (grows like a weed here) which will be a new dyepot for me. I'm very short on yellow and peach for the spinning, so I have to do some jewelweed and coreiopsis tinc. for the peaches.

I'm planting last years Hopi Black Sunflower Seeds, and I'll have to buy the red dye amaranth color. The fresh sunflowers + copper give a lovely lasting dark purple color. I didn't know I needed fresh and dried mine so I ended up with a muddy brownish purple that was a waste of time. I didn't even dye wool with it.

Thats about it for now. Live well and dye happy.
Leah

Confessions

Ok, here it goes. Hi, my name is Leah, I live in Vermont, and I don't ski. There it is. The dirty truth is out. Cross country skiing is ok, as is snow shoeing. But the truth be known, I'm much happier inside where the temperature is easier on my joints. I'm content to look out a window at sceanic vista's of white, pine and red twig. I rejoice in the antics of my two boxers as they play in the snow, and I commiserate with my poor bunnies who despite hay, long silky angora coats and a heat lamp aren't happy with the winter "schtick" either. (Note to self: Give poor bunnies an apple twig treat).

It took from October to February to get the Shelves built in the library and studio. I'm emptying a minimum of 2-4 boxes a day trying to get the studio settled (if for no other reason than I can sit and spin, knit, bead, write, draw or pore over my seed cataloges) in the comfort of my chair and the warmth of a solid woodstove. If you, my dear reader, were to come and visit right this very minute, you'd look in horror at what to you would be a horrific mess. I see floor space where there was none. The bones of organization as things take their places on the shelving. Each empty box that gets put away (or in its pile for sorting) is a success for me.

Confession 2: I'm a hoarder. Not one of the people on the tv with dead animals, garbage and refuse,... I hoard the someday useful items. I must have a case of sticky notes, given to me over the years but yet to be used. Easily 500 pens. Many of which are so old the ink in them has completely dried out. I'm committed to changing this. I've given away TONS (not literally) of things on our local freecycle. I have a feeling the stickynotes will be going pretty soon too. The case of blank books I'm keeping. I use them at work, and as long as I don't buy any more... You see, there's the crux of the matter. Even as a room fills up so full that I can barely squeeze through the door, my mind can't pass up on a bargain. Tragic, no? I turned in over 85 pounds of fiber to a mill to be made in to roving. I have about 10 4 foot high bags of roving in cream, gray, sockyarn, light brown, dark brown, black, alpaca, silk, angora,.... it goes on. What did I do today? Contracted a fleece for a RED (actually auburn) alpaca fleece with a micron count soft enough for a babys delicate skin. Pittiful. Did I do it anyway? Yes. Sad. Very sad. No more though, and no more bunnies until I have a situation that allows me to care for them properly even in the winter time.

I'm saving my money for an outbuilding. It will serve as a rabbitry (I have 2 bunnies, and no more are coming till this is done), and a garden shed. No lawn mower, but all else will be there. Bunnies on one wall, work bench on the end by the ladder to the top where I keep the hay, and gardening tools along the other wall. Honed, oiled, and ready to use. My resolution is that this year my garden will be productive, and as weed free as I can make it. On hands and knees if need be. I'm also reading about fruit trees. This year, I have an apple tree, and I plan on purchasing a cherry and a peach tree (miniature). Next year, I plan on purchasing a winter hardy fig, another variety of apple, and a plum tree. That should do it for me. Canning is a secret passion, and I plan on having fruit to can, butter, leather and barter!!! I'll have to see what I can do to find barteree's!!!!

Thats about all for now. I just wanted you to know you hadn't been forgotten or abandoned.

Live well and dye happy.

Leah.

Winter Work and Play

Hi All. It's a cold, wet rainy da in December here in Vermont. The Bunnies are in the hutch where I've installed a heated water bowl, and a heat lamp in the enclosed area of the hutch. Except to get food and water, they seem content to stay warm even if it is red in the area due to the lamp. (Colored heat bulb). I've been putting my time into getting the new house settled, especially my new studio. Its a large rectangular room with a wood stove centered along one of the long walls. The armoire where I do my beading and wire work are across from the stove. If you stand in the opening into the room (no door), across from you is my fiber work station. I clean, card, comb, draw roving, etc. there. In the opposite corner (along the long wall opposite the stove, is my spinning center. My SpinOlutions MachI and Bee are there, along with huge bags of rovings (gray, cream, dk expresso brown/black, and cream sock yarn) from Zeilingers. I'm spinning some of the gray on my Mach I and the roving flows through my hands like silk.

Some day, there will be a braided oval rug on the floor, possibly made of wool, possibly made of fleece remnants. We'll have to see what I can get. I'd prefer the wool, because I think it may last longer. Perhaps t-shirts could be cut up??? Not sure yet, since this will be my very first project. For now, I'm content to use a commercial rug to keep the chill at bay. I have 2 comfortable chairs in front of the stove. A warm cozy place to knit, read, write, think, draw... you get the idea. I found a wonderful square table (the top is inlaid with stretched andembossed leather) for a whopping $6 at a used furnature store. I'm fixing a leg that came loose and it will go between the two chairs. A table lamp completes the picture.

Shelving will go from the floor to the ceiling in 3 of the 4 corners of the room to hold books, tools, journals and binders with patterns and samples of dying... as well as the non-artisan books, such as gardening and orcharding. I can't wait for it to be done so I can show you so here's a sneak peek.

Spinning with pure French Angora

Have you ever tried to spin pure angora? Not Mohair, from a goat, but true angora from Rabbits? Let me tell you, it's a challenge. The reason that wool spins so easily is because there are tiny plates covering the length of the fiber. These tiny plates grab onto one another much the way the hooks on a dry felting needle grab the fibers when you dry felt. If you rub the plates together and they bind to tightly, or if you add hot water and aggitation, what you get is felt. A fairly solid glob of fiber. Spinning is a more controlled use of the plates, allowing you to make yarn.

The problem with angora is the fiber shaft is smooth (no plates) so you have to rely on the spin tension to hold the fibers together. How do I know this? I offered to spin fiber for a friend I made online in exchange for bunnies to add to my microscopic group (since I don't know the proper term for a flock, herd, clutch... of bunnies). So, spin I did. I got a rather nice yarn out of the endeavor. This is one situation where LENGTH IS IMPORTANT. Since the fibers slide against each other, short fibers are a particulary nasty spin (IMHO). Longer ones give the impression of a chance. That having been said, the finished product is so silky soft as to make you completely forget what you when through to get to the end of the process. (Rather like childbirth). This yarn came from my two bunns (brandy, who donated the honey colored fiber, and Goudy, who donated the gray fiber)



So, If you get the chance, I highly recommend trying the spin with pure fiber. You get a lot of distance from a small amount, and not only is the finished product silky soft, but it will retain the softness after spinning and plying. Also, since the fibers are hollow, the yarn is very very light.

Live well and dye happy,

Leah