More Solar Dyeing

With the warmer weather of summer comes the opportunity to do some dyeing. Having loved the simplicity and effects of the solar dyeing I experimented with it on a slightly larger scale in large snap lock bags.

The results were quite successful I thought and it was surprising at what colours came out at the other end.

Now I just have to decide what to make from it, other than just spinning it into yarn!

Happy Crafting! :)

The Last Of The Spindles

So I woke really early over the weekend and couldn't get back to sleep. So I looked at the last few empty spindles I had and decided it was time to fill them. About 4 hours later they all had a bit of spinning on them, so here is the last of my current spindle collection.

This is a Kevin Rhodes spindle made from oak with a sepele shaft, it weighs 32gms.

 

A Subterranean Woodworks Turkish Spindle made from curly maple with a zebrawood shaft, it weighs 26gms.

 

Another Kevin Rhodes spindle made from burr oak with meranti shaft, it weighs 24gms.

These two are both Ken Ledbetter mini modular spindles. This one is made from maple burl and cocobolo, it weighs 21gms.

And this one is made from walnut and bocote, it weighs 15gms. the three shafts that came with each of them are made from various woods.

Another Subterranean Wookworks Turkish Spindle, also made from curly maple with a zebrawood shaft, it weighs 17gms.

And the last is another Kevin Rhodes that I had in my spindle box from before. It has a spotted gum whorl and weighs 38gms.

So, now that I have spun a little bit of yarn on each of them, and my spinning goal achieved, I can turn to my next project. Happy Spinning! :)

Total Studio Reorganise & Some More Spindles

So my intention of just cleaning up a small section of my studio space ended up being a complete studio clean and reorganise. It always amazes me that I find things that I forgot I had, I guess that means that I might have too much to keep track off, but I still think you can never have too much. It also inspires me all over again and my mind starts racing with ideas.

I manged to fit in a bit of spindle spinning on the cuppa breaks so here are a few more spindles. Seems like I'm doing some serious spindle spinning at the moment. I guess in a way the spindle spinning is like a meditation, and it gives me a chance to think through designs too.

I have been doing a bit on my Katherine Kowalski Russian Support Spindle. It is very different to spinning on the drop spindle, but I think, with a little more perseverance, I am getting the hang of it.

And I have also done a bit of spinning on my large Jason Riley Turkish Spindle, this time using a washed raw fleece that I have been combing out in preparation.

Keep you posted, happy crafting! :)

What to do first?

Another day and I find myself wondering what project I am going to do first. As you will notice on my project list on the side, there are so many that I want to do, I just honestly can't choose!

So instead I go back to what seems to becoming my default craft project at the moment - Spindle Spinning! Because I still have empty spindles and I am just itching to spin something on all of them, as any Spindle Addict will tell you.

The two spindles I chose were both Houndesign Spindles. The first is a Dali's "Lace" spindle, made from fiddlrback maple and weighs 17gms.

The second is a Henry's "Dervish" spindle, made from zebrawood and weighs 42gms. I am spinning some of my leftover handdyed merino tufts on both of them.

I have now spotted a pile of fibers that need sorting and I think I need to do a bit of a tidy of my studio space. I wonder what I will find amongst the piles :)

Happy Crafting! :)

Feeding Firefighters & Spindle Spinning

Sorry for the sudden disappearance. It has been a little hot here, over 40'c Wednesday, Thursday and Friday last week, and as such we have had a few bushfires here in east Victoria. So I have been helping to make salad rolls for the CFA and making cups of coffee and tea. But despite the chaos, during the times we were playing the waiting game I sat and spun to help pass the time.

So I have some more spindles to show you :)

The first, a Hearthwise Dragonfly Spindle, is my second heaviest spindle, weighing 80gms and is made from walnut, purple heart, maple and redwood.

The second is a Tom Forrester Spindle, 47gms, and is made from african mahogany & maple.

My third for this post is one of my favorite Kevin Rhodes Spindles, made from laburnum and meranti and weights 29gms.

I still have plenty of new ones in the box so I will  have more to share with you shortly. Happy Spinning! :)

Spindle Spinning & A Warped Loom

So it took me most of today to get around to warping my loom. And this is the reason why...

Two things were sitting on my table this morning after I took some photo's of the dry tops I solar dyed; A loom waiting to be warped and the container with all my new spindles, waiting and begging to be used.

So the spindles won.

This spindle Would be the largest and heaviest spindle I own, weighing in at a massive 125gms! I found it on my holidays in a little craft shop and was handmade by a local. It is very different to spin in comparison to my lace weight spindles, but at the very least it is making me spin thicker yarn!

I then went from one extreme to the other; from the largest and heaviest to the tiniest and lightest.  

This one is one of the two lightest Drop Spindles I own (at the current point in time). It is a Subterranean Turkish Spindle made from Curly Maple and Sapele, weighing only 15gms. Apart from the fact that I seem to be spinning ridiculously fine on it, it has massive cute factor with being so small.

Despite all the spindle spinning, I now have a warped loom and I have woven the first little section. It isn't much to show (I've spent most of the day spindling!), but it is a start. I wanted to try a few new things with this weaving piece, so will have to come up with a bit of a design.

Anyway, I'm going to go and do some more weaving and spinning. Happy crafting! :)

Domino Knitting - More Squares

Just a quick little post to show you my latest domino knitting project, a purple shawl. I am playing a little with the design and this is just my prototype as I hope to make the final one (for me) out of some of my hand-spun wool.

Seriously, if you haven't tried Domino knitting, then you haven't discovered how easy it is to do knitted piece work without having to sew it all up at the other end!

Happy Knitting! :)

Food Colour & Solar Dyeing

At the last play day at craft group we had a look at using food colours to dye wool fibers. You can use food colour to dye the wool fibers in the normal method of dyeing in a pot on the stove top, but we looked at the more Eco-friendly method of Solar dyeing.

Solar dyeing does take a little bit longer than the stove top method, but it is quick and simple to set up and you can walk away from it while the sun does the work for you. It also uses common house hold items and can give you some interesting results.

If you would like to have a go at solar dyeing at home, you will need the following materials:

• food dye (I have used Queen liquid food colour)
• vinegar (I have used plain white vinegar)
• water
• clean glass jar/s
• measuring cup
• woolen materials to dye with such as:
• washed raw wool (don't use Eucalyptus Oil when washing the fleece)
• combed or carded wool
• wool tops (I have used this in this example)
• pure wool yarn, commercial or handspun
• material (knitted, woven, etc) made from wool 

• or any other natural material that you would like to experiment with, alpaca, silk, etc.

You want around 1 part vinegar to 4 parts water, with about 1 teaspoon of food colour per half cup vinegar. If in doubt, it is better to have more vinegar than less, as it will wash out in the rinse, but it is critical for the dyeing process. You add more food colour for deeper colours and less for pastel colours. 

You can premix the food colour and the vinegar first in the bottom of the jar, if you want a specific colour, or you can just add food colour to the top after adding the dye material, or you can do both. Once you have the food colour, vinegar and dye material in the jar, top up with water until the dye materials have been saturated. Then screw on the lid and place in the sun, somewhere where it wont get knocked.

The solar process is complete when the liquid in the jar has gone clear or is very close to clear. Be careful checking the jar as it can get very hot in the sun. Once the liquid is clear, remove the jar from the sun and empty the contents into a bucket of plain warm water. Carefully rinse the material UNDER the surface of the water and then gently lay out flat to dry.

This is the finished result after being rinsed and left to dry. The finished fiber has some interesting patches of colour through it, both from sitting in the sun and from using multiple dyes in the one jar. I quite like the solar dyeing technique, while it could take a week to dye, is quite an effective Eco-friendly way of dyeing fiber without the use of burning fuel or using electricity. You could also do a jar or multiple jars each day if you wanted to so you had continuious fiber to spin, felt or weave.

Solar dyeing is also something fun you could do with the children at home as it is relatively safe and non-toxic. If you didn't want to use fiber you could use a ball of 100% pure wool yarn, or even experiment with pieces of fabric made from natural fibers to see how the dye effects the fabric.

Happy Dyeing! :)

Spindle Spinning - A Good Start To The Day

So as most of you will know, it is damn hot in Southern Australia at the moment. Despite that, after a restless night sleep spent surfing the internet for ideas, I have done a bit of spindle spinning, knitting and I am about to warp my small loom.

Before it got too hot I managed to rinse out some solar dyeing jars and laid the wet tops out on drying racks in the sun to dry. I will do a post on Solar Dyeing once the tops have dried, which in this heat, probably tomorrow!

So to pass the many hours this morning in not being able to sleep, I pulled out one of my new spindles and started to spin on it. It is a Jason Riley Turkish Spindle made of Sapwood and Hickory and is 22gms. I am currently spinning CamelBunny-Silk on it and loving it!

I showed a photo a while back of my Jenkins Turkish Delight Spindle with some of my hand dyed tops in tones of orange, gold and hot pink. Well I have finished it, plyed it and wrapped into a skein. I am now spinning some hand-dyed Merino Optim on it and I must say that I am loving the results, even if it is fine!

Well I'm off to warp my loom up so I shall keep you posted. Happy Crafting! :)

Time for some serious crafting!

Now that that Christmas madness had been and gone for another year it is time to enjoy the sun, break out the dye pots and get busy designing and crafting! It has been a little hectic but with the beginning of the new year it is time for some serious crafting! 

I do apologise for the long gap between posts, needless to say Christmas is a crazy time of year, not helped by the fact that I wasn't as organised as I normally am. We also decided to go on a holiday, one I was hoping to get some crafting done on it, but again, not as much as I would have liked got done. So I have a bit of catching up to do :) 

Just before Christmas I decided that I didn't have enough drop spindles, as I always wanted to be spinning something different on the few I had. So, as my Christmas present to me, along with some exotic fibers to play with, I purchased around 12 new drop spindles. I love having the extra spindles to be able to spin something different should the need arise :) I will share them as I do some spinning on them.

This spindle is the first of my new spindles that I started to spin on while I was traveling back on the train. It is a Ken Ledbetter mini modula. It is 22.5gms and has a Maple Burl whorl with a Burbinga hook piece. The three different shafts that came with it are made from various woods. I am spinning a blend of Tussah Silk and Merino Wool on it and I am loving the finished singles.

I did manage to do some weaving while I was away on holidays and had a go at making some shoulder bags. I liked the results, even if they were a bit rough, with one more complicated than the other.

I also managed to do some tatting on a new piece I started a while back. I had done the first round and left it at that, unsure if I should continue it. As we drove around a bit, tatting proved to be the ideal project to do in the car, so I expanded on the first row and I am on the way to finishing the third row of rosetts.

I hope you are having fun crafting this holidays :)