Natural Dye - Dandelion

 

In the Orchard area at the bottom of our Hillside Cottage garden we have an abundance of dandelions! So I decided to brew a little dye pot and capture a little of Nature's colour  growing there.

I wanted to use the flowerheads only for this dye bath. I placed them in a pot of water and boiled them up on our little camping stove. It was good to sit in the orchard, enjoying the spring sunshine and watching the wild life around me, baby rabbits squeezing under the hedge nibbling the long grass, kites circling above and the garden birds singing their many songs.

 

After about an hour of extracting the dye from the dandelion heads, I strained the liquid from them and added a couple of iron nails to the pot to help lift the colour a little.

My pre mordanted wool skein, 

 Shetland fleece handspun-alum mordant 

Then I added the wool to the dye bath and gently simmered the pot for another hour until the wool had absorbed all the colour 

Hanging the skein up to dry in the tree.

The pale yellow colour achieved is gentle and almost a soft lemon.

This wool will be used in my Saori weaving, when woven with other naturally dyed yarns it will give me a way to highlight, lift and lighten a piece of cloth.

This is my first natural dyeing at our new home - Hillside cottage.

It is thrilling to be able to source my colours from my garden. 

We have been busy creating a Weaver's Garden. A place to brew my colours on the firepit surrounded by home grown dye plants.

We will show you more over on our  You tube channel

shortly.

(63) Woollen Tree - YouTube  

Spring Time

Spring is here at Hillside Cottage. It is so exciting to discover what is growing in our new garden. We have had an abundance of beautiful snowdrops especially in the Orchard. Now followed by daffodils and primroses. The tree and hedgerow blossoms are just starting to open up their buds. 

So it is time to sow seeds in the greenhouse and prepare the vegetable garden for outdoor sowing too.

It has been great fun to watch the new born lambs in the field at the bottom of the garden. 

There is plenty to keep us busy and give us inspiration for our craft work.

On the David loom at the moment is a long warp. I first wove 8 T towels in various colour combinations in Twills and Basket Weave patterns.

Then I opened up the sett to widen the cloth so as to weave a blankie/ small throw in Saori weaving with twills and basket weave details. This is giving me a chance to delve into my yarn stash of spring colours and enjoy the freedom of weaving without a plan just choosing the threads and colours as I feel with mindful creativity.

Joyful!  

A short video of my studio today

 

New Gadget To Wind The Bobbins

 

I have found this really cute mini screwdriver which is just perfect for winding my bobbins for my weaving shuttles!

There are many bobbin winders on the market for the weaver; either hand winders, such as the one fixed to my Saori loom or electric powered which usually have to be fixed on a bench or shelf and are often an expensive but very useful additional piece of kit allowing speed and ease of winding the bobbins. 

However after borrowing an old cordless drill from Skipper's WrightTurned workshop to wind many bobbins with ease while still sitting at my loom bench, I started looking around for a lightweight tool to do the same. I found this one!

I can store it on my loom bench shelf along with my shuttles already to use.

Skipper made me a simple bobbin grip with some thick wire to hold the bobbin firm while winding

So easy to use!

With a plug to recharge.

The tool bits that came with it are not needed so have been added to WrightTurned workshop tool box.

At just £11 it is a brilliant new a gadget in my Loom Room.

 

Our YouTube Channel

New and exciting things are happening at Woollen Tree

We are pleased to announce we have our own Youtube channel

It's very early days and we have uploaded a short video on Saori Weaving Cloth as a taster.

here is the link 

Woollen Tree - YouTube

We have so many ideas and plans for this new venture.

 Please  click the Subscribe/like/comment buttons on the site to increase our presence there and help our little  Woollen Tree to grow. thank you.

It will be good to share our skills, experience and passion for our work and I hope you will enjoy tuning in and discovering more of what we do in weaving, spinning, dyeing, knitting and wood turnery.

Of course it is a whole new learning curve for us in photography and film making! luckily we have two sons who know a lot more about tech than us, so we will be seeking their help as much as we can.

There will be more videos there just as soon as we have them ready Enjoy!

 

Saori Scarves- Rock Pool Inspired

This is what became of my "warp of possibility" from last month's blog post!

I thoroughly enjoyed dipping into my hand spun and hand dyed yarns to weave two scarves on the warp I had made and put on my Saori Loom.

My inspiration for these pieces was the magic and mystery of Rock Pools. The many colours and creatures you find at low tide tucked away in these little pools of wonder.

I shall be adding these scarves to our Etsy and Folksy shops for you to purchase.

Wood and Wool Naturally Hand Crafted by WoollenTree on Etsy

Sue Wright Handknits- SWH and WT at Woollen Tree on Folksy

I hope you will enjoy wearing them, they are so lovely and soft with a wonderful drape and with so many natural colours in the weave!

Although being hand woven over the same warp each scarf is subtly different and completely unique as I have woven them in a free style Saori way and used my own hand spun yarns along with wools, cotton and silk from my stash.

 

A Little Different This Year...

A View of Quarr Abbey Bell Tower and Lovely old Tree Stump

Usually a this time of year I am telling you all about our  Exhibition and Christmas Craft Show at Quarr Abbey, but unfortunately the dates we were due to be at the Gallery coincide with England being in a 2nd Lockdown (due to Covid 19). 

The good news is we are hoping to be there for 2 weeks in January 2021, so all being well we look forward to welcoming you at the beginning of the  New Year and hope you will enjoy viewing and hopefully purchasing 😊 some of our lovely new stock we have been busy making.

Hand Woven Colourful Plant Pot Mats

At the end Of the Day in my Loom Room.

My loom room is only small but I love it! I have set up things in there so as I can pull out a loom and start weaving. The Rigid Heddle looms hang on the wall, the Saori loom folds, my sewing machine  slides out on its small table and the David 2 loom is positioned so as I can work at the back and front easily with the warping frame on the back wall and my "Stash" stock stored in boxes on a shelf that goes all around the room, arranged as one big colour wheel of inspiration.

After a particularly busy day in there I sat in my little sofa chair where I also knit and spin and took this photo before I turned out the lights, yes its messy but its good happy mess from a creative day and it makes me smile.

 

 

Outdoor Studio Space

This Summer I have been able to run some one to one tuition workshops in my Outdoor Studio Space!

With Covid-secure practices in place, it has been really lovely to offer spinning and weaving classes in my garden.  

I love working in the garden anyway, whether its taking my spinning wheel outside to spin to the sounds of the birds in the trees or setting up one of my small table looms to enjoy the afternoon weaving a bag, cushion cover or scarf and of course the knitting needles are so portable, I always have several projects on the go.

This week the outdoor studio became a weaver's wonderland!

A brand new Katie loom (8 shaft from Ashford) came to be warped and woven on for the first time.

And an "Inside set" was put on my Saori loom to dress with a readymade warp to be taken home and be woven.  

So it was a wonderfully busy day, making a warp, threading heddles, sleying reeds. 

All helped greatly with plenty of chat with tea and cake!

Now some of you who have a Saori loom may think the way I'm dressing the loom looks a little strange in the photo above.

Let me explain. Since having my David 2 loom (8 shaft floor loom) from Louet I have learnt a much easier and quicker way of warping up. I thought that I could transfer this method to my Saori.

I use two sticks from front to back to rest the reed and lease sticks on. 

I place the cross of the warp at the back of the loom and load it onto the extension rod, putting the lease sticks through the cross. I use a raddle clipped to the top of the loom shelf to spread out the warp. I wind the warp onto the back roller.

I thread the heddles from back to front.

With the reed laid flat it is so quick to sley.

Then its just a matter of  using the tying rod, hooking the treadles on and start weaving!

When loading a readymade warp as seen in the photo, I rest the warp on the lease sticks for easy access and have no need for a raddle as the warp threads are already on the roller in order ready to select.

It is such a simple way to dress a loom, in fact the Katie loom was done exactly the same way, no need  for double crosses as per instructions!

give it a go, have fun, happy weaving.

 

 

Grow Colour, Dye, Spin, Weave, Handknit.

                                                              Our Garden in Summer.


The end of 2019 already, my that was a fast year! Got a lot done, but still have so much more to do. Wintertime is always a bit of a struggle for me, cold, grey days wet, windy not my idea of fun. But I understand that Nature needs to rest and nourish herself to come back strong and fit.
 I love sunny warm days, blue skies and a happy sailing breeze. I look forward to the days getting longer and lighter.

However the winter days mean;
 I can start to plan next year's garden.
 I can get spinning the fleeces into skeins of gorgeous woolliness in preparation for natural dyeing from my garden plants.
I can sit at my looms weaving in colour, texture and joy to my cloth.
I can sit in front of a roaring fire knitting next year's stock of handwarmers, cowl and socks.

So as this year comes to an end and we start a new decade, I hope you will pop in and enjoy reading my blog. I will be updating its look, so please bear with me.

2020 will be exciting, I have plenty of posts to share.

A big thank you to all our customers, thank you for making Woollen Tree grow from strength to strength.
Wishing you all a Happy Healthy New Year!

Weaving Part 2 -Woven Weft With Hand Spun Natural Dyed Wool

 Back in October last year, I blogged about the Warp of my weaving process. This post is about the next part of weaving to make the cloth.

 The Weft -This is the crosswise thread on my loom that passes over and under the warp to make the cloth.

For this particular project, "a small wall hanging", I chose some of my handspun wools which I had naturally dyed in my garden over the summer (please view earlier posts for this process).
A small selection of  Shetland, Jacob and Suffolk fleece were handspun on my wheel then dyed with various natural colour sources such as  woad, logwood, brazilwood and eucalyptus.

 The balls of wool always look so inspiring and beautiful together when naturally dyed.
I do a rough plan for how I want to weave the colours through, so as I develop a gradient flow of  colour in my work.

 The material is then wound on to either stick shuttles or my boat shuttles ready to weave the weft.

I love the rhythm of weaving, the absorbing nature of working with my hands and feet.

Slowly seeing the cloth grow and the colours blend together.

The thrill and satisfaction of taking a fresh fleece and spinning, dyeing and weaving it into something that is naturally beautiful.  

Upcoming Events

Our annual Christmas Crafts at Quarr Abbey Event will be

 on Thursday 22nd to Tuesday 27th November. Open daily 10.30am to 4.00pm.

Hope to see you there!

AND

This year for those of you not on the Isle of Wight we are also offering some special prices on selected items in our Etsy shop in "Cyber week on Etsy" from 20th to 26th November.

Just click on our link to our Woollen Tree shop.

Warp Speed - Part One

 Warp - the threads stretched on the loom.
In this photo you can see the warp threads being loaded this is called dressing the loom.

On my Ashford rigid heddle loom I thread the warp directly on the loom using a free standing wood peg to hold all warp wraps. I thread each one through the heddle as I go. It's a great way of mixing and experimenting with warp stripes.  

 For my Saori Loom I like to make my own warps (even though you can purchase ready made warps for this make of loom). I enjoy  creating cloth that is totally unique with my own warp patterns, colour choices, yarn, widths and lengths.
 To do this I have a warping frame on which I make my warp first, before transferring it to the loom to be threaded up. It is a slower process but Slow Cloth is just that, it take time, weaving knowledge with purpose and love for the craft.

 Here is a close up of the warp threads. Each warp end is individually threaded in the reed.

 Here you can see the heddles are all threaded too. I'm ready to wind the warp on to the roller. I have a 6 metre length which is kept under a light tension as I slowly wind it on to the loom.

When all the length of the warp is on the roller, I adjust the loom until I'm happy with the evenness and tension of the warp.
Time to make cloth!

Ancient and Modern

Blue Woven Cloth

I have been busy weaving some cloth on my Saori Loom, enjoying the process, using my blues, purples and grey hued yarn to blend together in the warp and weft to make a soft subtle colourway. Adding handspun and hand dyed slubs as I weave to create texture and interest making my cloth unique.

My weaving has a modern twist, but the method of weaving cloth is an ancient craft.

My loom is a modern style, designed by  Misao Jo, but there are hundreds of different ways to weave and many different looms that have been made.

http://www.saorinomori.com/eng/index.html  

On a recent visit to Cardiff we spent an enjoyable morning looking around St Fagans Museum of Rural Life. It is a work in progress and well worth a visit, unfortunately the weaving mill wasn't open for our visit which was disappointing, but here is a loom set up in a Round House setting.

https://museum.wales/stfagans/

We were pleased to find while staying in the area the (forest and rivers) far Open Studios was on. So of course we had a little tour of galleries and studios, chatting to the artists and makers and being inspired by the work produced, particularly enjoyed spending some time with two lovely weavers.

Here are the links to their websites. Really beautiful work and it is so wonderful to see the energy, skill and enthusiasm of these talented young women. 

https://www.rhianwymandesign.co.uk/

  

https://www.gabydevitt.co.uk/

 Weaving from the Ancient to the Modern is an absorbing craft, the more I learn the more I want to learn, to improve and develop my skills. Hand weaving to make slow cloth - many hours, carefully made by hand and with thought and love.   

With the weather being so glorious Skipper and I just had to get on the River Wye again.
We hired a canoe for the day, took a picnic and made our way gently down the river around 14 miles of meandering bends and sparkling shallow shingle banks, watching the fish jump, herons sleep, swans and geese glide and seeing the hundreds of damselflies in countless colours dance above the water's surface.

Organization And Tips

 In my workroom I have my yarns, wools and materials stored on shelves that go around the top of the room rather like beach hut shelving. I love to be able to see all the colours and find it much easier to select items for a project whether it be weaving or hand knitting with this system. It also frees up floor space for my looms and spinning wheel, allowing room to work.

However things do get untidy especially when I'm working on several projects! so it is good to get organized and have a good sort out. I now have all my cones in one area rather than stored by colour. I have my handspun and hand dyed yarn ready to use for my next project in wicker and hessian baskets. I always have dried lavender sprigs from my garden and homemade lavender sachets to keep my wools naturally stored and fresh.

 My commercial yarns surround the room with a net of colourful and textural oddments for Saori weaving ready to grab and mix.

 This is a view of the heddles on my Saori Weaving Loom Ready to start to warp up once more.

A couple of tips I would like to share with you;
 Tip One
 twist the little wire ties that you get with sandwich bags in place at every 10th heddle. I find it makes it so easy to count the number of heddles needed for a weaving this way, it works so much better than pieces of yarn or cotton for markers as they don't get tangled and you can hold the "wire twist" and slide the heddle along the shaft with ease.

 Tip Two
I use large headed pins when sewing my hand woven and hand knitted items. They are easy to see in the cloth and are larger than normal sewing pins.

 I write how many pins I have before I start sewing on the underneath side of the pin cushion.

That way I know exactly how many pins I have used and when sewing some of my textural cloth it makes sure I haven't accidentally sewn in a pin or two!