Tag Archives: wool

December 31, 2018 · 1:20 pm

Socks and true confessions

At some point in the #tuffsocksnaturally project, I had a point of anxiety where I just couldn’t imagine being able to spin enough sock yarn to keep up with my constant sock knitting. A person with more capacity for consistency might decide on knitting something else.  Or focusing on spinning more. I didn’t do that this time.  The future is unwritten so I’ll see how it unfolds and aim to move in a positive direction!  Instead, I decided on harm minimisation and bought some all-wool sock yarns from a destash on Ravelry.

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I managed to buy some undyed yarn, but while I’ve avoided yarns containing nylon, AKA plastic, I haven’t completely avoided chemical dyes.  So, there’s an ongoing project.  These socks for my beloved are shown above, on some form of public transport or another.

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Here, having a superb hot chocolate with my daughter and a pretty serious conversation if I remember right!

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Random streetscape…

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On our way to a climate action protest (by train).  Sock and backpack in foreground, banner for our climate action choir in its vaguely indigo-dyed bag laid along the bench!  And here they are, done, dusted and ready for winter which feels very far away here at this time of year.

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December 29, 2018 · 10:06 am

Festive greetings!

Dear and patient readers, I hope that you have been enjoying the festivals you celebrate and the holidays that you are able to arrange. I am sorry to have been absent so long–it has been a time of massive transformation at our place and other commitments have needed to take priority. I am hoping I might now be entering calmer times.  However–there has been some making going on in between things… One of my sister-out-laws was my Kris Kringle this year–in that family, there is a cap on the amount you can spend on a gift and you are responsible for a gift for just one person. It’s a very sensible arrangement that results in a small number of carefully chosen gifts, that I wish I could convince my family to take up. My sister-in-law requested a eucalyptus-dyed shawl.  What a pleasure it was to create that!

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My favourite neighbourhood eucalyptus tree contributed the leaves, and the shawl is made from wool–ever the perfect match, as India Flint says. I also dyed a smaller silk and wool scarf that seemed to me perfect for a dear friend.  You can see how much more readily the wool takes up colour (left) than the silk blend (right).

This gift made it into the mail in plenty of time, which was lucky because our plans were eclipsed by events in my partner’s family that have seen us spending time in Brisbane providing all manner of care to her beloved parents rather than at home hosting my family’s end of year celebration. Needless to say there as been a little quiet sock knitting involved…

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September 17, 2018 · 2:44 pm

Box pouch workshop

I had a lot of fun preparing for the box pouch workshop. I dyed lots of fabric and made some samples.

Susan’s beautiful home and relaxed generosity made for a wonderful atmosphere.

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The company was excellent and we were able to make use of the abundance of plants nearby. There were all kinds of dyeing discoveries.

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And there was wonderful dyeing…

And the main room looked as though a balloon full of stitchery had burst in it!  People’s work was beautiful and it was such a pleasure to be in a room of people so knowledgeable about sewing, dyeing, and the environment–each of us in different measures.

The participants made beautiful work and the conversation was fabulous!

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August 26, 2018 · 8:21 pm

Tuffsock Spinning: Ryeland

This post is part of the Tuff Socks Naturally project, an open, collaborative project exploring more sustainable alternatives to superwash and nylon in sock yarn. You can join in on the discussion on this blog or on the blog of the fabulous Rebecca at Needle and Spindle or on Instagram using the hashtag #tuffsocksnaturally. It is from Rebecca that this rather beautiful fleece came to me. She gave it to me washed, with its lock formation intact in a way that I almost never manage. I am deeply grateful for this wonderful gift!

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There was a day I was so keen to get spinning, I pulled this fleece from its calico bag next to the drum carder and visualised carding it.  And put it back in its bag!  The care and work represented by its beautiful cleansing was just too precious. In the end I decided to flick card each lock individually and spin directly from the lock, and what a lovely experience that was.

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It shouldn’t be a surprise, but I think I am getting better at spinning sock yarn through practising–and with such a lovely, beautifully prepared fibre and a longer, softer lock than the Suffolk, this felt a real breeze to spin. I’m really happy with this result.

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Ultimately I decided to dye it in cochineal with some vinegar in hopes of heightening the red tones. And now, my friends, it has wandered off to be exhibited in the Royal Show!

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June 6, 2018 · 5:42 pm

Tuffsocksnaturally dyeing: betel nut and eucalypt edition

This post is part of the Tuff Socks Naturally project, an open, collaborative project exploring more sustainable alternatives to superwash and nylon in sock yarn. You can join in on the discussion on this blog or on the blog of the fabulous Rebecca at Needle and Spindle or on instagram using the hashtag #tuffsocksnaturally.

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In the last weeks, I’ve turned out some skeins of three ply, high twist, 100% Suffolk sock yarn. And apart from the indigo dyed yarn, which I dyed first and spun afterward, I’ve been spinning the fleece in its natural state. Which could only lead to dyeing!

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Some time ago, one of my Guild buddies shared some betel nut with me, together with instructions on how to use it.  So I followed the instructions and got a lovely deep red colour in the vat… which just did not fix onto the fibre.  By sheer luck, I had the chance to take the advice of dyers who know better, while I still had that good looking vat–but even after trying their suggestion, the result was still pretty lacklustre (and they had suggested it might be too late–).  Here is is being hardly pink.

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Dyeing with the betel nut did constantly ear worm me with a song from South Pacific (the musical)–I was in the chorus in high school. As an adult I do wonder about having no memory of being given any historical context… and having checked Wikipedia I see I was an  incurious young person who did not ask what US military were doing in the Pacific in the musical and may or may not have noticed the progressive anti racist narrative which evidently caused scandal when the musical first made it to the stage! On the other hand, I had a namesake in this musical, played by a friend who was great in the role. We could not believe she was called Bloody Mary (how times change–in 1980 that seemed scandalous to me). As we had never met anyone who was ‘always chewing betel nut’ and for that matter, didn’t know what a betel nut was, or that its juice would run red… the reason she was called Bloody Mary was not at all obvious.  It just sounded like a slur, and of course, perhaps it was.  So I hoped for red yarn but it was not to be.

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The other skein went into a dye bath with dried, saved eucalyptus leaves, mostly E Cinerea. With time and heat, it was just the reverse of the betel nut bath.  The dye bath looked pale and the yarn gained colour.

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And now, I am ready to knit socks!

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May 24, 2018 · 10:18 am

Leftovers socks

IMAG6439Trying to be thoughtful about sock yarns in a period where I knit socks constantly and quite quickly has led to all manner of interesting insights.  This post introduces another.  At present it is not an option for me to leave home without a sock in progress.  I’m spending a lot of time on public transport–which is good, but requires management.  I go to a lot of meetings and presentations–which is sometimes good and sometimes challenging. Socks help me!

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The tuffsocksnaturally project has been one great outcome of trying to move in an eco-friendly direction–and I have sock yarn spinning to show! However, creating sock yarn involves slowly spinning (I can’t take that on the bus!), dyeing, washing and converting skeins to balls.  All of which is pleasurable time spent but certainly does take time. In the case of my Suffolk adventures, I also need to be confident the intended recipient will enjoy and be able to comfortably wear the resulting socks, which requires some chat.  BUT: if there is some point where I do not have a handspun sock ready to knit and I reach the end of my current pair–I need a plan!

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A while back, I went to a two day meeting in Parramatta, which is now part of greater Sydney.  The tree and the sculpture are images from my roaming around in the few daylight hours I had outside a meeting there.  As I prepared to leave for an entire two days of meeting, with airport waiting, airtrain trips, waiting in train stations, and who knows what kind of night in a hotel, I ran out of sock yarn.  So I decided to knit leftover yarns in the same colour family into socks.  Yes, dear Readers, I am blessed with friends who have said to me “just knit up whatever you’ve got!  I’m not bothered if you use up your scraps” or, when I asked another friend if he fancied socks that were knit this way, said that sounded like fun.  To me this sounded a lot more attractive as a knitting project than some of the patterns I see popping up from time to time directed at people like me who have knit a lot of socks and have leftover sock yarns (some of which go to the recipient so they can darn in the future but some of which stay with me).

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And that is how one of my friends came to get these socks, which were received with a squeak of glee!

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May 4, 2018 · 5:32 pm

Background spinning

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There has been some spinning going on in the evenings.  As I prepare Suffolk fleece for spinning, I’ve been spinning yarn for #tuffsocksnaturally.  The top image is one of the recent skeins with more ply twist than previously. However, there has also been some regular spinning.  Below, the fleece of a lawn mowing pet sheep who might be a Polwarth–the sheep belongs to a friend of a friend and the fleece is rather soft and lovely, while my preparation lacked some care and made it harder to spin than it might have been.   I find it really hard to wash very dirty, very greasy fleece effectively, always ending up with more sticky grease and filth than I can readily enjoy, or somewhat felted fleece that has been very much handled and rinsed a great deal!  I’m wondering now what it is to become.  Honour its softness and make hats?  Make cushy slippers for a friend who has requested slippers that I have not yet been able to knit?  Spoiled for choices, that’s me.

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May 1, 2018 · 5:36 pm

More striped socks…

You probably remember the last pair of Kit Couture Garpen Socks–not so long ago!  There was quite a bit of wool left over.  So I decided I could surely make a second pair (and pulled out my scales just to check).  here I am at the railway station on my way to work with a cunning plan (also, a pair of socks to post, lunch and a chia pudding in a vegemite jar–I love a good plan).

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Here I am making headway on a night train.

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Then came the sudden realisation (in a day long meeting) that, in fact, these socks were not going to match at all.  I’d like to pretend this was a decision I made, but it was not.  At this point I decided it would not be OK to rip out in a meeting, and quite frankly, I didn’t fancy ripping out anyway and–I quite like them.  Though that is the self serving attitude, I admit!

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And here they are in all their glory…

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Mismatched or glorious?

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April 9, 2018 · 5:45 pm

Dyeing weekend at home

Over a recent long weekend, I managed to do quite a lot of dyeing and some fibre processing. There was mordanting of cellulose fabrics with soybeans.

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I finally decided to stop worrying about the fact that my walnuts (gathered from under trees at my workplace) were whole and having dried, I was not going to be able to separate husk from nut (where no rat had done this for me).  I just soaked them whole and then dyed with them.

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I clamped and dyed.  This eucalyptus print + walnut bath made me happy!  Here it is still wet (you can see it still clamped above if you look closely).

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I flick carded Suffolk locks.  Some had staining–see that yellow streak?  I just decided I wasn’t prepared to waste indigo on vegetable matter and contaminate my vat.  And the Suffolk is so felting resistant I thought it would be fine flicked first and dyed after 9and it was).

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I used some of Tarla Elward’s wonderful Australian grown Indigo for the first time and used henna as the source of antioxidants, following Michel Garcia’s method.

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I’d been concerned about how to grind up the block indigo but I had found a mortar and pestle since dye camp and put it to use. So much fun, Such a great weekend.

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I am just delighted with the indigo colours on this wool, and even more delighted that I managed to revive my indigo vat, last used before dye camp a few months ago.  Clearly, I learned something from the wonderful Jenai at dye camp.  Indigo achievement unlocked!  Blue socks one step closer.

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April 6, 2018 · 10:25 am

Preparing Suffolk Fibre for Tuff Sock Spinning

Dear readers, here is a trick question.  What colour is this sheep fleece?  IMAG5891

The correct answer is ‘white’! And here is one big part of the explanation for its colour in the image above: the dirt that fell out of the fleece in the time it was on this sheet being skirted.

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The really long locks in this fleece are about 9 cm long.

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Or–not a lot more than 3 inches long.  The short locks are 3 cm long.

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You can see this sheep had been living in the bush and in the world, and not in a shed or on a grassy patch of green loveliness!

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I believe this picture shows some of the fleece after washing.  I know, right?

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Next step, flicking the locks.  There was no sign of felting, but there is nothing all that romantic about vegetable matter, seeds and remaining soil.

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Flicking open the locks does help immensely with all those things, though as you can see below, all that followed by drum carding does not actually remove all the vegetable matter. This is the first pass on the drum carder, with a bit more detritus falling out on the second pass.

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Needless to say–even more falls out onto my apron as I spin this springy, bouncy fleece.

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