Ready to Dye

I volunteered to do a presentation on Natural Dyeing for the Master Gardener Volunteers in Richland County, Ohio on September 11. 

I have been spending a lot of time preparing for it.  In addition to creating a PowerPoint presentation with lots of photos of dye plants, I have been re-reading all my books on the topic of Natural Dyeing. Of course I have to demonstrate my experience as well (no one is as authoritative as someone who has actually done the thing.)  And I have been scouting my neighborhood fields and parks for dye plants. 

So I have been actually doing the natural dyeing as well.  

From left to right:

Crabpple bark, false indigo, Ironweed, Ironweed, Ironweed, Ironweed, and Horseweed.  The Ironweed dye bath had so much pigment that I was able to use it four times, getting a different result each time with different mordants and modifiers.  

I am in love with the color of the crabapple bark.  

I have gotten out some naturally-dyed yarn I have dyed in the past.  Clockwise from top left - Dandelion root,  goldenrod, dandelion root again,  black walnut, and pokeweed. 

I have previously blogged about these dye experiences, so I was able to retrieve the dates and processes used.  

I decided to start a new journal of my natural dyeing experiences.  I had an empty journal from the "Good Vibes Yarn Tour" that I hadn't used yet, so I dedicated it to the purpose.   By using a paper punch to punch holes in the page, I can tie a small sample of the yarn showing the color produced. 

I did one more dyepost today from the sumac fruits and leaves I had collected at the farm.  It yielded the taupe color at the bottom of the photo, not the reddish brown I was expecting.  I am struck by how well all these colors from nature complement each other.  

I've currently got a white linen top bathing in the sumac dyebath exhaust,  and I am cooking some Lady's thumb (Polygonum persicarium) weeds from my garden.  It is a member of the buckwheat family, related to both Japanese knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum), an especially invasive shrub, and Japanese indigo Persicaria tinctoria .  None of my books about natural dyeing mention that this weed would yield a successful dye.   But I am hopeful! 

Michigan Fiber Festival

 Last week was the Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan, Michigan.  I have attended this for several years as a volunteer, demonstrating my circular sock knitting machine.  This year, I only signed up for Sunday.   

We got to the farm on Thursday night.  I drove to the festival Friday, and stopped by and chatted with Clara at the Heritage Spinning and Weaving booth.  She pointed out the Knit Michigan booth in the next building.  Knit Michigan is a charity to offer comfort items like quilts to persons who are fighting cancer.  They had a bunch of bins of donated yarn, and they were giving it away to those who made a donation to Knit Michigan.  I found some Paton's Classic Wool in a brown color, as well as a cone of turquoise acrylic.  I stopped and took a photo of these lovely black-eyed Susans.  Are they Rudbeckia, or some other yellow flower?   

I stopped by to chat with my fellow MICHIGAN GEARS friends.  They are makers of Georgeous, Easy Amazing Rapid Socks, with their circular sock machines.

   On the way, I stopped by Carol Leigh's booth.  She had a display of naturally dyed sock looper kits.  The sock loopers are the loops that children use to weave potholders on small looms.  I was awestruck by the way she included colors showing the different hues attained by one dye bath, but by using different mordants and modifiers to vary the colors.  It wasn't really in my budget, so I passed it by, although I relented on Saturday and purchased a few kits anyway. 

  I did find some bargain yarn to purchase, in the Dances with Wool co-op's booth.  Skeins of handspun, including alpaca and mohair blends, for only $5 each!  Since I got home I am knitting a shawl with my purchases. 

The yarns range from worsted to bulky and I am using a size 9 circular needle.  I've had to change needles twice, as the shawl gets larger.  I'm currently using my old  Boye interchangeable needle set with all the cords linked together.  

On Sunday, I joined the GEARS demonstrators with my Home Profit Master Machine. 

I learned a couple of new things.  I have been hearing Jamie Mayfield talk about the faux Russian join several times, so Nancy was good enough to demonstrate it for me.  Also, she had a child's hat hanging from her stand, it was made on a 72 cylinder by knitting at half-pitch (leaving all the cylinder needles plus the ribber needles in work), then dropping every other cylinder needle stitch to get a much larger stitch size. The adjacent stitches take up the slack when the extra stitches are dropped.  I was able to do a ribbed edge, then change to half pitch and knit a cylinder.  

All-in-all, a very good trip.  

While we were at the farm, I rode my Gator around the trails and filled up some bushel baskets with sumac bracts and goldenrod, which was surprisingly blooming earlier in Michigan than in Ohio.  The flower heads had not yet started to open when we left for Michigan, although I am seeing some now on our return.  I hope to do some natural dyeing when back in Ohio.