Off to Harrietville

If you haven't been away on a weekend with people who share your passion then I highly recommend it. Harrietville is just such a weekend with friends, old and new, organised by the Handweavers and Spinners Guild of Victoria. From Friday night to Sunday lunch, it's wall to wall spinners, weavers, knitters and interested friends.

The weekend goes so quickly, so being prepared is a must! There are a number of workshops, all of the, 'drop in and out when you feel like it' type over the whole weekend. Last year I didn't do anything but sit, knit, spin and drink coffee! This year there are two workshops that are of interest: Historical dyeing and a Blending workshop using wool combs. I think I am prepared....

I have alum mordanted skeins for the historical dyeing. We're going to be doing indigo, madder and osage orange. I never miss an indigo dyebath if I can help it and I've never dyed with either Aliziran for the madder or osage orange. Hopefully, I'll have an opportunity to overdye some as the different dyes will be spread over three sessions.

The blending using wool combs will help me get better use out of my small combs and maybe I'll be tempted into some larger ones. I've decided to take away a bag of red and see what happens.

And finally, I have to try and finish the spinning on the wheel, so I have a bobbin ready for the colour blending.

Oh, and, of course, I have to pack clothes, camera, the rest of my spinning gear and try not to forget the toilet bag! As I'm being picked up very early in the morning, it will all be done before I go to bed......I just don't know when I'm going to bed!

The saga of the red onion skins continues

Wednesdays is drawing day. All morning I stand and draw. The standing is hard (my back doesn't appreciate the continuous upright and still position. It would be alright if I was walking, but walking and sketching at the same time.......) however, drawing is wonderful. My teacher, Peter, is terrific, if somewhat manic and I've learnt so much even in this short time.

Today was hatching, which is a way of getting tone into a drawing. The setup involved a jacket on a dummy (well, light stand to be perfectly correct) against a window which gave strong tonal contrasts.

Using a felt tip pen, so no errors could be erased, I managed to do a reasonable drawing, learning alot about observation of light, medium and dark tones and learning to start as lightly as possible and building up the drawing. I do tend to be heavy handed which can at times result in very dark drawings.

More practice.

Anyway, this week I also managed to include some more red onion skin dyeing. I've seen a lime green obtained but up to now have failed to obtain anything approaching it. Until now. I used an alum mordant and then put in the red onion skins.

I dyed the silk first and then the wool. For the sake of saving water, I mordanted the silk first then put in onion skins in the same bath and returned the silk. The wool was dyed, in the same water, where I added more red onion skins and alum at the same time. Seemed quite successful to me.

And magically, here is the result. I am very happy, they are beautiful colours.

The interesting thing is the silk dyed so differently than the wool and the variation between the different skeins of wool was also very interesting.

I am going to do one more dye run. I have an approximately 200gm skein, which I will dye and probably put up for sale. These will go into scarves and fingerless mittens.

I'm not sure what I'll do next: brown onion skins or rosemary. What a lovely dilemma to have.

Dyeing with Rosemary and Onion Skins

The 9"x5" Market is on again, this Sunday and I'm busy trying to make some silk scarves. A more luxurious item, that can, hopefully translate into either Summer scarves or Christmas presents.

As part of this project, I've tried some natural dyeing. The usual dyeing process involving Landscape dyes.

The first one I tried was with Rosemary. At first it was a bit disappointing and unfortunately difficult to photograph. The colour is a soft golden almost, but not quite, green. The colour you're supposed to achieve with Rosemary is a green. However, upon further reading of India Flint's 'Eco colour' I figure I should have harvested and chopped up the leaves, off the branches I trimmed, instead of just chucking in the whole lot as they came off the bush. I will try that next time.

The next dye I was really keen to use was Onion Skins. I have dyed with this at the Plant Craft Cottage in the Botanical Gardens and loved the colour this humble plant material provided. My local green grocer, generously provided me with a bag of onion skins. (It would have taken me months to collect a bagful!)

I wasn't disappointed. This beautiful, I don't want to say 'brown' as it doesn't convey the colour, Autumn leaf colour will knit into a beautiful scarf.

The process of dyeing is simple. I chose to use a more gentle method as suggested by India Flint, of bringing the dye material to a boil and then letting the pot brew. This worked very well with both materials and when I finally added the yarn as well. I simply bought the dyepot to the heat and then let it sit.

As these scarves are made from yarn which is both wool and silk, it is interesting how well the silk takes up the dye, to the detriment of the wool. To get a strong colour on the wool, I'm going to have to dye it separately. The natural dyes are noticeable, but the commercial red dye I used, really shows the difference.

There's so much to try.