Knitting Iris

Lincoln Green

The boys helped me gather Lombardy Poplar catkins for only a few minutes at the local plant nursery before wandering off to find something else to do.  R found a shady spot to put his nose back into The Adventures of Robin Hood and E picked out a 6 pack of violas to bring home.  Here is where I found them, in the shade:

As we drove away, R still reading, he piped up and asked, "Mama, what color is 'Lincoln Green'?"  Well, it isn't 'Lincoln Green', but this is the color that those catkins dyed a ball of Regia Silk sock yarn (a merino/silk blend) mordanted with alum:

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't read about this in Natural Dyes from Northwest Plants, the very first natural dyeing book I purchased when I was living in the Seattle/Tacoma area.  When I first read this book, I had no idea what a poplar tree was, let alone a Lombarday Poplar or what a catkin was.  I had to refer to other books to find all that out.  What I did know was that I somday wanted to get the "Jade Green" as the book stated it would, even if it also rated the fastness of this color as "Poor."  In town last week, I noticed the purple catkins carpeting the bank parking lot next to a row of tall poplars.  It would have been easy gathering there but it's FAR too public of a place for me to stoop and collect them there.  People don't really need any more excuses to think I'm a little odd.  ;)  Instead, I found a more secluded spot at the plant nursery where I used to work, where one of my closest friends works now, and where one of the owners of the nursery is the high school art teacher and has done some natural dyeing herself, going so far as to bring dried hibiscus flowers back from a trip to Mexico for me to try using for dyeing.

I still can hardly believe it!  Those purple catkins that made a deep brownish-purplish dyebath dyed that color green!  So, I extracted even more color out of the catkins and added that in to strengthen the dyebath.  The only problem was that I didn't have any more yarn to dye.  6 days later when more arrived in the mail, I quickly mordanted a batch, put a skein of merino laceweight yarn in the dyebath, and came up with this:

Hmmm.  It's actually duller than this picture shows.  Blah beige.  Oh well.  The best thing about blah beige is that it can easily be overdyed.

There's a certain amount of magic involved in dyeing, and chemistry, too, I suppose, but I wouldn't know anything about that.  Aside from Calculus 101 in college, high school Chemistry is the only other class I ever dropped out of.   Apparently there are some limits to what my brain can grasp.  Why didn't I get the same green as before?  I have some ideas but really I don't know and don't really care to know the "real", scientific reason.  It's the unknown, the suspense, the excitement, the "what will this look like when I pull it back out of the dyepot?", the magic, the mystery, that keeps my interest, keeps me trying and experimenting with new plants or retrying old ones, sometimes in new ways.  The catkins are too far gone this year to try another batch, but there's always next year.  Maybe then I can figure out what happened here.

Lincoln Green, the color of the clothing worn by Robin Hood and his merry band was "first dyed blue with woad and then overdyed yellow with either weld or dyers' greenweed." 

Madge, Your Soaking In It or, The Makings of A Mehndi Artist or Two or Three.

7-8 years ago:  bought the book at the local bookstore with the best of intentions. 

February 2007: planned on making this a Valentine's week project.  After re-reading the book, decided, rather than gather all the supplies myself and attempt one of the multiple "recipes" in the book, to go ahead and order the kit recommended in the book.  Well worth it, I'd say, and nicely packaged.  Unfortunately I didn't order it in time for it to get here in time for Valentines' Day.  If you live near Seattle, you could pick one up yourself at Earthhues in Ballard.  I stopped in there years ago before they were open to the public for retail sales and it was an inspiring place to visit (and it's right down the street from Clover Toys!).  They also sell natural dye kits and individual concentrated dye extract powders.  I've never used any of those but know that they are very high quality and probably quite easy to use.    

This weekend:  Friday potluck at our place.  Saturday a parade, "gold digging" at the bank, and music in the park in town and an evening at the reclaimed lumber yard.  Sunday how about a relaxing day at home relaxing finally doing mendhi?  Despite the simplification of the process that the kit allows, the preparation still took some time, as it should, I suppose.  I did that part on Friday afternoon. 

Once we got over our "blank slate" hesitations and started painting, it was difficult to stop.  Now I can understand the tattoo addiction, though I'm not inclined towards a real one.  After doing a small medallion on each of the boys, R started in on himself and then went to work on his brother and his cousin.   E:  "Make it look like fake blood on my knee!"   Then, he dove in himself.  We eventually had to put a stop to it or they/we'd be covered. 

The results were a little, um, "rustic" this first time.  The boys weren't the only ones unable to sit still long enough to prevent the henna from running together or flaking off before the recommended several hours were up.  We'll be doing this again sometime.  The kit comes with enough henna to do three batches and one was far more than enough for C, his sister, our nephew, our two boys, and myself.  We used maybe a half to two-thirds of the batch.

As for the post title, something about the henna preparations, with the pot of tea and cloves boiling down on the stove, and the little bowls of henna paste and sugared lemon juice, not to mention skeins of wool soaking in the bathtub and pot after pot of dyeing and mordanting yarn and woolens on the stove these days (more on that soon) it just feels that, lately, like Madge, I'm "soaking in it."  I know, it's a stretch, but check out the video.  It's a blast from the past! 

Pretty In Pink Socks

Pattern:  Openwork Rib from Sensational Knitted Socks.  Not really my style, but it seemed that it would fit the coloring of the yarn:  Knitpicks Bare Merino fingering weight, dyed with cochineal.  Amazing how dried up bugs and some formerly greasy and grubby sheep's wool can become something so lacy, pink, and pretty.

The only other pink and green I could find around here are the first leaves of a ruffly pink blossomed columbine coming up right outside the front door and a few patches of grass that are starting to green up nicely.

Cleansed. Well, clean-ish, anyways.

Since several people have asked for more views of our house, well, come inside, the house is clean-ish, at least for the moment.   C took the boys with him running work errands all day yesterday giving me the time and headspace to go to work in earnest on the house.   Every inch of the birchwood floors, although well-worn in the past 7 years, are clean and scrubbed: a bucket of water, vinegar, a few drops of essential oil (lavender, lemon, or when someone is ill, tee tree), and a few old diapers seems to work best.   There was a whole lot of putting away of things before the floors could even be tackled.   Just don't peek behind anything where I stashed a few stacks of books and things for the pictures.

Sorry the pictures are so dark.  It's really not this dreary looking in person, even on a cloudy day like this.  For natural light, most of the windows on the house are south and west facing with only two small windows facing north. Now you can see why most of my pictures are taken outside.  I suspect that all the warm wood colors "suck" the light out of pictures.  We rarely need lights on during the day and usually not at all during the summertime when it's light until nearly 11 pm.  We lived here with only oil lanterns and candles for the first year, followed by a couple of years with only a few solar powered electric lights. 

What you see here is the space we live in most of the time.  This is the view from the top of the steps at the front door.  The floor is 2 feet below grade which keeps it both warmer in the winter and cooler in the summertime.  After you come through the entryway/mudroom, through the front door, and down a few steps then, on the right, is the door to the pantry which is another couple of steps down, followed by the bathroom door, coat and shoe storage, stairs up to the boys bedrooms, and then built in bookshelves and cabinetry for toys, books, stereo, etc.  Straight ahead behind the curtain is our bedroom where the TV and computers are as well.  On the left is the kitchen, followed by the dining table, couch, and woodstove.

The intention is to someday build onto the north (right, from this view) side of the house where our bedroom, another bathroom, and laundry room would go.  The couch would move into what is now our bedroom leaving more room to pull the dining table out from the other side of the kitchen divider wall.  There is talk of a possible screened in porch and/or a cupola room to capture views of the stars and mountains to the north and east from inside in the wintertime.  Sometimes the dreaming of the possibilities is better than actually having it.

The kitchen itself is slated (sooner than later) for a dishwasher, a bigger fridge, concrete countertops, and the dividing wall between the kitchen and dining area will be brought down to the same height as the rest of the counters, opening things up.  This is what C does.  It's just a matter of finding the time.

The house is by no means finished.  Most of the trimwork isn't done and there are no interior doors and, by living here for over 7 years, we've come to decide that, aside from a bathroom door, we really don't need them.  When C isn't working, he'd prefer to have time with the family rather than be working on the house.  There will be plenty of time to finish things, and do it well rather than rushed, when the boys are grown and busy with their own lives.  Hey, the cabinet maker's children actually have cabinets, and beautiful ones, at that.

Sometimes this seems like plenty of room and even quite extravagant.  Most of the time, when toys and crafts, stacks of books, piles of laundry, and dirty or drying dishes cover most flat surfaces, including the floor, it can seem cramped and insufficient. Sometimes the addition seems necessary.  Other times, it seems like it will just be more space to gather dust that will need cleaning, space that we won't need when the boys are grown, which really isn't all that far away.  It's when we have visitors that the house really feels cramped, at least to me.

More scenes from my day alone:

A little knitting (Lolly knows what this is!), a clean dinner table with crafts from this past week.  Simmy's felt dandelions.  And, our toaster.  We don't have one.  We use the woodstove.  It's a bit tricky getting the timing right.  You have to watch pretty closely when the fire is really roaring to keep things from burning and when it's not very hot it takes forever to toast at all.  Sometimes, as you can see, butter and honey is dripped and gets baked onto the stove.  As I see it, the only real problem with this is the seasonal nature of it.  We still need a fire going right now, but have the door open during the day for fresh air, so "toast season" is soon coming to an end, at least for a few months.  Aside from heating the house and toasting, the stove serves as a warmer for a tea pot or french press, as well, or even just a cup of coffee or tea itself gets plopped on top for keeping warm.

I'm surprised at how easy it has been to slip right out of the blogging habit this past week.  With a clean-ish house and a cleansed body after a sauna with friends last night, I think I'm ready to be back, though, with plenty to share again.

Studying

It's been dreary outside so this was the clearest picture I could get (maybe a "small and silver" would help?)  I've been inside  re-reading and studying this stack of books.  If only this could have been the required reading in school, it would have been much more enjoyable.

I know.  I said I'd be cleaning, but this was on the secret agendafor the week, too, along with updating and uploading to my Flickr pages.  Must go mop the floor now.

Finding Inspiration

1. Close-up of yarns of naturally dyed wool, 2. Plantefarvet garn/ natural dyes, 3. Logwood 1st exhaust, 4. Natural Yarns, 5. Natural dye, 6. greenmarket yarn, 7. norwegianyarn, 8. teotitlan del valle, 9. Dye Pots, 10. The natural dyed hand spun yarn ready for Lindy to weave into a masterpiece., 11. A selection of natural dyes on cotton reels, 12. Natural dyes, 13. Untitled, 14. Itsevärjätyt langat, 15. Natural cotton dyes, 16. Our EGGS!, 17. natural dyes, 18. Some of the colors of the natural dyes, 19. Yarns, 20. Tannery at Fez - all natural dyes, 21. Untitled, 22. natural dyes, 23. natural indigo dyes, 24. Dyed One-Balls, 25. Weaving project 2 Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

Oh.  Right.  I'm off to fold laundry... and dream.

Finally, a beginning.

The one and only crocus just happened to pop up next to the one and only mushroom in the garden bed. :)

Oh dear, I just went here and, fortunately, quickly escaped.  Phew!  That was dangerous.

Spring Clean Up

Rarely is our world this clean and orderly, devoid of a crazy mix of little toys, tools, books, bread crumbs, and projects, both mine and the boys.  I'm needing to see more scenes like the above.  Fall cleaning is usually more my thing, before "the gathering in," except this year, I'm feeling the urge to do some spring cleaning.  A house is for living in, not just for looking at (Who was it that said that again?  Frank Lloyd Wright?) but it's ridiculous how out of hand things have gotten this winter.  The house needs an overhaul and I need some time to gather my scattered thoughts.    As Amanda and others have done, it's time for about a week break of just a picture (or two) a day around here.  See you tomorrow and the next day and...   

Needle Roll Ups

It's finally time to get around to showing these that I made two or three years ago, preblog, to organize needles.  The fabric is barkcloth from a set of thrifted curtains that were made mostly from the leafy pattern with a wide border on one side of each panel in the chartreuse yellow.  It was one of those thrift SCORE moments.  I know I didn't pay much for them.  It's almost a shame that this fabric spends most of it's life rolled up unseen but there's still a fair amount of it leftover for another project some day, maybe a matching crochet hook holder.  It's always a pleasure to unroll and roll them up and see the fabric again: good incentive to stay organized. 

The straight, single points almost never get used although all those different shades of shiny aluminum and plastic are always pretty to look at, whether jumbled in a vase like some do, or all lined up neatly like this.  The only pair of single point needles I really ever use are my favorite ones (I know I've rambled on about these before), the bent pair of #2 aluminum ones on the left there, the same chartreuse as the fabric.  After all the baby sweaters they've been used for making, and the little incident with the car door that left them bent but still usable, I now find myself oddly attached to those needles.

The pattern I sort-of followed in the making of the roll ups, not the hanging cable needle holder, was torn from an old issue of ME Home Companion but I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Excuses, excuses

Reason #1 for not much blogging lately:  the arrival of 4 skeins of KnitPicks Gloss in the colorway Cocoa for Clessidra kneehighs.   These are going to be a loooooong term project.  It would be nice to have them done for fall wearing, maybe even to show at the county fair in August as there are going to be some new entry categories this year, including one specifically for knitted socks.  Claudia was right: this yarn is pretty darn close to the color of a Hershey's bar.  Check out the sweater she's making in this same yarn and colorway.  Nothing like getting to/having to eat mediocre chocolate in the name of blogging and science.  Another excuse, really.

5 more excuses for not blogging:  Light grey Picovoli in Dale Svale.  Ariann in heathered spruce Galway Highland Heather.  EZ baby sweater in KnitPicks Merino Style in Vanilla.  Pink socks in a lacy-ish pattern.   The edging of this dress in green that I offered to help someone knit for one of her bridesmaids.  Not sure what I got myself in for there.  A challenge, certainly.    So, this is what you'd call startitis?

What a hodge podge.  All but the Picovoli require somewhere between a fair amount of and my entire attention so there is no computer time while working on them.  Butterfly can only be worked upon in the quiet after everyone else is in bed.  I can't quite say how I got in this deep but even the drawer they're sitting in is part of the WIP pile.   It needs squaring up and glueing back together.  That makes excuse #7 for not blogging.  And then there's the day spent painting the inside of a garage this weekend, and the dyeing I've been doing, and reading, and schooling, and the all the rest of the usual stuff of life... 

The baby sweater and the pink socks are nearly finished.  Actually, it's been quite a nice short break from daily posting.