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  

Summer Colour in Cloth

                                               Our garden is full of colour and inspiration!

I am always influenced by the nature around me, summer colours start to feed into my woven cloth at this time of year.
This month I have been making vibrant cotton warps for the looms. It is a nice break from working in wool on the looms. (I'm busy spinning on the wheel in the garden, so there will be plenty of woolly projects later in the year).
However some people have allergies and do ask me if I weave and knit in cotton, so its always good to offer an alternative. Also in the summer months its great to work in cool cottons and linen.

 Hand weaving the Saori Way along with more tradition weaves of stripes and squares in gorgeous colourways.

 New cloth fresh from the loom.

Beautiful Summer Wraps/Shawls in soft cotton. The perfect "go to" accessory for the Season.

Muted Colour Inspiration

 A Sunrise on the south coast of the Isle of Wight- Ventnor.

 Steep Hill Cove Beach- Ventnor
Peddles, rocks and sea

Looking across to Ventnor Harbour

A seaside collection of driftwood

 The promise of Spring- Snowdrops

Muted Colour Inspiration

These wonderful colours were just singing out to me on a beautiful February day.

I'm drawn to the blues, greys, lavenders, the soft tangerine oranges and browns. Light is so precious in the winter days and to be bathed in the gentle winter sun absorbing the muted hues of the sky, sea and land is so inspiring.

I gather my yarns to plan a weave.

Brief Jottings on June

 JUNE  

A few notes and jottings for this month. Cropping the first lavender - hanging up in the studio to dry. I will use it in my hand woven lavender bags and sachets. I always put fresh sprigs layered in my fleece and wool storage too.
Harvesting my woad seed - I will dry them and pop them in a paper bag to store ready for next year's sowing.

 Had so much fun with sticks and wool by weaving some very organic artful  stick/ branch weaving
They will be little woolly accents placed around the garden allowing the flowers and plants to grow and intertwine.

AND

I held my first "Learn to weave on a Rigid Heddle loom" workshop.

Back in my March post I said this was something I had been planning to do for a while, so it was really good to introduce and share the joy of weaving with two students and thrilling to see their happy faces as they went home clutching their very first weavings. 

Coat Jacket - Hand Woven On My Saori Loom

Making the cloth

Here you can see the warp and weft of the cloth on the loom as I weave the colours and textures together.

Woven cloth rolled on the beam.

Newly woven cloth cut straight from the loom and laid out. Can  you see the small slits in the fabric at intervals through the right hand side of the cloth. These are where I wove the collar shapings as I created the weaving. It means that there is less cutting to do when I sew the jacket together so giving me a neater finish. 

Cutting and Washing the Cloth

I always have to take a deep breathe here. Double check, measure twice, cut once.

Then all the pieces are washed to Full the Fabric and hung out to dry on a lovely sunny day.

SEWING A GARMENT

 A little bit of sewing and the Jacket all comes together!
I hand knitted the drop sleeves, the collar and front trim.

THIS JACKET WAS HAND WOVEN AND INCLUDES HANDPAINTED AND NATURALLY DYED YARN WITH SOME HANDSPUN SLUBS IN THE CLOTH.

IT HAS HAND KNITTED SLEEVES AND FRONT TRIM.

WOVEN IN THE SAORI WAY, BEAUTIFULLY SLOW CLOTH.

Daffodils! Natural Dyeing

 I love the Spring I'm enjoying the fresh new colours of the Season.
Time for some more natural dyeing, this month with some Daffodils.
 

Using just the flowerheads Bubbling up a nice Dye Bath.

 Straining the plant matter ready to add the pre- mordanted wool.

 I used some of my hand spun Shetland yarn.
 Rather than do an exhaust dip to produce a lighter shade of yellow I divided the dye bath solution into two pans. One pan I added soda ash at the start of the dye process, the other pan I added the soda ash right at the very end of the brewing.

 This gave me some subtle shades of yellow along with a nice depth of yellow colour.

 Here are the skeins hanging on our Woollen tree to dry in the Spring sunshine.

You can probably notice in this photo that the ties that secure the skeins and stop them from tangling  are of different colours to the yarn, here- red, navy and orange. I always use contrasting colours for my skeins so as I know where they are tied to avoid accidently snipping the yarn when balling them up. I have to be certain that the yarn I use for this task is colourfast of course so as not to corrupt my dye colours.  

A small sample of approximately 150g of Shetland hand spun wool, natural hand dyed with daffodils.
I just know it will come in handy for my knitting and weaving projects.

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.  

Mid Summer Splash of Colour

 Well it's Mid Summer's Day today- the longest day of the year and it is promising to be such a lovely bright, sunny day too! I have lots to do, time to get outdoors to work and enjoy the weather. Taking my inspiration from the beach and our garden where everywhere is vibrant, colourful and full of energy.
 

 I have a Shetland fleece to work on. I shall get it carded and then hand spin some, as well as grab my dye colours to make some unique yarn.

 The rambling roses on our old cherry tree stump have mixed themselves up in a pleasing jumble of pale pinks and magenta, add in the shades of fresh green and a summer blue sky- a feast for the eyes! giving me a template colourway for weaving some cloth.
   

 Deep purple with red is bold and looks great in a hand knitted accessory. Remembering green  (as in Nature) balances the combination.

 Soft greens and whites makes for a soothing colour palette, great for knitted and woven homeware.

 Natural tones with highlights of neutral shades are perfect to use when wanting to pay attention to detail and textural structuring.

Using photos is a great way to quickly note, collect and capture an idea for a project.

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!