Further Adventures in Natural Dyeing

So I havent had much chance to do dyeing for the past couple of weeks. This past weekend I went to a reenactment event where I met up with some dyeing friends from Rafnheim who dyed a beautiful array of colours.

So I was itching to get back to some dyeing and yesterday I put aside half a day and played with some new colours.

First I wanted to play with some of my flowers, so I soaked some marigold.

The first colours I got were a nice sunny yellow.

I read adding iron would make green.

So I added iron. I didn’t quite get green, so for the last skein I added a hint of gardenia blue. The results below.

From left to right, the skein with a hint of gardenia blue, marigold with iron (three skeins) and just marrigold.

When I bought these inside today the middle ones did look a bit more greenish.

With the fustic I found I had to leave the skeins in the iron overnight to get the green to develop, so maybe I’ll have to try that next time.

Meanwhile, did you notice that purple in the earlier photo? I know, right?

While not a new dye to me, I bought some different cochineal from a different supplier. I ordered it from America and this came in bug form that I ground. I dyed one skein and I got this beautiful deep purple.

This second photo is a little brighter than it is in real life, the other photos are more colour accurate on my monitor.

Then I had still colour in the dye bath, so I kep going, and so did the cochineal!

I dyed three more skeins in varying shades of pink. I then dyed another skein! But there was so little cochineal left I added a smidge of my powdered extract and a small amount of cream of tater.

I got the very bright colour to the left. Te middle is another marigold with gardenia (I dyed two, only one is in the above photo).

I tried dyeing with brazilwood. I should have looked up instructions because I just added some to some water and added my yarn. The brazil wood was powdered but all the bits stuck to my yarn, maybe it would be better to have chips and soak then drain? or try to pass the water through a mesh before using to filter the powder out?

But at any rate, I got a couple of pretty colours pictured below, and the one to the far right int he photo above.

Here are all (except three) of my happy colours out on the line.

Now I just need to hope I have time for dyeing next weekend and to decide what colours to do!

 

 

Video Wednesday- A Russian Spinning Lesson

Today I share a video of a lady showing others how to spin. Though I don’t speak Russian and the auto-translated captions aren’t quite up to the mark, I the close-ups of new spinners learning to twirl the spindle are still valuable.

 

Video Wednesday- Singing and Spinning

There is a tradition in (I believe Bulgaria) where spinning and singing are combined. I don’t know anything about it and would like to learn more- i you know please comment!

Video Wednesday- Spinning Wool Grasped

Today I share a video of a traditional spinning technique. This is a type of grasped spinning, also known as ‘rotation in the hand’

Video Wednesday- Processing and Spinning Flax and Wool.

Video Wednesday- Norwegian Crafts

Today I share an old film showing Norwegian crafts. There is weaving, spinning, and other historic crafts you don’t often see in films such as fingerloop braiding and naalbinding.

Of interest is the spinnin technique uses a hook in place of a distaff. It also shows the plying technique which Norman Kennedy speaks about, where the yarn is run through a hook in the ceiling.

Sharing Saturday- a New Convert

So the facebook group on distaff spinning is called The Evangelical Church of Distaff Spinning. It’s not a religious group at all, but has got its name from the fact that when people try and love spinning with a distaff they want to tell everyone about it. Sometimes people will say “I’m a new convert to distaff spinning!”

Today I would like to share a fabulous post by Josefin Waltin:

Learning New Things – Medieval Style Spinning

She has also posted a great youtube video that includes some slow motion segments.

 

She has lots of fantastic (non-medieval) spinning videos and some great blog posts on a variety of spinning and not-spinning topics.

 

Sharing Saturday is where I like to share work by other spinners or living historians. Often I find something I’d like to share, but if you have something you’d like me to share then please let me know If it’s on the internet I’ll like to it, if not I’m happy to post it direct to my blog (with credit).

 

Video Wednesday – Spinning in Italy

Today I share this fantastif video of Luca Costigliolo spinning with a distaff and a suspended spindle. He explains that as the spindle needs to be continiously turned that the drafting is done with only one hand, the left. This keeps the left hand at the distaff and the right hand at the spindle.

Later he talkes about suspended vs grasped spindles. He mentions that his spindle has a bulb on top for holding the half hitch so it should be used as suspended and that spindles with points like that of a great wheel should be used grasped.

Also of interest is the sling around his neck to hold the distaff, rather than relying on having it in the crock of his arm like I do.

Video Wednesday – A Room of Fibre Crafts

Today I bring you a long video showing many different febre crafts. Of interest (ans perhaps an epposode of mythbusting monday) is the lady using a distaff for wool at the spinning wheel. One Myth I often hear is that they only used distaffs for short fibres in the middle ages to make their spinning portable.
While sometimes this lady uses a second hand to assist drafting, most of the time she uses one just as with the spindle method. Norman Kennedy shows this in one of his videos, and he spinds with both hands making two threads at once. Double the thread from one spinner!

Video Wednesday – Suspended Spinning

Today I share a video of a lady spinning from a sit-on distaff with a suspended spindle.