Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Natural dyeing...

Well,  this natural dyeing is a favorite sport of mine in the last several years...here are some recent photos: osage orange, no premordant I believe...



Cochineal (which I unfortunately overdyed and it turned muddy, oh well...), the above photo'd osage orange, osage orange overdyed with indigo...and indigo....love them!



Results from a madder workshop I lead together with my guild:  premordanted with alum, no mordant, and premordanted with iron.  The latter is a lovely purple that you can't really see...results are very different from the workshop at SAFF I attended...  



these lovely muted shades were from the end of the almost exhausted dyepots...madder and iron...but the fibers hand't been premordanted, just dipped in the dedicated dyepots so obviously there was mordant materials in the water





 I just love this....





Tuesday, March 7, 2017

My Triloom

Long ago, I went to the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival.  There, I spotted my first triloom at HillCreek Fiber Studios Booth. I have wanted one ever since.

I have a friend from college who is a fabulous woodworker.  He actually made me a tri-loom.



Here is my first effort, a 7' triangle.  Made of some  very inexpensive lightweight yarn purchased at a mill in Ireland, supplemented with some very expensive kidsilk haze!  Not pictured:  if I pin the three ends together, it makes a decent shrug...