This is just a short post to say that I’m pleased with my stash of linen yarns. Here they are:
The pink colors at the top come from madder roots, and also the little orange skein on the left. The browns are from black walnut. The light orange in the center is from orange cosmos. The blues are from woad. The greens are from weld with woad on top. The yellows are from weld. This modest-sized basket represents a ton of work, and I am very satisfied!
Weld is a biennial. The Latin name for weld is Reseda luteola. Luteolin is the molecule in weld that makes yellow. A plant that is a biennial typically lives for two years, and only flowers and sets seed in the second year. These weld plants were planted this spring, but as of July 18th several of them have already sent up tall stalks. They look suspiciously like they are starting to flower. This does happen sometimes, but it is still a little puzzling to me.
Below is a view of the weld bed with all the tall plants.
After I wrote about our gloriously low-humidity weather, which provided the perfect climate for dressing flax, I realized I had not included any photos. Here are some illustrations of my modified “hardware store tools” technique, including a new innovation since last time I posted about using this method.
The hardware store tools that I use are a paintbrush cleaning tool, a 3-inch-wide joint compound knife, a wooden cutting board, and a flick carder designed for wool. And a dust mask. And gloves. The gloves are new, but my hands have been a lot more sensitive this summer.
I’ve been dressing largely under-retted flax which has already been broken with a flax brake. The bundles I made to dry and ret the flax are too large to handle all at once using this method, so I separate them into thirds or even fourths. The reason I think the flax is under-retted is that the cuticle, or skin, of the stalk is really hard to get off, and the fibers stick together in ribbons. The lighter colored, papery-looking pieces below are the cuticle.
I wrote earlier this year that I wanted to add Amsonia tabernaemontana and Asclepias incarnata to my fiber and dye plant garden at Bramble Hill Farm. They are both bast fiber plants native to North America. Bast fibers are found in the stems of a plant (rather than around the seeds, like cotton, for example). I was introduced to the fiber potential of amsonia by fellow flax and linen study group member, Carolyn Wetzel, who brought some gorgeous, creamy-colored fibers to a meeting one night. A. incarnata was the “mystery cordage plant” from my sister’s parking lot that she helped me identify in 2012. I have finally managed to acquire both plants! Continue reading “Asclepias incarnata and Amsonia tabernaemontana”
We are being visited by some gloriously cool, dry weather here in Amherst. The humidity has been relatively low for the past several days, so I’ve taken the opportunity to chip away at processing (otherwise known as “dressing”) my enormous back-log of flax.
I’ve been growing flax since 2004, and I’ve grown some every summer since then (except for one year). I have yet to spin any of my own fiber, mind you, let alone weave it. Very slow cloth. After all this time, the part of the process I still find the most difficult is retting. Continue reading “Low Humidity is Good for Dressing Flax”
Due to one thing and another, I am not growing a lot of woad this year. I’m a little bit sad about it, but there it is. Nonetheless, I ran my first woad vat of the summer on Friday August 8th and had some interesting results. In the morning I picked 3 and a half pounds of leaves, which I did not expect to make a very strong vat.
Some blue color appeared in the stems as I ripped up the leaves, which was a good sign.
I discovered something interesting about marigolds at Mass. Sheep and Wool. In a nutshell, an acidic dyebath yielded olive green whereas an alkaline dyebath yielded yellow.
Here’s how I found out. I made the marigold dyebath during the demonstration on Saturday May 24th. Here’s a photo of the marigolds in the dyebath:
Continue reading “Marigolds at the Massachusetts Sheep and Woolcraft Fair”
Well, today turned out to be a gorgeous day with just a couple showers. No thunderstorms or hail, thank goodness! In this post I’m just going to follow up on the St-John’s-wort dyebath, and show some photos of my set-up in the pavilion at the Cummington Fairgrounds.
First, here are some of the samples I brought to show. In the basket on the left are yarns that are dyed with plants you have to grow or purchase, and which don’t grow wild around here. These include madder, orange cosmos, weld, purple basil, Lady’s bedstraw, and marigolds. In the basket on the right are yarns that are dyed with a woad vat to make blue or green (woad-blue on top of yarns previously dyed yellow). The pinkish colors are from exhausted woad leaves, second year leaves, and my sole attempt at a urine vat.
Below is a basket full of colors that can be obtained from wild plants and umbilicate lichen. Wild plants represented here include yarrow, Queen Anne’s lace, goldenrod, tansy, wild mustard, yellow sorrel, sheep’s sorrel, black walnut, St-John’s-wort flowers, poke berries, purple loosestrife, and northern bedstraw. All the pinks are from umbilicate lichen vats.
This weekend, May 24th and 25th, is the 40th annual Massachusetts Sheep and Woolcraft Fair at the Cummington Fairgrounds. I am doing natural dyeing demonstrations again this year. I was there from 2-4 yesterday and will be there from 1-3 today. Yesterday’s weather was lovely for most of the day and I had a large crowd. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to watch and listen and ask questions! We had a brief heavy afternoon rainstorm but it cleared up after about half an hour. Today is supposed to be warmer with a slight chance of heavy rain and hail. Well, let’s hope for the best.
To prepare for the demo, on Friday night I made a dyebath with 12 ounces of dried whole tops of St.-John’s-wort from last fall. I cut the tops back after the flowers had gone by, and the dried stems and leaves had turned an amazing red color. I’ve used St.-John’s-wort flowers before, and the whole tops in bloom, but never just the dried tops alone. So, it is an experiment.
Here’s what St.-John’s-wort looks like in bloom.
Continue reading “Massachusetts Sheep and Woolcraft Fair 2014”
Over the past few weeks in my class at school, we have been making black walnut ink. It is one of the craft and science projects we’re doing as part of our study of Colonial New England. We plan to use the ink to write with quill pens in pamphlet-stitch-bound “copy books” to scribe historical aphorisms such as “Mind your book,” “Strive to learn,” “Call no ill names,” and “Cheat not in your play”. Yes, OK, these are pretty moralistic, but speaking as a primary school teacher, I actually think they are still pertinent to a 21st century classroom in a progressive independent school.
To make the ink we are using the highly composted/aged/fermented contents of a 5 gallon bucket of black walnut hulls in water, which dates back not just one but TWO Autumns ago (i.e., Autumn 2012). Fresh walnut hulls are fragrant, even perfume-like. Mine, as it turned out, had become manure-like. Continue reading “Black Walnut Ink”
