time to

So many things have to do with good timing. When to pick the peaches, is one of them. They look ripe- but they are still a bit too firm. On the other hand, they may ripen on the counter after picking. The birds and squirrels and chipmunks are watching them for readiness, also. They test for ripeness, just as I do. And so, it becomes a matter of timing. Who will get to them first?



The Black Hollyhocks are showing off. These were a gift from a fiber friend, years ago! Their petals make a lovely dye bath, and with an alum/cream of tarter mordant, will yield soft greys on skeins of white wool. This year, I have elected to enjoy the show, and save the seeds, as well as the dye bath, for another time.



Meanwhile, the timing is right for harvesting garlic scapes and dill weed. Mixed with some Philadelphia Brand, they make a tasty dip for spreading on a cracker. This batch was served up and enjoyed by the spinners/knitters/weavers over at the Hatton's last week.

elusive inspiration

The turkeys have given me a lot of inspiration. I've been noticing them each morning, when they leave their roosting area. They glide from the tops of the pines to the other side of the river. . This flock, or rafter, of turkeys has at least 40 hens to 3 or 4 Toms...as far as I can count. Each evening, at approximately 12 minutes after 5, they make their climb to the base of this hillside. It is usually too dark for me to photograph. I am in search of a stray feather or two..so one afternoon I decided to make the climb.

There are many fallen pines up here, downed by the strong winds from a big storm a few years ago. The turkeys jump on these and use them like ladders to make their way to the top. I look for feathers, but don't find any.

Looking up, it is hard to imagine how they get themselves up high into these trees at dusk. They make a lot of racket, bumping into each other and knocking down branches...flapping their wings...settling themselves into position,... or not. If you have ever seen chickens go to roost at night, it is very much the same procedure. You would think with all that flapping around there would be a spare feather or two. I could not find a one.

I took time to notice the view before heading down to the cabin. I was a bit disappointed that I didn't find a feather to study. I took a photograph a few weeks ago, a closeup of the feathers on the back of a hen that was outside my window. I loved the colors and thought they would make a good palette to use when mixing up dyes. A sort of turkey feather colorway.

Someone suggested that I use the image for a virtual palette..so I took the advice and had two of them generated. Here is the first one.

And the second.

Neither one seems to translate what I am seeing IRL. I want to see more iridescent blue and green and purple...so I will keep searching for the elusive feather. Sooner or later one will fall into my path. You just can't rush some things. You have to wait for them to happen.

solidago dye day

On Friday, we continued our natural dye experiments in Grace's kitchen.

There were four of us that shared the pots. We worked with onion skins and goldenrod with an alum mordant. We used different (breed) wool, cotton and silk for our fibers.

Several species of Solidago (goldenrod) may be used for natural dyes. My husband collected the plants for me, and I didn't take the time to identify them. There were a few round areas on the stems of some of the plants, which I recognize to be galls. These are made by a tiny fly that lays its eggs inside the stem of the plant. Folklore tells of people carrying these galls in their pockets to keep the rheumatism at bay...so I slipped a few in my pocket...just because.

Some recipes call specifically for only flowers to be used. There are also some recipes that call for the roots or leaves, depending on what color you wish to extract from the plant. In the interest of time, I simply cut the tops off the flowers. I did not crush or bruise the flowers, but stuffed them into the homemade "teabags" that Grace had put together, and set them in the turkey roaster with enough water to cover.

At one point, we took the remains of a previous dyepot, and the alum premordant bath, and dumped it into the turkey roaster. You may be thinking that we didn't follow the recipe very carefully, and you would be correct.

Some of the fun that comes out of dye day is "winging it". It is OK to wing it, as long as you don't ever expect to duplicate your results. Since natural dyes seem to vary from one year to the next (depending on the growing season) I don't expect to duplicate the results. There are some things that it is important to take into consideration...for instance the ratio between wool and alum. If you use too much alum, you wind up with "sticky" wool. I do enjoy color, but not at the expense of loosing the handle of the fiber.

Some of us double-dipped. ..or a goldenrod base with an over-dye of onion skins. I had premordanted (is that a word?) my wool and silk the day before. The wool I was using, Miss Ewenice, came from my TDF prize.

I warp-chained the roving and my silk, so that some areas would not absorb as much color as other areas. The wool and the silk were stuffed into panty-hose bags, so they would be full of bits of onion skins or goldenrod flowers.

The results, while similar, were unique. The most fun of dye day is seeing what comes out of the pot...depending on how long you let it simmer...or what you started with...those subtle nuances are always fun to see and make note of.

Making notes of results and testing samples are also part of the experiment for me.

I had to wait a few days for my wool and silk to dry before I could work with them...my fingers twitched to spin and knit up some samples to see what the yarn would look like, how it would behave etc.

The notes will be tucked away, along with ideas for intended projects to be made from the yarn. Work for another day....

For now...the results are sitting in my basket, for me to glance at as I walk past on my way to do other chores...

...a nice memory of an afternoon spent with friends and fiber.

measured amounts

Checking the chart for measured amounts of precipitation for the month of September, I notice that on average, my geographical location should receive about 4 inches. To date, the measured amount for the month of September, so far, is over 9 inches. I've come to the conclusion that so many rainy days in one month can lead to melancholy and mold.

The sun fights to break though and burn off the fog on those days that the rain isn't falling. When it shines, it brings color to my world! This past Friday, at the Hatton farm, I dyed a small amount of wool from Grace with onion skins that Greta shared with the group. The subtle orange and red flashed tones look so pretty with the sun shining on them. So pretty, I reached for the Ledbetter spindle...sample, sample, sample.

My Shetland Hurricane Mittens took the blue ribbon at the PA Endless Mountains Fiber Festival! The pattern is Ceangaltas Mittens by Robin Melanson.

Speaking with one of the judges, I was told that the decision to award the mittens with the blue ribbon was unanimous. The fact that they were handspun, woolen and fulled, coupled with the design and execution of the pattern, was what scored the most points. I must admit, that there were not many entries due to the weather and poor attendance this year, but I was happy to receive the ribbon anyway!

crocus skal cowl

A few weeks ago, I was invited to become a moderator for the We Love North American Alpaca Group on Ravelry. Being that ILNAA ~it was hard to say no.

A few days ago, the group started a March- Spin- to- Knit- Along. The plan is to spin your alpaca, or a blend thereof, and knit it into a cowl during the month of March. The pattern is designed by Ami Madison. The group plans to discuss their on going projects throughout the month, and address any success or failure. The idea here is collective knowledge...learning some tips and/or skills from each other in order to add to an individuals existing repertoire.

Personally, the SKAL is a good exercise for me. It is helping me to plan for a project..working it from the fiber to finish. There are many times when a spinner can select, from her stash, the perfect yarn for a project. For this exercise, I have selected a pattern and I am attempting to spin a certain type of yarn to be used for it.

The fiber I am using is composed from "seconds"..the shorter and second best bits of a fleece.

The seconds were dyed with Jacquard Acid dyes. When I started to sample, I blended directly on the hand cards, but have since moved on to blending one color at a time and taking small bits of each color to spin sequentially. Tufts of "short cuts" or felted slubs were allowed to remain in my singles. The singles were plied and the color runs were sometimes equal with slight overlap and some barber-pole stripes.

When I selected my colors, I had visions of purple and yellow crocus on a spring green lawn...and when I look at my results..well...not so much! I had not planned on so much pooling ...

However, the cowl..(so far)..does have a redeeming factor...it is made with Alpaca! And the texture of the yarn is slubby and soft. The seconds have behaved as I hoped they would, and I have a nice lumpy lopi yarn of approx 9-12 wpi. There is success with the yarn, but not the dye. So, there is always the choice- or possibility- of another trip to the dye pot.

What say you? Shall I toss it into another cauldron?

high tides turning

After a few days of rain, the river levels were about 7 feet higher than normal today. A blue sky reflects its color in the muddy waters. Weeks have gone by without a walk down by the riverrim, so it was especially nice to soak up the sun and watch the water rush by. A few days ago, when the river was cresting, pumpkins tumbled over riding the white water..I thought how disappointed the farmer must be, an entire growing season stolen by the river!

I collected some rocks today, for a future project....I took my time selecting exactly the type of rocks I wanted. As I turned the rocks over in my hands, looking for just the right shape, I discovered a curious egg case. I think it is beautiful!

What creature made this? Spider? I wonder...

Sassafras mittens of orange and red and yellow are waving to me, overhead. Sassafras is always the first to go, the rest will follow in a few weeks. The passenger train, with 5 cars full of leaf peepers, sounds the whistle at the crossing. I wave to the passengers, my hands feel the cool of the mountain air... soon I will be wearing my mittens too....

As I walk back to the cabin, I notice my yarn is still on the line. On Friday, Grace invited the spin group over for a little dyeing...I'm drying some singles..."dyed THEN plied". The plying part comes next.

I love seeing the yarn on the clothesline...it says "a spinner lives here!"

dye baths and tape looms

A few weeks ago, Grace sent an email around, an invite...to her farm for an afternoon to play with fiber. As things worked out for me, I was able to attend. I had a very nice time!

When I arrived, a few friends were already there. They were out on the patio picking grapes! Beautiful purple/blue concord grapes. I brought my basket and with the help of extra hands, it was filled in a short time. Audrey was joking that we should all fill a vat and take off our socks and shoes and stomp around on the grapes! Maybe next year!

Once we moved inside, we got busy with the dye pots. Grace had already overdyed some hand spun Finnsheep wool that was hanging up to dry. It was gorgeous, and provided great inspiration to dive in and get going. There was still some of the dye bath left so we added to that and I threw in a skein that I had brought from my stash. I got a nice purple.

I also shared Audrey's dye pots (twice) on the stove and did one of my own in the microwave...in addition to a few silk hankies that I dyed in the microwave.

Pretty soon, Bonnie arrived with a tomato pie! It smelled great, so we hurried up to clean up and take a coffee break with the pies. Grace had prepared a pumpkin pie...so we had 2 pies to enjoy! YUM!

After lunch, we moved out into the living room for some knitting...got a chance to see the new (antique) spinning wheel that Fred has been working on. I was going to take a few pictures, but I wanted to use the memory card in my camera to shoot a video of Grace working on her Double Hole Tape Loom. Fred made it for her last year.

The double hole tape loom is a great for weaving tapes, or strips. Some of the patterns are quite beautiful. Grace wrote a good article about the loom that appears in Weavezine..you can read it by clicking here, ...or find it by way of the Weavezine button on my sidebar.

One of the things I love about my loom is the portability of it. You can take it anywhere. My favorite place to weave is outside by the river. I tie one end of the warp around my waist...and the other end around a sturdy object (a tree). Your body becomes the tension device, and both hands are free to raise and lower the sheds and weave! Pick up patterns are fun and easy after you get the hang of it!

Here is the video I made of Grace weaving on her loom. Thanks Grace!

Hopi Red Amaranth Dye Bath

So I have been trying for years to get a true red color out of this Hopi Red Amaranth. I have researched most everything I can get my hands on, and have started to wonder if it is at all possible to get red dye for wool out of this plant.

Based on what I had read, (somewhere, I have forgotten the source) the plants this time around, were harvested before the flowers were in full bloom. The plants are sowing themselves freely in my garden now, and pop up like weeds. I was glad to chop them down. They were about 5 feet tall. I harvested a good arm full. The chickens are always interested in Amaranth of any kind....

I chopped up the entire plant, leaves, stems and flowers...and filled the turkey roaster with enough water to cover.

I cooked it down until the leaves lost all of the color. Then the entire pot was strained, and the cooked amaranth was served up to the chickens, who ate it right up while it was still steaming. It smelled like cooked spinach.

The day before, I had soaked my wool (Farmer Dave handspun) in a premordant of alum and cream of tartar...and let it stand overnight....it was ready to go into the dye bath. I let the wool simmer in the bath for about an hour, and then turned off the heat. It looked promising. The wool was allowed to cool and set overnight.

The next day, I noticed the dye did not exhaust....but I have never had it do that in the past either. The dye did strike, but alas, I was rewarded for my efforts with a mustard brown color once again. If anyone knows what I am doing wrong, or if there indeed is a way to achieve a red color on wool (not cornbread!)- please send me an email...you can find my address on the side bar.