July 15, 2014 · 3:44 pm

Dyes of antiquity: Madder root

Three cheers for dried madder root!

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You may remember that I acquired some through the Guild.  I set out by pouring boiling water over it twice, and draining off the resulting liquid.  This is a strategy which is usually described as a good idea in order to help separate some of the brown and yellow pigments in the root from those which might produce red.  The resulting liquid was very dark brown.  I saved it for later experimentation.  I’ll get back to that!

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Every long term reader of this blog knows I can organise orange dye in a heartbeat, so I was hoping for red from madder.  When seen at the workshop I ran at the Guild, it was looking rather orange.

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However, time is needed.  And gentle heat.  This pot produced some light reds at the Guild. Once again, the cold processed alum, long steeped sample gave the most intense colour. Rhubarb (the two samples on the right hand side), not so much.

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I didn’t think it was done, however, so I took the whole dyebath home.  Happily, no mishaps en route.  Since then, I’ve been happily trying to exhaust this madder. I have overdyed grey corriedale. The fleece took up the dye differently in different parts of the locks (the weathered paler tips most of all).

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I turned it into roving while I kept dyeing…

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When I ran a dye bath with the rinse water… to my surprise it gave a strong red, stronger than the exhaust dyebath by far.  Here it is on the left, with the original dye bath on the right for comparison.

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I also dyed quite a bit of merino roving I happened to have put by, achieving three different shades. And some more grey corriedale… not bad going from madder root that might have been in those jars for decades.

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July 10, 2014 · 7:10 pm

Of shoes, and ships, and sealing-wax. I mean, of silk, and string, and bias binding…

Sometimes you need a lot of Jabberwocky genius to join disparate elements into any kind of intriguing whole.  Or perhaps you just need rhyming couplets. I have neither, but I do have string and bias binding. I blame India Flint for infecting me with her enthusiasm for twining string.  I loved doing it with plant leaves, but it required pre-planning.  String from fabric shreds… you just decide it’s time and get going!

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I have shaggy string from my pyjama-making jag a while back.

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However, Wendi of the Treasure suggested silk string.  And then along came an opportunity to dye silk all kinds of wild colours.  I took up some silk paj that was among my very first Eco-Colour adventures. It took colour then, but not in any really riveting way, and it has been in the cupboard awaiting a new idea for some years.  Wendi’s was the new idea.  When it hit my workshop dye pots, the original onion skin and eucalypt dyed portions created all kinds of interesting effects.

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Thanks to Wendi and India, I now have logwood-dyed string so deep purple it is almost black, madder-dyed orange string, and cochineal pink string.

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But there is more… I have had some ties unpicked, ironed and ready to be made into bias binding for years.  What can I say?  I have been engaged in a task in relation to my day job so mind numbingly dull that I realised the time for bias binding making was upon me, all of a sudden!  The existing collection of tie-bias binding was getting low.

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I now have this…

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And this… so if I am struck by the urge to create garments again soon, I’ll be able to create beguiling interior details in a heartbeat.

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Mercifully, my marking is over, too.

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July 9, 2014 · 9:07 am

Eucalyptus Nicholii

On a public holiday some time back, I had a picnic in the Wittunga botanical gardens with a friend.  It was an overcast day, and my phone was in for repair, so I took my Mum’s old camera.  In case it isn’t obvious, I am apologising for the quality of the photos.   Last time I went there thinking about dye plants was a long time ago.  This time, we parked and almost as soon as I stepped out, I could see that there were trees that could be E Nicholii all around the carpark.  They were indeed E Nicholii and they were many and very large!

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I couldn’t really get a picture that gave a sense of scale.

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These were huge trees with many little leaves.

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Luckily for me, they had dropped twigs and leaves on the ground below…

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And later… into the dye pot they went!

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Lovely–and justly famous as a dye plant, I think.

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July 7, 2014 · 4:46 pm

Spinning, mending and a gift of hand-knit eucalyptus-dyed socks

I keep thinking I’ll get knitting on some big project or other… but I seem to keep spinning instead. Alpaca dyed with eucalyptus keeps happening…

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There has been some random polwarth spinning from batts I prepared some time ago (and full of nepps they are too!) Love that maidenhair fern, a gift from my mother that is really thriving at present.

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There has been dull mending that doesn’t warrant a picture, but I seem to have had a small release from my usual functional approach.  This extremely utilitarian apron must date back almost 20 years… it is that long since I made my living baking and kitchen-handing.  I think I bought it second hand.  It had been discarded because one of the tapes was missing.  I long ago replaced it with some bias binding sewed in half, which I assume was on hand at the time.  It certainly isn’t a match for the other tape!  And the apron itself has had a hole for a very long time.

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Not any more.  I now use it for spinning–to catch all the random fibres and dirt and little bits of dried plant that drop from any fleece I have prepared myself, no matter how many rinses.  I also mended this wool knit on the train one morning, beginning as I waited at the station.  Just a little hole up by the neckline.

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I bought this garment years ago from Soewn Earth.  It has faded quite a bit, but I am still enjoying it… and considering whether it might be time for a re-bundle. First–across (with eucalyptus dyed silk thread)…

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Then in the other direction…

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Maybe later some embroidery for sheer decoration?  And finally, some socks for a friend with several new jobs and rather small feet.  She hasn’t had a pair from me in ages.  I put these in the mail to be a surprise parcel.  Sorry about the office desk pictures on an overcast day.  Once I finish a gift I get impatient to have it meet its intended recipient.

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They succeeded in being a surprise and she sounded delighted.  It’s midwinter here and they arrived in the week prior to the longest night of the year.  Perfect for chilly nights.

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July 6, 2014 · 7:45 pm

Mock Orange–Choisya Ternata

Choisya Ternata (which I grew up hearing called ‘mock orange’) is appearing more and more as a hedge in my neighbourhood.  It looks very lush at this time of the year… leafy and green and just beginning to flower. Inspired by blog posts I’d read like Aqua and Flora and Debbie Herd, I ran a dyepot with no modifier and got a beautiful yellow. Then, I modified with copper water and obtained an olive green.

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The effect of this addition was impressive, to say the least.

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This rated as one of the most delectably scented dye baths ever, and it is certainly one I’ll try again.

 

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July 4, 2014 · 4:31 pm

A funny thing happened in the night… and a sign of hope

When I came home from my run early this morning I realised there had been action overnight.At the scene of the loss of three immense trees only too recently, I saw this.

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And this.

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Here’s the close up.

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This raised my curiosity about yesterday’s losses.  I didn’t think I had the heart for it, but in the end I went to see.

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Heartbreaking to see the space where those trees stood.

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But the commentary was to the point.

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Thanks so much for all your kind comments since the past post.  I read them as they came in and appreciated them very much but didn’t have the heart to answer them all for a minute.  Given how devastated I felt yesterday, I thought my friends might need cheering up.

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Attentive readers might recognise this parcel! Some of that string is made from the same pair of pants that went onto the feature panels…

On an altogether happy note, during the big infrastructure works in our neighbourhood, one of the Department of Transport and Infrastructure employees who cares about the state of the environment decided what she might be able to do in the face of so much tree felling and habitat loss was get bird boxes put into any tree of any size on public land in our area.  She initiated a project in collaboration with local schools whose students painted the boxes.  they have been in place for a while and have been checked once or twice already (we have become vigilant and therefore approach men on ladders who are looking at trees to check what they are doing, these days).  Today as I left home I saw a woman peering up into a nearby River Red Gum (E Camaldulensis) we managed to save.  She took a photo of one of my Beloved Tree banners, but she also took several at what struck me as an unusual angle.  This afternoon I saw why.

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It is an overcast and rainy day, and this is the best photo I could get.  But that is quite unmistakably a rainbow lorikeet who has taken up residence in one of the bird boxes and felt safe enough at that great height to look down on me without budging a millimetre.  Best thing.

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July 3, 2014 · 10:52 am

The roar of chainsaws

I was just settling in to working at home this morning when I had a phone call.  One friend had been on her way to work by train when she saw two more massive trees about to be felled nearby.  She called home and her partner contacted me asking if I could offer backup at the site while she tried to contact the Council.  My friends are awesome.  I felt proud as I stood in support.  I have to say I feel so heartbroken at present I left most of the speaking to them and supplied moral support, numbers and hugs.

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So I went over.  These two spotted gums (E Maculata) are standing far more than the 10 metres away from any dwelling that would make them exempt from tree protection legislation.  I include the blokes in high visibility clothing for scale. Well, we didn’t let these trees go without a fight, contacting the Council, a local councillor, our State MP, the local newspaper… and so on, while holding respectful conversations with the men who were there to take the trees down.  It took some time to ascertain with confidence that the property owner needed, and had, a permit to fell them.  As events unfolded it became apparent that Council had recommended the application be refused and that this matter had gone to the Development Assessment Panel and been refused three times, finally being being approved on the fourth attempt, after 3 rejections.  I guess by now we know both that the 2011 changes to tree protection laws have removed many of the barriers to removal of trees like these, and that DAP is not a great protection either.

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These trees stand opposite the Goodwood Railway station and shade it in summer.  Rosellas and magpies were flying in and out of them as we spoke with the tree fellers in person and various other people by phone.  Of course, their proximity to the station also means the trees are standing in a small patch where hundreds of trees have been lost in the last few years and the roar of chainsaws has been a recurrent, powerful, appalling theme.  Friends came past on their way to work or from the shops or walking their dogs, expressing their sorrow, regret and anger.  One woman from my street, evidently feeling as heartbroken and unbelieving as I was, said: ‘I have to admit, I don’t like living here anymore.’

 

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Those birds won’t be able to live here anymore.  Meanwhile, we are still waiting for any sign of the promised revegetation of our area.  We have, however, been supplied with mulch.  Where once stood 20 trees, in just one patch I know well, we now have this.

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I try hard not to think about where the chainsaws were roaring to create that mulch.

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July 1, 2014 · 10:31 am

Garments to bags…

The time has come for some of my clothes to find new uses.  These worn out jeans have had years of use as jeans…

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I made these shorts from a length of linen I found on a pile of hard rubbish on a Brisbane kerb when I was there one summer.  They have had years of hard wear and been re-dyed once or twice.  Surprisingly enough the screen printed design on the pocket details didn’t take dye!

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They are now completely threadbare in places that would create embarrassment if they were to fail, further evidence of the hard wearing qualities of linen.

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I paired the jeans up with some leftovers from past sewing adventures, which finished out the lining.

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The jeans pockets went on the inside, retained for future use.  The outside features the pockets of a pair of hemp shorts that hit the dye pot some time ago.

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I teamed the linen shorts up with the remainders of a pair of men’s twill cotton pants bought for a dollar from the Red Cross.

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I love a beautifully executed pocket, and there are two of them featured on the outside of this bag, while the back pockets of the shorts are still on the inside of the bag.

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In between the sewing, I spent the weekend mordanting fibre and continuing to try to exhaust dye baths from the workshop a fortnight ago!  By the end of the weekend I was down to pastels… And there was the odd Stuff, Steep and Store jar to be going on with.  Using the microwave has lowered the barriers to taking an opportunistic dye find or something that seems promising but whose dye properties are unknown to me and putting it up for future reference.  Here, rat-nibbled pomegranate remains collected off the ground… as no edible pomegranate would be turned to dye at our house!

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June 30, 2014 · 9:38 am

Gotland from Sweden

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It isn’t every day I get a gift of wool all the way from Sweden.  How glorious this wool is–a gift from a dear friend who travelled to Sweden for work and brought this home with her.   Lovely Swedish wool in a beautiful blue, and some heartsease as well.  Heartsease has come up in my vegetable garden in profusion this autumn and I couldn’t be happier about that.  I like the yarn, too!

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June 25, 2014 · 7:35 pm

Eucalyptus Megacornuta: Warty Yate

Sometimes it is hard to know which to prefer.  The common name (Warty Yate)–splendiferous as it is–or the Latin name (E Megacornuta), also glorious!  Both names focus on the bud caps of this tree, which are both mega (4.5 cm long) and warty.

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There was a yate (one of the still-splendid but not-so-warty yates–I am guessing E Lehmanii) growing in the playground at the kindergarten I went to. We would put the bud caps on our fingers and chase each other around, yelling ‘witch’s fingers!’  Needless to say, we had been offered no information about whether witches really have long pointy fingers and no one had offered me the perspective that witches might mostly have been maligned herbalists and midwives…

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A friend’s dog is staying with us and we went for a walk the morning I picked these.  The flowers called out to me.  I identified this tree a couple of years back.  Those bud caps made identification simple, but as you might imagine this tree also has impressive fruit.   Speaking of awesomely good names, please note the ‘flattened, strap-like peduncle’ my eucalyptus manuals mention.

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I picked up fallen, dried leaves and took home a small sample.  My sample dyepot showed a barely-orange tinted brown. I did also create a small sample bundle.

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Fresh from the pot and still damp, it also was on the slightly orange side of brown.  However once dried out, washed and dried again, it had turned quite definitively brown.

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