Wedge Weave

 In looking back on my fiber career, I've mostly been self taught, and so it was with wedge weave. I've done two now, on two different looms. Both times, I've used a combination of manufactured and hand dyed, hand spun yarns. This makes for ripply weaving in a technique that moves the warp in a zig zag anyway!

This one was done on a wood tapestry loom that fell apart while I was adjusting the tension,  I would have done a fourth "row" but it just wasn't possible. This weaving technique was and is used by Navaho weavers, so the little beads with Cherokee syllabary  animals on them seemed appropriate. Purchased at Low Country Pow Wow!

This one was done on a much sturdier copper pipe loom, it just wasn't large enough to do more rows.  Adorned with jasper circles.

On the loom, in progress...

Here's an on the loom view. Love this type of loom! I use a long needle to weave and a painted copal wood fork for a beater, purchased in Oaxaca

Continuous Strand Weaving with "kitchen" cotton

 It just never fails...I am shopping in Walmart (I did 2 miles there the other day!) and stroll by Peaches & Crème, Lily Sugar 'n Cream, whichever brand they carry (I think it's the former). The big cones in favorite colors are particularly tempting.  I do like the color changing yarns, which is referred to as ombré. It's not terribly finished, a wee but rough,  but tough.  Apparently both these brands are owned at present by Spinrite, a Canadian company. I don't know, however, if these two yarn brands produce identical yarns. I read somewhere that one is for US distribution and the other, Canada.

My habit with these yarns is to sometimes knit washcloths/dishcloths, whatever. But lately I'm using my 12 inch square loom to weave these items. My fiber guild is currently collecting washcloths for a local women's shelter, and this loom has been my vehicle to create a bunch...

In order to get a thick enough fabric on the loom, I double the yarn. My habit is to line up the colors. I've discovered that with this method I get an unusual but satisfying plaidish pattern. Why? Maybe the goddesses of space dyed yarn know...

I like to add a little loop for hanging

Here it is at the end of construction while on-loom

My loom is from Carl Spriggs and has 49 nails per side set at 3/8 inch. One must weave loosely due to the "takeup" that occurs during weaving from all the unders and overs. The last few passes I use a crochet hook as it gets ever tighter.

Here are a few others from this year

Afghan Socks

I've had some Poems sock yarn in my stash (came with a shawl kit), and recently came upon an old book from SpinOff on socks. I love the Afghan Socks pattern, and decided to try the color changing Poems with the pattern. 

This yarn is quite  thin and loosely spun, and a single, so I think that  a two color pattern seems appropriate to help it wear better.  Regardless, I loved working the changing color patterning so it was a quick knit!   Next time I will do a provisional cast on for the heel.

I get very cold feet in the winter, so these are a nice thing even here in Georgia at this time of the year.

I've done afghan inspired socks before.  Anna Zilboorg's book "Magnificent Socks and Mittens" gave me the pattern from a pair of mittens that I adapted to socks a couple of years ago.  The yarn is Frangipani guernsey and so far it's very sturdy for socks. These don't have the traditional "afterthought" heel, I did my regular heel flap style sock.

Hopi Red Amaranth Dye Efforts

I've been growing Hopi "red dye" amaranth for a long time here in coastal SC and GA.

Last September I was lucky to spot some on a trip to New Mexico, seen here in Rancho de Taos, lower right of the photo below, outside the mission church that was painted by Georgia O'Keefe in 1930.  It is next to another important plant for natives peoples, corn.

Red amaranth is a common foodstuff in many places. It seeds like crazy and always shows up in the yard or in a pot. I've only purchased seeds once, years ago.  It's a really beautiful plant, sometimes going a bit green. The flower heads are mostly seeds. I've been tempted to "harvest" the seeds for cooking, but I have not tried this yet as "winnowing" seems like a bit of work.

An online search shows that some people have success dyeing yarn with it.  I've tried multiple times. The key point is to NOT overheat, I did that once. Several times  since then I tried solar dyeing, once with some yarn/madder leaves in a closed jar...I left it several days in the hot sun and was rewarded with...no color.  I also tried this in a less smelly open container but this also failed. Despite our heat here in coastal SC and GA I think that it did not get hot enough.

I tried again this past September...I chopped an amount of leaves, stems, and seeds, you can see the color rubbing off on the cotton sheet that I gathered the leaves in

This attempt was to try a more controlled low heat on the stove, using a glass container in a water bath to extract color. I watched the temp carefully, keeping it at 140oF or a bit less. I should note that the pH of my tap water is a perfect 7...neutral. The yarn was premordanted in alum. 

THIS go round, I extracted a beautiful color...once I had my dye I poured it from the glass container into an aluminum pot,  continuing to carefully watch the temperature.

In they go, mohair and wool handspun

Result? a lovely warm tan shade. It simply won't take up the color, and perhaps I did not use enough dyestuff. 

I will try again, and if I have success, I will edit this post!

Saltillo Weaving

 This year, I visited Sante Fe. While there, I spied a weaving in a consignment shop that was familiar.  My Mom had purchased several weavings years ago, with a center diamond or lozange. I had always thought that they were Navaho but they were very finely done.  In this  consignment shop, I saw a weaving very like Mom's called a "saltillo." Here's one of Mom's

The fringe is made from the warp, whereas with Navajo weavings, if fringed, it is sewn on.  The weavings of Mom's have cotton warp and wool weft.  

A bit of research revealed that this weaving style originate in Saltillo, Mexico, in the state that is now Coahuila.  I suspect that these are indeed Mexican, due to the age (when Mom purchased in the 70's so hers are at least several decades older than that) and the discoloration from age seen in the cotton headers and footers of the weaving. 

 Here are the other two that Mom purchased. I learned that sometimes the colors of the Mexican flag are included (red, green, yellow). Ironically Mom, who has better seasonal decorating tendencies than I, would put them out for Christmas due to the red and green. 

The sett  (ends per inch) on the warps is about 12 on all.  

Here's the one in Sante Fe that clued me in:  the price is $325 (not that I care, all good weaving is priceless!). The ombre effect in the one below is similar to the weavings that Mom owns.

Indigo Dyeing (through the lens of high school chemistry )

A couple of years ago, I wanted to know more about what was happening with indigo "dyeing" (it's really using a pigment as it is not water soluble). I don't really buy the idea that it's "magic";  it is chemistry

(Here's a sample with shibori stitching technique done at Daufuskie Island a couple of years ago):

So, I did some research and thanks mostly to wikipedia came up with the following 

Indigo pigment is derived from indican, a compound found in leaves of various plants including Indigofera tinctoria, Indigofera suffruticosa, persicaria tinctoria (Japanese indigo) and isatis tinctoria (woad). The leaves of the indigo plant contain very small amounts of indican, 0.2 to 0.8 %.  

Indican is a colorless, water-soluble derivative of the amino acid tryptophan. Indican readily breaks down in water (“hydrolyzes”) to release β-D-glucose and indoxyl.

 

Plant leaves are soaked and fermented to produce the blue residue containing indigotin/indican. For shipping or forms of storage, the precipitate from this process is mixed with a strong base such as lye, pressed into cakes, dried and powdered.

 

Indigo is a challenging because it is not soluble in water (it cannot dissolve in water; this is why it is not a dye). To be dissolved, it must undergo a chemical change or “reduction” in which oxygen is removed from the water containing indigo powder. Reduction converts indigo into "white indigo" (leuco-indigo). When a submerged fabric is dipped in removed from the bath, the white indigo quickly combines with oxygen in the air (oxidizes, which is the opposite of reduction) and indoxyl reverts to the insoluble, intensely colored indigo left on the fabric (or paper).  Thus, what is dipped in the bath must be done so carefully in order to not introduce oxygen from the air into the bath.

And...there you go.

 

Saxon Blue Dye

I was rummaging through my collection of dyes in the garage and found some Saxon Blue in liquid form, which I've had for a few years. I went to the Botanical Colors website for some helpful tips. 

This is a dye which the Germans developed from indigo in the 1700's. Someone acidified it...as we know acid is a common feature of synthetic dyes.  (The company that is now BASF later developed a synthetic indigo, so they may have known that they were onto something with the acid thing...)

It is not a vat dye like indigo, so I pretreated my handspun yarn samples with a simmer in an aluminum acetate pot (with a tsp of AA) for an hour. I'm no longer using kitchen alum for mordanting but I don't know whether this makes a difference...another experiment to do...

Now, I don't like to measure so I didn't! But I have discovered using pH strips that my tap water is pH neutral.

I emptied the dye, about an ounce of liquid into warm water and dropped in my six small skeins

It simmered for an hour, but the yarns were still pale blue. BC suggested adding vinegar so into the pot went 1/2 c of distilled vinegar. In stand success! Here are the dried samples, some sheep's wool, some mohair. I've noticed in my dyeing practice that sheep's wool tends to take up more color.

Now, there was still some dye in the pot, so I decided to add two more small skeins and some bundles of osage orange shavings.  

 After an hour, the pot again required 1/2 cup of distilled vinegar.  Voilà again...a lovely grassy green!  The fabric holding the osage orange was also mordanted so I have some dyed fabric samples to give away too!