Well, it's a while since I updated this blog because I have been getting some much needed inspiration and education and preparing a major piece of work for Fleece First, an exhibition to be held at Devon Guild of Craftsmen in September, October and November. September is next month.....

First the silkworms. They are all but two in their cocoons now and I won't be raising any more this year as the oak is not good and my privet bushes for the Samia have taken a bit of a hammering and need to regenerate.

I've been on two marvellous courses, one weaving, one dyeing. Weaving first - Jette Vandermain from Canada came to Devon Weavers Workshop to teach a course on Lampas, a structure I had never tried before. It is totally fascinating and has such possibilities. My sample warp is still on the loom and I am longing to finish it, not least because I will be doing a course with Ann Richards in September and already have my high twist yarns and instructions for making the warp......Plus a recents small bequest has enabled the purchase of a mechanical Magic Dobby loom and I'm longing to have a go with it!

The other course was with Michel Garcia, natural dyer extrodinaire. I had been one of the mob surrounding his instant, organic indigo vat at ISEND and was delighted to hear that he would be teaching at the National Quilt Festival at the NEC.

We made vats with bananas and indigo, henna and indigo, indigo balls, metallic vats (not organic, but non-polluting). We made resists, we overdyed with madder, cochineal, weld (found in a field near the NEC!) and an indigo paste we could paint with. Absolute bliss!

The picture shows some of the resist effects: white on blue, and mordant resists with weld and madder

Inbetween all this excitement we had a family wedding in Wales, beautiful bride, handsome groom, lovely countryside - shame about the rain but it was Wales in August!

Now I have a week, nearly, to get ready for FibreFest, so back to the dyepost, spinning wheel and loom and hope to see some of you there!

Sunshine and showers

Well, the weather is behaving in the way to which we have become accustomed - rain, then scorching dry days and then more rain and chilly winds. The Japanese indigo doesn't seem to mind, and I've already had one very successful woad vat from a plant that decided to spend the year in the polytunnel! Lovely blues, and I will be doing a woad vat on Wednesday with Claire Crompton, of Give Fleece a Chance fame.

This week I have been trying to make a start on my project for the Fleece First Exhibition to be held at Devon Guild of Craftsmen, in the autumn. I'm using Bluefaced Leicester fleece, from a local farmer, Neil Coles, and will be combing the fibres on English woolcombs in a traditional preparation. It will be woven on my Delta loom but the yarn design and weave technique are still at the mulling over stage - the adrenaline is beginning to kick in, so hopefully this time next week there will be something positive to report.

The photo shows the fibres at the bottom with the combed sliver on the left and the noil (waste from combing) on the right. I have to make dye decisions too - woad is obviously on my mind so maybe that will be the colour to choose.

My a.pyrni caterpillars are now the size of my index finger and they have gone quite pale, so I hope that they will be spinning soon. The S.ricini are still munching merrily away on the privet and the first few hatchlings of the Eri eggs have started appearing - if all the eggs hatch I hope the piviet will be able to cope! I hope there will be some caterpillars to show at FibreFest, particularly if the silk spinning course gets any takers....

Back to the combs - no wonder woolcombers were usually big strong men, my shoulders are aching and I've only done a few grams!

Just a quickie!

Just to remind you that Fibrefest is happening at Bicton College in August and that I will be doing a mini-silk spinning course during the event. If anyone wants to come and try their hand at spinning this most wonderful fibre, look at www.fibrefest2011.org for details

Another Monday

The weeks whizz round so fast and each new Monday brings with it the knowledge that everything I needed to do last week still awaits me...







I had a fantastic time at Devon Weavers' Workshop, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, learning all about lampas. Jette Vandermeidan is certainly the best tutor I have ever had, and I've had the benefit of doing classes with some of the most highly regarded in the world! So, I am really enjoying the workout my poor old brain has had - doing two seperate warps that sometimes interlock and sometimes don't, each capable of weaving two structures and all the possibilities that offers, has been a bit of a shock to the system! Pictures when I am happy with the samples.







Yesterday I travelled to the other side of the moor to teach a dye workshop at Organic Arts. We had a fantastic time, got lots of colour from the plants growing on the farm and I was pleased to have a squizz at the new dye garden. I have given them some madder and Japanese indigo, so hopefully that will get them off to a good start. Wonderful to see how the dye garden movement is taking off in this part of the UK.

We dyed with weld, madder, woad, oak, ash, beech, willow, nettle, onion skin, and then overdyed some of the yellows and the madder with woad to get purples and greens. Fantastic! And the weather was wonderful, too.

The caterpillars are growing away, doing their thing quietly. I have high hopes that my Eri eggs will hatch and give me the option to continuously brood this species, as their silk is good. They eat evergreen pivet, so I can feed them all year round.

The plan for this week is to get lots of dyeing done for a school fair on Friday - my little gradaughter's school, so all the stops pulled out, and to make a start on an exhibition project. Will also need to fit in gardening, washing, housework, etc, so don't expect to hear from me for a while....

Rainy Sunday

Summer is on a break at the moment here in gloomy Devon.

Last weekend I taught a very successsful session on indigo in a tent at Bovey Tracey Contemporary Craft Fair, an event that gets better with each passing year. The indigo vat did what it was supposed to do and the participants had some lovely dyed fabrics to take away.

On Saturday I gave a talk on natural dyeing to Devon Guild of WS&D, followed by a workshop the next day.

We used two yellows, weld and dhak; two reds, madder and red lac; and we had a natural indigo reduction vat on the go as well. Considering we started with unmordanted fibre/yarn and only had 6 hours, the group achievement was excellent. We dyed protein fibres, cellulose fibres, yarns and fabric. We painted top, painted yarn and immersion dyed and did colour mixing, when the indigo came into its own. There are photos, but sadly I didn't take them! If anyone likes to send them to me, I will post them on here

The skein below was painted with weld and red lac extract, covering some white areas in clingfilm to prevent the colour spreading into the white. It was well wrapped, steamed and then dipped in indigo to produce the blues, greens and purples. Careful measuring of the dye extracts to provide the required depth of colour without wasting any resulted in an almost clear rinse - there was a minute trace of the red lac but that was probably unavoidable.

Lac, weld and indigo skein, both sides

Friday took me to Cornwall Guild, once more in the rain and wind, to do a Whacky Fibres workshop. The group had taken advantage of the recent Wingham Wools visit to stock up on all manner of weird and wonderful fibres so we had plenty to choose! We worked from one picture, chosen by the group, everyone selected a some fibres that they thought related to the picture and then we made a giant batt (or several!) on an Ashford Wild Carder and some rather more sedate batts on a Barnett. The batts were divided, spun according to individual preferences, and then the yarns were put back around the picture. We found, as usually happens with this exercise, that every element of the picture was represented - colour, texture and form. That said, I'm not sure that there were any obvious uses for this collection but the aim was to get people really looking at the relationship between the fibres and image. There was great excitement and soon the students were rushing off to repeat the exercise with their own pictures....

A similar exercise from a class in The Hague is illustrated on our Creative Spinning blog.

I've finally got round to photographing the walnut leaf dye yarns.

The darker skein and silk have been dyed in the walnut leaf liquid with no mordant and the lighter skein and silk have been pre-mordanted with alum and CoT. There is a more tobacco-like colour to the unmordanted skein and it is definitely more of a yellow brown than one would expect from the hulls. The alum seems to have increased the yellow potential and though the baths were split equally, so that the strengths were the same, the mordanted skein looks as though it has been in an exhaust of the first!



On the silkworm front, I have some S.Ricini cats coming along nicely and some a.pernyi getting very fat...The Eri moths are mating and laying so I hope that I can continuously brood this variety but we will have to wait and see how it goes.



I'm hoping the rain will keep away long enough for a jaunt round some Open Gardens this afternoon, my reward for spending yesterday doing a stock-take at the studio!

Vat Revisited

I forgot to say that the jar in which the vat was made holds approx 2 litres and I filled it to about 75% of its capacity. I apologise for the two photos being marked 'Left' and 'Right' being on top of one another instead of side by side, but however often I move them back to where they should be, save them, blogspot moves them back again........

This morning the vat is cold but still at pH 11, so I will try again but it won't be till this evening. In our south west facing, double glazed conservatory, it may well warm up by itself during the course of the day.

Michel Garcia vat

This vat has been a puzzle since La Rochelle but I have clarified the oyster shell component with Michel, who explained that in order to use the shells, they need to be heated to 1,000deg C. He has a pottery kiln, so this is not a problem for him. He suggested I use calcium hydroxide
This afternoon I made the vat according to Garcia (his proportions, my quantities):

1 teaspoon of indigo - I used Pure Tinctoria powdered extract

2 teaspooons of calcium hydroxide

3 teaspoons of fructose

The teaspoons were level and the vat is a large Kilner Jar.

The pH was 11, as recommended by Garcia

Within 10 minutes the vat had gone from grey through green to yellow

By 25 minutes, there was blue foam forming on the top and a coppery scum developing - much like my rising levels of excitement!


After 30 minutes the foam had turned dark blue












Left: Vat at 25 mins, Right at 45 mins containing cotton
At 45 minutes, the vat should be ready, according to the instructions. The pH was still 11 and remained at that level throughout the dye session.
I put in a cotton wool ball and a piece of cotton in the vat which now had the sherry colour that one expects from woad

The first dip, airing

The second dip for cotton (large piece) and first for linen

Third dip for cotton and second for linen

All in all, very successful and the vat is by no means exhausted, so I will go on until one of us gives up! What I'm not sure about is how to revive such a vat - there's no problem with reviving more usual vats. I warm them up, correct the alkalinity and put some reducing agent in and they come round. This will need some experimentation, I think