Monthly Archives: October 2011

dyeing with the half blood cort!

But first, a photo of my pal Sid and me…
sid (2)

And the house we saw for sale,
house for sale (2)
Must be a fixer upper… the tarp says “Catholic schools make a world of difference”, and yes, there is a concrete filled wheel hub weighing it down… Welcome to Maine!

Someplace I must’ve posted pics of these Cortinarius semisanguineus drying… but I can’t find the post, so here they are
cortsemisang 015 cortsemisang 006

They are known to be good dye mushrooms, and I’d say they are! This is after a few minutes in the pot,
cort begin dyeing in pot

They mushroom:wool ratio for this species is 3:5. I had 6 ounces of dried corts, so dyed 10 ounces of wool… 8 of Bartlett and 2 of some miscellaneous wool. Because it did so well, I thought I might get something out of a second run through the dye bath. Here’s everything, initial batch and second batch, including overdye of a few odd bits of this and that.
cort dyeing 005

Top row, 2 on left are Bartlett, 2 on the right are whatever… Bottom row, far left is mordanted, second in is not, bit on the far right is not overdyed. The two next to it are the same, just overdyed.

It’s hard to capture the color… the second bath produced a melony color. It is more meloney in the alum mordanted skein, and a little more yellowish in the unmordanted skein.

Leftovers… the dye water is pretty clear,
cort dyeing leftovers

Way more details than most people want to know…

I pre-mordanted a bunch of Bartlett. The guidelines for mordanting with alum are really vague… between 1.5-5 tsp per 4 oz. dry wool, with 2 tsp cream of tartar (no matter how much alum). That’s a pretty big range! Since I mordanted 20 oz. of wool, I used 7 Tbs of alum and 3+ Tbs CoT. Too much alum can make the yarn feel “gummy”. Bartlett is by no means luxury wool, and this stuff is lanoliny, so I’m not sure if the hand of the dyed wool is because of the lanolin or because of the alum.

6 ounces dried corts, 10 ounces wool (pre-wetted) through the first dyebath. Simmered about 2 hours, cooled in the pot, rinsed and rinsed and rinsed. I pre-wetted more wool for the second run through, but one skein was mordanted and the other not. The undyed wool was supposed to be all one dyelot (or lack of dyelot as it was the natural cream), but a few of the skeins were greyer, while the rest were creamier. I also put about 10 oz wool through the second dyebath… pre-wetted the wool, put it in the cool dyepot, let it sit for a day until I got home from work and heated it… let it simmer about an hour and cool overnight in the pot.

Dye Day

So in the midst of the pottery, the shows and the moving....my Weaving Guild here in Charlottesville had a dye day!  I do love dyeing but rarely do it by myself.  It is just so much more fun with a group.  Maybe it's all the knowledge shared or maybe it's just because some things have to simmer for quite awhile for good color and its nice to have someone to jabber with while I wait!

It was a glorious Fall day. Joanie, the current president of the Guild, had us out to her farm to set up. An AMAZING place. A big beautiful old house with gorgeous grounds. And animals!










Lot's of hard work.....


.....and waiting and talking...
Leads to beautiful results!!
Both these skeins were OVERDYED, meaning dyed in another color and dyed again, with indigo.  Unfortunately I don't know what the first color was (yellow for sure on the right, so maybe goldenrod or annato....)  But what fantastic results!

I prepared for the day by measuring out a warp of alpaca in sections to be dyed in different colors.  This will become a scarf.

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From left to right: 
 Walnut, indigo, tumeric, hibiscus overdyed with a weak indigo, and annato.


My colors did not turn out as vivid as some. But natural dyes can be amazingly bright.


While at Fall Fiber Festival I managed to slip away to peek at some of the other vendors. When I saw the glorious colors of Black Twig Farm I was amazed! And knew I had to make a purchase. Generally I try to avoid buying yarn (since I spin and don't knit much!) unless I plan on weaving with it. But I couldn't walk away from her beautiful examples without taking some home with me.

These yarns are mill spun of Churro, a navajo sheep raised on Rachel's farm outside Crozet, right here in Virginia!

The colors were created with natural elements with a "mordant" added to modify the color:
From left to right
cochineal (a dried beetle that is ground up) with tin, coreopsis with tin, osage orange with alum, madder root with alum and black walnut with iron

Back home I have 25 bookmarks on my loom!  Nearly half way finished.



(Blogger is driving me CRAZY today.  Pictures everywhere, that frame line showing up where I dont' want it.  This post took WAY more time then it should have. GRRRRRRRRR.)

This weekend it's Shearing at Juniper Moon Farm and Greg will be home for 5 days!

Tutorial: Centered double decrease

October

more blueberry

Have I mentioned lately how much I love October?

marigolds

The summer plants still alive,

roses still blooming

the fall colors starting to show more and more...

blueberry

light orange mums

And the weather is PERFECT.

beauitful evening

Yesterday I just wandered around the yard and took it all in.

mums in the wild

just can't get enough of this vine

linda's oregano

pumpkin!

yellow mums

wreath

burgundy mums

grass!

a beautiful weed

yellow-white mums

I love these things

dark orange mums

yum!

zinnias still blooming

blueberry and marigolds

autumn decorations

indian corn

more experiments

And a lovely walk in the woods. Yesterday we went to the Macdonald Conservation Area, a Kennebec Land Trust property, for a mushroom walk. Yikes there were a lot of people there! Several of us wandered off on our own, and everybody met up about an hour or so later.

I found my new car!
macdonald woods my new car

Loads of beechnuts,
macdonald woods beechnuts

Sweet little eyelash cup fungi,
macdonald woods eyelash cup

And other stuff that I didn’t get photos of. It’s late in the season, and after the recent week of rain, the fungi were really soggy.

Anyhow, Michaeline (the mushroom whiz on the trip) asked if I’d been dyeing. Well, no… but she inspired me to get crackin’! And so, not knowing much, but what the hell, it’s all just a big experiment…
macdonald woods michaeline

I dyed 8 ounces of Bartlett (that I got one year ago at Rhinebeck) with 8 ounces of Jack-o-lantern mushroom. It is known as a good dyer, but I think they are referring to a different species. Frankly, I am really confused. The Bessette’s wonderful book refers to Omphalotus olivescens, but Michael Kuo indicates this is a western species, replaced in the east by O. illudens. We think we have O. olearius.

Anyhow, I’m not hugely satisfied…

I pre-soaked the wool so it would be wet, but I didn’t pre-mordant it… I just added the alum and cream of tartar to they pot (at the same time, I learned this morning the CoT should be added at the end).
Omphalotus dyeing (1)

Here it is after about 2 hours of simmering away and sitting overnight to cool. Wrung out but not rinsed.
Omphalotus dyeing pre rinse

The three horizontal yarns are pieces then soaked in vinegar, ammonia, and simmered 15 minutes or so in an iron afterbath.
Omphalotus dyeing prerinse vin amm iron (1)

And here’s everything rinsed, with an un-dyed skein for comparison. Again, vinegar, ammonia, and iron after bath (top to bottom).
Omphalotus dyeing post rinse vin amm iron (1)

I’m thinking I’ll just let it dry as-is. It might be a decent neutral color with some others… I might experiment with a different species today!

Remember the lichen and urine experiment I started at the beginning of the year? It was using these lichens, a gift from Michaeline!

Well….

Let’s just say I’m learning a lot. One is that to use urine for this, the urine should already be fermented. And who wants that smelly mess around? The other is that I don’t think I aerated this enough. It lived for a few weeks under the bathroom sink. I would open it once in a while and stir it around… but then it began to smell. And even with my anosmia/disosmia thing going on, whew, it stank. So it was banished to under the utility sink, until the spring, when it went outside. I opened it a few times then, but would receive complaints from family members that it stinks.

Shhhhh… I opened it again and gave it a big stir.
lichen experiment lichen experiment (1)
(pre and post stir)

Where is that lovely fuchsia??? I think this will live in the cellar for the winter. And I’ll aerate it more in the spring. Maybe then it’ll be a good color…

The Fair

It has been sunny on days I go to work and POURing rain on days I'm off, so there are still no pictures of the apartment and things I have made (which now includes the hat for my mom) but I do have a handful of photos from the Ahsfield Fall Festival.

Just next to the fair, every year, is a huge yard sale. It started out big and has simply grown out of control. Here you can buy an antique printing press:




Antique snow scoops, made just down the road:




Or see a man in a Safari hat; glasses with hinged, clip-on sunglasses tilted up, and jacket with elbow patches on the elbows looking through a view finder you may find on a scenic overlook and complaining loudly that the focus was broken. I attempted several times to get this adventurer-of-the-yard-sale captured in a photo, but he noticed me most of the time.

~~~

The fair hosts local musical performers:


This is Zoe Darrow, who has played at the fair since she was little. She's now in college, but we love that she comes back to play. It doesn't hurt that she's fantastic!

Crafts:


I finally got a knitting needle case!

Games by and for children:

This is a new game and is what it looks like: You stand on your stump and try to pull your opponent off their stump. Quite possibly my new favorite game at the fair.

Morris dancers; children dancing to all the music, regardless of genre:


Apple pie baked by the towns collection of active little-old-ladies and and sharp cheddar cheese, church sales, maple-everything and a dump truck full of firewood raffled off to support the fire department. It's exactly small-town New England fall-life as you would imagine out of a Norman Rockwell painting, but ever-so-slightly less cheesy.
~~~

Hopefully it will be sunny on a day I have off soon and I will get good pictures of the apartment and knitted things.

it’s that time!

Package arrived today…
avocado 002

And what was in it?
avocado 003

Florida avocados! Fresh from my auntie’s trees!
avocado 004

Two are perfectly ripe… nummy lunch for tomorrow!

Squeeze a couple of limes, chop up a chili pepper, garlic clove, 2-3 tsp brown sugar, 1 tsp salt. Serve over soba noodles… nom nom!

It’s all about the shows…..

I can't believe we are already half way through October.  OCTOBER.  Fall is truly here.  The rains continue, the leaves are turning and the breezes have brought us those chilly nights I love so much.  Along with October comes a restocked Etsy Shop, Fall Fiber Festival, the Fredericksburg Spinners and Weavers Guild's "Stitch In", the start to Greg's new job and Fall Shearing at Juniper Moon Farm.

Greg armed with The Square ready for big sales!


Fall Fiber Festival was a great success!  Despite the week of rain, the crew managed to find enough dry land to set up the tents, no one got stuck in the mud and sales were GREAT.  Last year was the first year that the board accepted pottery vendors to the mix.  I jumped at the chance to be part of a festival that I have attended for YEARS and was so happy to be accepted.  The festival is ALWAYS well attended.  It is a date reserved a year in advance by most every fiberista in Virginia and the plan is nearly always to SHOP.

The weather cooperated, being cool and a bit breezy Saturday and, well, overcast on Sunday but NO RAIN.  To make the weekend even better my friend April came up from NC to lend a hand.  So with Greg taking money and April helping me set up I had lots of time to talk with customers.  It was an awesome weekend.  As I said, sales were great (even sold several of my woven towels) and I picked up a couple of easy commissions (more of what I already do) and some wholesale opportunities.  VERY satisfying.  I tell ya.  Fiber people are just the friendliest bunch.

The following Saturday I packed up the truck and drove to Fredericksburg for the FSWG Stitch In event being held at  LibertyTown Arts Workshop (my alma mater!).  This was a charity knitting and crocheting event.  Well attended the goal of the day was to promote charitable knitting (and crocheting) for the homeless, hospital patients and others.  There were demos, short classes and donated yarn and needles to get you started.  A small group of us agreed to be vendors.

Me!

If I'm not going to knit with it I may as well sell my handspun so someone else can!

Baskets of donated yarns!


Nekkid bears waiting for clothes....

All dressed and ready for policemen to give to kids...
My friend Lisa from Maranatha Alpaca Farm




I rushed home Saturday to get home before dark and to help Greg pack up for his move to Fredericksburg on Sunday.  Ya'll will be glad to know that he is tucked into his temporay place and has since finished his first very busy week of work.  He's happy!  BUT this apart stuff is not too fun.

My sights are now set on the list of things that must be accomplished here at the house in C'ville to ready it for sale in the Spring.  Painting, (I put up a new light fixture today!) a kitchen update, bathroom heat....with time for throwing pots in between. 

 I have decided to take a studio at LibertyTown again starting in November.  This will hold my largest loom and lots of pots!  I plan on continuing to throw in a home studio.  I love the control of my time and the kiln.  And by spending time at LT I will still have access to tons of creative energy.  Greg will move into a small rental house in November that allows dogs so Layla the wonder dog and I will be spending some time each week in The Burg starting in November.  It will take some planning to balance my time between my pottery studio at the house in C'ville, and Greg and LT in Fredericksburg.

Here's hoping for a quick sale of the house in the Spring.....

Soooo, guess what?

Like any good slowing-down blogger, I always have an excuse...

This time it's a good one.

#3

#3 is due in May!

Announcing a little on the early side but I am too excited not to share, and I've seen and heard all good things so far, so... here we go again! :)

BOOK REVIEW: Maphead

Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography WonksMaphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks by Ken Jennings
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

True story: my husband and I met because of a geography bee. I was the seventh grade Geography Bee champion at our middle school; he was the eighth grade champion. We went head to head for several rounds, but ultimately he bested me -- he knew that quinine was used to treat malaria, and I did not. I got my revenge, though, in a way -- he did not qualify for the state geography bee, but the following year, when I became the school champion, I DID. (And believe me -- some twenty years later, I still remind him of this quite frequently!) I went on to the Connecticut bee, with ninety-nine of the other top scorers, but I was eliminated before reaching the finals. It's true what they say -- you always remember the question that you didn't know the answer to. (In case it ever comes up for you: the South American desert known for being the driest in the world is the Atacama. You're welcome.)

You don't get to the state geography bee without being a map nerd -- so I don't need to tell you that I practically jumped up and down with excitement when I first heard about this book. A book about my people! Jennings, known for his 74-game winning streak on Jeopardy!, hooked me right in the very first chapter, with his tales of his childhood atlas (for me, it was a huge collection, courtesy of my grandfather, of National Geographic maps, plus a box set of "Close-Up USA" maps), wooden map puzzles, and realization that, for those of us who were in our peak geography-nerd phases before the end of the Cold War, our knowledge of world capitals and European country names is stuck in 1987.

Jennings goes on to trace the weird world of the "maphead" in chapters dealing the history of maps, map collecting, maps of fictional places, geocaching, and more. He shares my feeling that a book which includes maps must be good (bonus points if there's also an appendix!) and discusses the role that maps play in adult geek culture, noting that "Hogwarts and the starship Enterprise have been mapped in more detail than much of Africa." And, of course, there is a chapter on the National Geographic Bee which, as a former participant myself, I took special interest in. (And having read more about it, both here and elsewhere, I can look back and say, unequivocally, that despite my performance on the written test that qualified me for the state finals there is NO way I was prepared for that, nevermind the national finals. These kids are HARDCORE.)

As you would expect from a book written by a trivia champion and, dare I say, professional geek, the book is full of interesting facts and, yes, trivial sidenotes. Jennings has clearly done his homework; I'm nerdy enough to be totally jealous of the research he got to do for the book, especially visiting the map room at the Library of Congress. Jennings is a gifted, humorous writer, and the book is fast-paced and lighthearted -- if one were hoping for a serious academic treatment of maps and mapheads, this isn't the right book. (The book also boasts the rarest of all literary beasts, a funny appendix. The entries for "Jennings, Ken" and his wife made me giggle.)

All in all, Maphead is a fun read, and perfect for those who like a solid dose of chuckles with their facts. (And if descriptions of maps are going to make you go dig out your favorites so you can relive them all over again, then this is DEFINITELY for you.)

View all my reviews