Thank you, Australian Sheep

"When in Scotland," free pattern, took less than two weeks to knit up.  Finished size after blocking: 80" x 33"

The wool, again, thank you John, was hand spun from fleeces of sheep that grazed in Australia.  The dyeing was from both natural flowers and acid dyes.

Friend Natalie is knitting her shawl from the natural, undyed colors of the sheep from fleeces John spun:

And this is Dottie's slipper, one she is making.  Again, from John's spun wool:

Julie:

Yesterday was a stressful day as it was an outing with Julie.  Gene and I wheeled her across the street from Mesa Manor and around the hospice campus to the accessible restaurant operated by HopeWest, Spoons Bistro & Bakery, where most proceeds go back to hospice.  Julie seemed to enjoy getting out, eating under an umbrella, and touring the grounds.  It was a pretty day, very hot and sunny, so the climate added to the milieu of the many flowers in bloom. But I failed to take a camera.

After getting Julie back to the nursing home and settled, I arrived home physically and emotionally exhausted.  Julie's social skills and perceptions are not that of the average; crying on both our parts is generally par.  The husband, as usual, was stalwart.  He suggested I read a book on dealing with adolescent autistic people, of which neither category of "adolescent" nor "autistic" exactly fits into her persona.  But there are certain similarities in both aspects of the terms as to how she deals with life.  I will give it a go and do more reading.  Maybe I can better learn how to deal with her when she is around other people in social settings.  My expectations are apparently too great.  Or maybe just unrealistic.

Dyeing with Cosmos Flowers

In 2013, after those delightful, memorable, happy happy summer weeks in Scotland and the Outer Hebrides, I used marigolds to dye white wool from Orkney.  And with good results.

Fast forward to August, 2015.  Again, I have a bumper crop of flowers for dyeing.  But this summer I am using yellow cosmos to see what yellows will result after boiling on John's Australian wool.

Here are the cosmos flowers showing off for the camera in the early morning hours on August 15, just prior to being denuded with scissors:

(on the front porch)

(and this is on ONE volunteer, flowering cosmos plant; note it is trying to overtake the deliberately planted garden squash)

For basic dying principles, refer back to the Polish Granddaughter's post about dyeing with marigolds.  I substituted half cosmos and half marigold flowers, simmering for an hour to achieve this color in the dye pot.

Yellow yarn on the right, derived from cosmos and marigold dye, a bottle of yellow food coloring and half a bottle of citron acid dye. That wool resisted taking on a yellow hue, to say the least.  It is a wonder it did not felt amidst the process of all that stove top simmering.

This is the When In Scotland garter shawl.  It needs more of the lighter color green alternated with the lime green, then ending with the yellow cosmos colored wool. Figuring there is no rush on finishing the knitting (it is to be 97 degrees F today), I will add the new yellow for the last bold stripe, then finish with the teal color. 


On the Julie front, she is encountering a few more medical issues. Nothing is insurmountable, in her mind, for achieving independence in her own apartment in 2016.  We manicure her nails thrice weekly, play Word Chums and Words With Friends night and day via our iPads, and lunch together daily outside at the gazebo at Mesa Manor Rehab and Nursing Home. We also play a card game or two if she can tear herself away from the computer word games.

The husband does his part and brings the dogs to Julie for a pet at least twice a week. Julie has a remarkable and resilient spirit and has continually taught me about the universality of love.  Her birthday approaches in early September, and her abiding life cannot help but be inspirational despite her obstacles.

Bark if You Love Julie!

Dyeing Tencel Fabric

Apparently acid fabric dyes are not the best to use as a dye for synthetic fabrics like Tencel, according to several searches.  Acid dyes are taken up best by natural protein fibres like silk or feathers or wool. What most dyers use on synthetic fibres is a product called Procion MX.  But what I had on hand was my trusty Jacquards.  No worries, I plunged ahead using Jacquard acid dyes.  What was the worst that could happen?  Obviously I thought it was worth the risk.  The kitchen wouldn't blow up, right?

This link will lead you to a natural dyer of cotton and linen scarves, all with edges left unraveling for that couture effect.  She is French and sells her scarves for a dear price.  And they are pretty.  Go have a look.

Taking inspiration from her naturally dyed scarves, I played with a few colors on Tencel yesterday with interesting results.  Each scarf was dyed with three different compatible colors and set with steam (2 hours steaming in rice steamer), then dried and pressed.  Here are two pictures of the peachy tones and the greenish teal hues.

My husband was unimpressed and said I should hem the edges of the scarves.  What does he know.  He would not wear a scarf beautifully draped around his neck at any cost.

On to other things. I ordered a new scanner yesterday and am supposed to get it tomorrow.  The intention is to scan all the photos in all the albums collecting dust in the closet.  Once scanned, I will upload them to the heavens and see if Google asks for money for all that storage space. We shall see.  I started this scanning process a few days ago, and is it ever slow on the old clunker.  Maybe the new scanner will be miraculous and save loads of time.

Let's Do This Again

Since last week's dyeing concoction did not go so well (previous post), a few corrections to the marigold dyeing process were made yesterday with very differing results.  New process was to

• cut off flower heads (check)
• simmer flower heads in 1/2 gallon of water for an hour (check)
• strain flower water, discarding the flowers and retaining the water for day (again, did that last week)
• mordant the wool in 1/2 tsp. alum and 1/2 gallon of water for one hour over simmer (different than last time as I used vinegar for the mordant)
• place wool skeins into the dye bath and simmer for one hour (same as last week)
• over-dye that ugly skein from the first dye bath last week by re-dyeing it in this week's concoction (check, but with rapidly beating heart)
• retrieve wool from dye bath and rinse under cool water several times to remove dye left over in fiber
• enjoy the scent of the marigold water and marvel at the color of the golden dye bath water
• delight in the resulting pretty colors (different from last week)

Here are the results, with plenty of seeds saved for next year's garden:

The skein on the right was the prior seaweed color.  Now it is a deep golden.  The wool on the left is a pretty and bright yellow, having started out as a virgin white wool.

Another picture of the bright yellow wool:

Yea! I am happy, happy, happy!

This will be used to knit a Fair Isle tam, using one of the patterns used by the Scottish women in the knitting guild whose pretty hats are shown below.

Thanks to the commenters last week who said to look for alum in the spice aisle. I HAD looked in our largest local grocery chain in our town and could not find it, but then went to the local Safeway and BEHOLD! There it was. Thanks for nudging me to look for it again!

Ronaldsay Wool and Dyeing with Marigolds

Wool from Ronaldsay in the Shetland Islands is unique.  The sheep there eat seaweed!

 Our friend Wikipedia says...

The North Ronaldsay is a breed of sheep living on North Ronaldsay, the northernmost of the Orkney_Islands, Scotland. They are one survivor of a type of sheep formerly found across the islands of Orkney and Shetland (the other is the Shetland (sheep), belonging to the Northern European short-tailed sheep group of breeds.

They are notable for living almost entirely on seaweed for several months of the year, except for a short lambing season – this is the only forage available to them, as they are confined to the shoreline by a 6 feet dry-stone wall which encloses the whole island. The semi feral flock on North Ronaldsay is confined to the foreshore for most of the year to conserve the limited grazing inland.

The sheep have evolved a somewhat different physiology from other sheep, due to their unusual diet – their digestive system has adapted to extract the sugars in seaweeds more efficiently, and they have an increased susceptibility to toxicity to the trace element copper.  he grazing habits of the sheep have also adapted to their peculiar diet: instead of grazing during the day and ruminating at night as other sheep generally do, the North Ronaldsays graze as the tide reveals the shore (twice in 24 hours), ruminating at high water. The sheep's source of fresh water is limited to the few freshwater lakes and ponds along the seashore.

Eating seaweed, adapting to copper in their diet and drinking pond water must make fleece of the Ronaldsay sheep different in some way.  Just by handling it, I found it difficult to feel or see the difference in wool from this particular breed of sheep on Orkney.  But one thing I did find on Orkney was that retail stores generally stocked only the natural color of wool.  It was obvious I had to buy some of the natural colored wool (posing below with marigold flowers).

This 100% Ronaldsay wool (100 grams) is almost white.

 

I was so happy to bring back natural colored wool and also some pretty dyed Ronaldsay wool, hand dyed by Pam Murray.  You can find her here.

So now I have not only bits of colored Ronaldsay yarn from Pam Murray, but also some white.

But wait, there was no yellow or golden yellow or any other type of yellow Ronaldsay in the color palette. 

So after I came home from Orkney, I decided to dyed some white Ronaldsay wool with marigolds to see what yellow hues came out of the natural flower petals.

Thank you, Polish Granddaughter, and Blue Castle Fiber Arts for good information on dyeing with natural dyes and mordants.

Remember that 100 + gram of natural wool?  Here it is wound up and divvied it into four unequal amounts.  The first two balls shown from left to right are the smaller amounts of wool that I used in dyeing for yellows; hopefully the first larger amount (1 oz.) will result in a darker yellow and the smaller ball (.6 oz) will result in a lighter shade of yellow.

Here are the flowers, which were then slowly boiled for one hr.

The white wool, that one ounce shown above, was lightly skeined and tied at intervals to keep it together while being dyed.  It had previously been submerged into hot vinegar water.  That was the mordanting process (mordant: to assist in accepting color,  meaning that the dye will "bite" into the fiber and hold on).  Then it was submerged into the marigold tea and again simmered on the stove for another hour.

After soaking overnight, this ugly color resulted:

 

Kinda brown, kinda puke color.

 

But I will NOT be defeated.  Friend Natalie says I can have some of her marigolds.  This time, I will go to the medical supply place and buy alum for the mordant instead of using vinegar.  Then the process will begin again. Sigh.

 

Hint to the wise: unlike what the internet told me, alum in not available at pharmacies.  At least, not at the new Walgreen's in our fair city.  The nice pharmacist said it was not used anymore (for what purposes it is used beyond dying is beyond me), so Walgreen's does not stock alum.

Stay tuned for more of "AS THE WOOL TURNS COLOR", maybe tomorrow?

Linking with Tami at Works in Progress Wednesday.  Go visit some other people who can actually SHOW you something pretty!