Handmade Valentines and a Red Hat

 Naturally, this was supposed to be posted before Valentine's Day...

I scanned youtube for a fresh handmade Valentine idea and cam up with this, involving lots of paper and cutting but came up with this fun 3D thing

Perhaps Grandsons will enjoy ruuffling through the hearts and naming colors...

Card fronts were covered with more hearts. I had to buy a  new gluestick!

And then there was this red hat, 'tis the season...

I looked up the Original Norwegian resistance hat in "Nordic Knitting", Susanne Pagoldh's wonderful book from 1987, now out of print.   (How did I find these books before the internet??  Going to a real yarn store bookshelf, I suppose...) The contemporary hat designer must have had some idea because construction is very similar...

I looked up the Original Norwegian resistance hat in "Nordic Knitting", Susanne Pagoldh's wonderful book now out of print.   The contemporary designer must have had some idea because construction is very similar...

Hardcover! $250 used on Amazon!

Navaho Spinning

 Following my trip to weave with Navaho teachers in Canyon de Chelly,  I decided that a good followup might be a class at John  C. Campbell Folkschool to  try my hand at Navaho style spinning. I am not great with a drop spindle although I have enjoyed using a floor supported spindle. Our teacher was TahNibaa Naataanii, assisted by her Mother, who I recognized from a favorite movie,  "Frybread Face and Me."

Tahnii had brought washed Navaho churro sheep fleece for us to use in 5 different colors!

We first took a good couple of ounces /handful of the fleece and opened it up so it looked liike a veil, then the cardiing started. We were encouraged to respect our materials and keep them neat. Then the carding started; my carding improved immensely! 

The spindles are long and rest on the ground in supported spindle fashion.

Here are our results!

Here is a video of TahNi from youtube

Dyeing with Japanese indigo

 This time, belatedly,  yes, another natural dye post.

I had in my possession some Japanese indigo seeds, persicaria tinctoria.  They look like another persicaria that I have met on my travels looking at plants. These made pretty little plants.  I grew them in pots.   I used them for dye before flowering (not recommended) because leaves were going brown here in the Georgia heat. The leaves had blue bruises so I thought it was time. I collected just leaves.

I used an internet recipe which I can't locate but there are a number out there...I chopped it up in the blender and added ice in a bucket. Salt was involved. I had my usual several small skeins of handspun wool and handspun mohair. It was a cold business...

There was a lot of rinsing to do with the little plant bits...

I'm sure that there are people who can replicate colors from photos online,  Pas moi. However these are lovely celadony blue-greens. 

I moved the plants to the ground afterwards. Word to the wise: the deer really like them.

Dyeing with Black Knight Scabiosa

 When I was in Gallup briefly this year,  some friends and I wandered iinto a yarn store that I spied around the corner from Perry Null Trading Post, where we were SUPPOSED to be. (Don't worry, we got there...) I wish I could find the name of the store. The owner had small bags of dyeing materials including black knight scabiosa, from Bluebirddyegardens.com.  (Check out the website... Blue Bird is in Southwest Colorado and grows, dries, and markets dyestuff as well as having workshops. I haven't been there...yet).

Back at home, I tried out the Black Knight Scabiosa, such cute little dried flowers...I'll try growing them next year.  It is an annual.

I mordanted some handspun wool and angora mohair with an alum bath.  I guess I was expecting a purple but no...here we go with a lovely mossy green!  I didn't know of any natural dyes that of themselves go green.  It's so hard to get accurate color, I had to play around with the tint on my phone. Samples are mossier and warmer than seen here, but it's not too far off. the wool (on the left) is a deeper and mossier a color than the mohair. (It's also better spun!)

I like doing small batch dyeing, and apparently spinning. I don't have the patience to spin for a large project but I do love spinning for small batches for baby knitting or tapestry weaving.  I wind up with lots of colors that I can use together. 

Dyeing Yarn with Clay

 Last year I went to a workshop where we dyed linen with different colors of clay which are commercially available and also used for things like frescos. A bit after that, my house needed some foundation work done and some very clay-ey stuff emerged along with dirt.  And I thought...why not try with yarn?

First of all, my Georgia clay (I'm in Chatham County near the ocean) is a tan-brown color, not red. Thanks to youtube, I learned how to extract clay from dirt. I know that this is how some people harvest clay for pottery and such. First I tried making some little shapes with holes...warp weight potential?

Next I tried cotton and wool yarns. I soaked the yarns in soy milk to mordant them for a good 48 hours first. I mixed clay with a good bit of soy milk to get a thick paste, and wedged a small skein in between slabs of clay/soy. I put it in the fridge in a container for a couple of days.

Left, sheep's wool, right, cotton, both handspun. My samples needed quite a bit of rinsing and are still stiff, especially the cotton. There is still a good bit of clay in there. Compared to using clay on linen, the linen also stiffened but it took the color better, and I think that the cotton, as a cellulose fiber, took the color better. II think that I wiill be more apt to use my clay for modeling rather than dyeing! But it is a rather nice novelty and I'll probably weave with my samples.

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