Marigold Wool Dyeing Again!

 Last week a kind friend shared some of her marigolds to add to the few more marigolds that bloomed on our deck.  She also gave me some beautiful zinnia blossoms.  When I got home and started the dyeing process ( first thing:scour the wool, then pre-mordant the fiber, then rinse the mordanted fiber and in the meantime prepare the dye bath by heating up the blossoms in the dyepot for at least an hour and finally add the fiber to the dyepot and bring the heat up to simmering again for a minimum of an hour) I decided to add a few onion papers to the dye pot since I was pretty sure they would add to the deepness of the yellow color.

After heating/simmering the blossoms and yarn for a couple of hours, I turned off the heat and let the pot sit until morning.  Well, morning was Sunday so I did not get back to the pot until Monday when I drained and washed the  nice yellow fiber.  It was nice to see that the dye had completely been exhausted, meaning that the water was cleared and had no more yellow color in it.

This is what the fiber turned out to look like:

The color is nice and rich.  The yarn is actually multi-colored since I left the blossoms and onion papers in the pot in with the simmering fiber. The fiber itself was more evenly dyed.  It looks pretty nice. I am happy.  Next I will be dyeing with avocado pits and skins!  Looking forward to that.

A final note:  tonight I sat down to spin the fiber for a few minutes.  It turns out that I was not gentle enough with the fiber when  dyeing it...and I found the fiber a little bit felted.  It can still be spun but I have to pre-draft the heck out of that fiber.  The funny thing is that as I was knitting on the test knit today my mind focussed on spinning and dyeing a little bit.  At that time I decided that I will probably just spin the natural colored fiber.  I really do like that the best.  Though when the lichen dye that is fermenting on the deck is ready for dyeing, that might also make me go back to the dye pot.  The avocado is supposed to bring pink and the lichen is supposed to dye purple.  I like both those colors.  I think I will either learn to be more gentle or use fiber that is sturdier...!

Postscript!  Just after publishing the above it crossed my mind that I can card the yellow fiber and solve the felted problem!  So happy!

Pruning Results

 Today I had a million things to do but decided to spend five minutes pruning the bushes in front of the house. This is what is left of the nest I reported on a few weeks ago.

Fortunately there are no living creatures left. As far as I know…

The five minute pruning project turned into a twenty minute job where I pruned both the bushes and the required tree in our yard. We have hired a lawnmower man. The tree was leaning down too close to the ground. I was always going to prune to bless Dear One but did not get to it this summer. Last year I did but trees grow so fast around here.

Now the lawnmower guy won’t be slapped in the face when he mows around a little more than half of the tree. I will finish the job shortly. 

Not so funny thing: twice when pruning the tree I found cobweb-y-best-like things attached to branches. I don’t know if it is tree spiders or wormy things. I did not see worms nor spiders but….

An Unpleasant Visitor, Now Gone

 Early this week I was on the porch by a fluke when a large bee ran into a cobweb on one of our bushes right in front of the porch.  This was gruesome and rather gave me the creeps but I was on my way out and did not have time to think about it.

Two days later I wanted to prune those bushes in front of the house.  As I stepped outside I saw a horrific sight:

That guy was SO BIG!!  I am not kidding.  At least four inches from top to bottom.  I could not stand it. There was going to be not pruning until that visitor was gone.  Since I had planned to go to Hobby Lobby, I continued on to Lowes and looked over the bug eradication sprays.  I was thinking I could get a foaming spray like I got for the red/orange bees that had infested another of those bushes (can you understand why I would like to rip them up and plant something else?!!  Dear One likes them, however.). So I did find some spray but when I got home I realized I had not gotten foam that shoots twenty feet, which is what I was anticipating.  It is a good idea to actually read the whole label.

When I got out of the car I had the can in my hand. I set down my purse and bag on a chair by the door and sprayed.  Number 1.  I was too far away and Number 2.  It was only a little mist!!! What!!!

So I went around to the front of the bush and stepped closer, with my stomach clenching tightly, and started misting that fat yellow and black striped arachnid from the back/top.  It took about four squirts before anything happened.  A fifth squirt and it dropped to the ground in a moving crawling 

heap.Dear One was just stepping through the front door and saw the whole thing.  I put the can down on my stroller seat, picked up my purse and shopping bag, and went inside the house, shuddering all the way.  When I got all the way inside the house by the island,  I gave a final shuddering shaking of my body and drew some deep breaths.  A couple moments later Dear One entered the house and shut the front door firmly behind him.  As he neared me I asked if the creature was gone.  He just nodded his head.

You can see another reason why I adore that man.  He does not like spiders at all, himself, and yet he saved me from this horrid monster.

First Attempt Marigold Dyeing Wool Yarn

 On Monday I saw a video about dyeing wool yarn with marigolds!  What a concept!  We had a ton of marigold blossoms on the deck in the plant tower...

Well, we DID have a ton of blossoms.  On Monday I was only able to harvest about 1/4 cup of blossoms.  I pinched off all the spent blooms and am hopeful that the plants will come through with another batch of blossoms soon.

So--dyeing with marigolds.  There are many videos.  This is what I did. I put the marigold blossoms in a one-quart Revere Ware saucepan that we received for a wedding gift fifty-one years ago. It is still almost pristine even with very frequent usage!  I brought the water to a strong simmer on the stove over low heat--though our low heat was way more than a simmer so I shut off the burner in short order and let the pot sit for an hour or so.

In the meantime I put my new-to-me stainless steel pot-now to be a dye pot only- from the thrift store on the stove and put in a  lot of water and 1 teaspoon of powdered alum that I found at the grocery store for about $3.00.  I added half a teaspoon of cream of tartar and stirred well.  Next I added a skein of previously spun yarn from Thetford Roving and submerged the yarn in the alum water.  I brought the pot up to simmer and watched it like a hawk for a few minutes then when I worried that it was too hot, I shut off the pot and let the wool soak in the hot mordant water for an hour or so.

When the mordanting stage was done (an hour), I took the yarn out of the pot, squeezed out the water then rinsed in fresh water.  At this point I strained the possibly-spent marigold blossoms out of the small pot then moved that water into the bigger pot and added the yarn.  There was not much water so I added enough to cover the yarn and brought the temperature up to a simmer again.  Yet again I could not really regulate that temperature so I turned off the heat, put the cover on and turned the oven on to 180 degrees F.  After placing the covered pot of marigold "tea", water, and yarn in the oven I set the timer for an hour then went about my business.  After an hour I shut of the stove and ascended to the "upper regions" where I picked up my test knitting and spent another hour knitting before crawling off to bed.

In the morning I pulled the pot out of the oven with guarded high hopes.  After all, there were only 1/4 cup blossoms and about 25 grams of yarn, if I recall correctly.

This is what I found:

This made me so happy!  The "control" yarn is on the bottom and the dyed yarn on top.  Yes, it did dye the yarn yellow.  No, it is not very yellow, but what could I expect with only 1/4 cup of blossoms.

In the last two days since I pulled the yarn out of the oven, I have watched many more marigold and other natural dyeing videos.  I am really souped up to try more soon.  I will be keeping my eyes out for marigold beds in case people want to share.

ALSO!!!  Lichen!  Lichen soaked in ammonia and water for several months makes a beautiful purple dye!  Amazingly, a few weeks ago we had a windstorm and a small broken branch showed up under out live oak tree on the front lawn. It is covered with lichen, though I don't know what variety.   I did not immediately pick it up....sometimes sloth turns out to be a good thing!  So I will bring that in and harvest the lichen.  I will also go for a walk around the neighborhood and see if anyone has any broken branches after Hurricane Debby finally lets go of us.  Still raining today and wind blowing.

So...I ordered several used books on dyeing with natural plants AND I also ordered an inexpensive hot plate to see if I can actually follow the rules more closely.  I am looking forward to much more colorful yarn spinning in the future, even though I don't mind at all spinning white yarn.  Plying white and a color makes me happy, too.

Productive Day: Spinning/Plying, Warping Loom, Family History Work, and More!

 Today is Wednesday.  Hurricane Debby came by and scared us into staying home.  Because we were home, other things were done.

First things first: scripture reading, etc, Reviewing Names for FamilySearch, DuoLingo (not a perfect lesson today!).  When these were done, I moved the Ashford E-Spinner off my desk and onto the spinning table and finished the plying I was working on last night before bed.  The height of the desk did bad things to my shoulder and back so the spinning table was important.  Finished those two bobbins-one white, one lavender- and put them soaking.  The skein is now hanging in the shower to dry.

There were about 93 yards in this skein/hank.  This was no-name lavender wool roving I purchased from Amazon.  I hope in future to only purchase fiber I have seen and felt.  When we were living in Vermont, we were fortunate enough to have farmers who sheared their sheep give us the fleeces to skirt, scour, and prepare for spinning.  That was so great.  You could call it free fiber but though that particular farmer did not want any money because he was composting the fleeces, there was a ton of work to prepare them. I am still enjoying the fruits of his kindness and my labors!  Still more roving ready to spin.  So good.  Of course, if any other farmer wants to give me fleeces he or she is not going to use, I won't say no, almost certainly!

Next after the plying, I spent an hour-plus deleting more than 5,000 photos from my Photos app on the computer since that will take them off all devices...AND since I can no longer back up my devices or store photos having used up 200 GB of cloud space, this was important.  It was rather tedious and eventually I just started deleting photos wholesale.  I had been saving pictures of handwork, plants and flowers near us, scenery and animals that had caught my attention.  Well, many of them had to go.  More that 12 GB gone.  I will need to do it again tomorrow.  And tomorrow. And tomorrow....which WILL creep in a petty pace but has to be done!  There are SO MANY DUPLICATES!  Many of them are Dear One's hiking pictures that I backed up on my computer again and again and again...

Of all the things done today, preparing nice meals was not part of the day.  Dear One had Cheerios for breakfast and I ate the leftover dried out meat and cheese grinder from a couple of days ago.  Nasty thing, but...Later on around 3:00 I wrapped two hamburgers in buns in foil leftover from Sunday and put them in the air fryer for ten minutes.  Mine was not quite warm enough but I ate it anyway.  I noticed Dear One had not consumed the last of his and figured he wasn't going to eat it.  Turns out he was getting to a stopping place in his audio book then got up and heated it in the microwave.  Good for him.  Very self-reliant.

Another completed task today:  setting the Lindal Torkle Scarf blocking. I had put it in a bucket of water overnight so I just had to pull it out when I wanted the water bucket for the plied yarn.  The Scarf is now quietly blocking on the guest bed on a laveder towel.

If you click the link above, you will see that the pattern is really pretty nice.  It is all garter stitch and wrap and turns. It amazes me how easy wrap and turns actually are. I had tried them before and had a terrible time with them.  I think all the wrap and turns on the Emotional Support Chicken made the path clear to me finally!

The last big thing I did today was to warp the loom for another string of dish cloths. I had to remind myself of the proper way to do it by watching the Ashford YouTube on simple warping of the rigid heddle loom.  Kate is so clear and easy to follow.

Here is the 16" Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom all warped and with the first dish cloth woven and hemstitched.  I will see if I can be regimented enough to weave and hemstitch one cloth a day until the warp is used up.  I think it is about ten feet.  The white strip at the end of the cloth is a mini-blind I purchased from Walmart and cut up into 16-inch lengths to use in place of the cardboard strips Kate in the video uses.

It is always a good idea to record one's handwork project notes so you can repeat a project that was successful.  In the case, I warped 14 inches on the 16" rigid heddle loom with one strand of white at center then ten slots either side twice then the multicolor.  For the weft I just some leftover dark pink fro ten picks then one white pick, ten more picks, one more white pick, then a final 10 picks and hemstitch to end. I put in one of the mini blind strips to help me have a regular amount of yarn before starting the next cloth tomorow.

Supper was the same old protein shake I have been making for a week or so: 1 cup milk (dairy or non-dairy-yesterday was homemade almond milk, today was dairy milk since I forgot to put the almonds soaking in water this morning), 1 scoop protein powder (this was vegan protein powder by a fluke), 1 heaping Tablespoon unsweetened cocoa, 1/4 cup raw oatmeal, 1 banana, 2 cups ice cubes all thrown into the Vitamix for 60 seconds.  It makes two servings.  Well, it is supposed to be one serving but the two of us find half the amount satisfying enough.

Since I did a major clean-out of the refrigerator on Monday and yesterday emptied all the elderly soft/liquid items into the garbage disposal, I was able to reclaim the jars and wash them in the dishwasher yesterday SO there were plenty to use as Protein Shake Measuring/Beverage Containers.  Dear One is not so thrilled to drink out of canning jars, but he is beginning to be more accepting of my slothful ways...!  If my sister sees this post, she will probably fall over dead to learn that I am actually drinking protein shakes.  Every day! Many years ago she tried to hook me onto them for my health's safe. I complained too much about the flavor or texture or smell of the protein powder and did not drink them.  Well, Sister, now I am in.  I only have made the chocolate ones though I forgot to mention that I also throw in a handful of blueberries.  

Finally I sat down at the computer and entered my second great-grandparents into my genealogy pedigree chart. I have done this multiple times over the years but finally a few months ago I bit the bullet and purchased Reunion Genealogy Software For The Mac.  If you are a genealogy person you know GEDCOM files. I made GEDCOM files of the various family trees I had on my old Windows laptop and am now generation by generation entering the data into a new and clean genealogy file. Tomorrow I hope to find birth, marriage, and death records for each of the people in the first four generations to verify their information.  FamilySearch FamilyTree (familysearch.org for free global family tree where you can enter your own line and find records to back up your information...) is where I have put information over the many years it has been available but I know absolutely that a lot of the information is incorrect. I did not know what I was doing in the beginning...now I know better.  And need to do better and fix errors.  Will take the rest of my life, I am sure.

So now I feel totally virtuous and happy and comfortable about going back to knitting on the Dream Stripe Sweater Test Knit that I am working on.  I managed NOT to sit down and knit at any moment during the day.

May you all be safe and comfortable as Hurricane Debby rages on outside the windows.

Tour De Fleece and beyond…Why I have been absent for three weeks!

 The Tour de Fleece was so useful. I did spin wool every day of the Tour de France. Including rest days. I spun quite a bit of yarn-more than 1500 yards. That might sound like a lot but others spun miles of yarn. You know that saying “Comparison is the thief of  joy”? Well, for some wonderful reason I am able to see what others do (and are) and be happy for them and comfortable with my own “place”.   I think that is a spiritual gift from Heavenly Father.  In reality I cannot be bothered to compare or be envious. It gets me nowhere but discontented and I really like to be content with my lot and place in life.

Since I am writing this on my phone I cannot check previous posts so I will just show my pile of fiber-turned-yarn. I am happy and continue to spin most days. One recent day I watched a podcast from eight yeasts ago where a Tour de Fleecer had purchased yarn in Alberta from a mill that was near her. I checked and found they were still in operation and ordered two pounds of fiber from them. I will report when it arrives.  It is called Custom Woolen Mills, I am pretty sure. I will check to be sure but may need to make an addendum…

This is nine skeins of varying lengths. The yarn may be unusable because it is so uneven BUT I will probably use it anyway. I planned to make Andrea Mowry’s  Traveler Shawl with the yarn even though that pattern calls for DK or Fingering weight yarn. The yarn shown is bulky. Well, maybe I will just knit to the dimensions and call it good!  We shall see.

That is it for today. It appears that Hurricane Debby has arrived. Fairly quiet but rainy so far. When I awoke the road in front of our house was dry. It is not dry now! Be safe, Family and Friends, wherever you are.