What did I finish this week?

I've decided that I'm going to document the articles that I finish each week.....just in case you're interested in anything. Most will end up in my Etsy shop, but not always. I often don't put things on for a variety of reasons: the main being time, however, photographs are often the reason. If I don't feel that I've managed to give a good indication of colour, texture or form, I'll leave them to my market stall, so people can see them for real. Occasionally, I have articles that I need people to feel or try on because they're a bit odd!


So here they are for this week:




Red Onion with Alum mordant dyed silk scarf with folds



2 skeins of chocolate centres yarn (100gm and 90gm)

Purple fingerless mittens with bobbles down the edge of the buttons. (sold)

Doesn't feel like alot of stuff, but there is a pile of fingerless mittens still to put buttons on and more chocolate fleece to spin!

So, if you're interested in anything, don't hesitate to contact me: tsbtextile@yahoo.com.au

Silk scarves

Here are the three scarves I've made in the last couple of days. The red (Landscape 'Crab Apple') is actually a short row knit giving lovely curves, rosemary is a long scarf, knit diagonally (decrease one side, increase the other) and the onion skins is knit lengthwise with a stitch called 'Daisy Chain' (courtesy Vogue Knitting 'Stitchionary' Volume one) down the centre.

Off to Incube8tr this afternoon. More spinning!

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.