dyeing wool with reed flowers

A little while ago i was reading a topic in a natural dyeing group on ravelry. Someone from Sweden or Finland (if i remember correctly) showed a picture with 3 skeins, all dyed naturally. There was a  beautifull green one. She said she dyed it with reed flowers.   There aren't much ways to get green with plants, or you''ll need indigo or woad and overdye a yellow.

Common reed has red ''flowers''

So a few days later my girls and i took a walk, and while i cut off loads of reed flowers, the girls had an amazing time catching lots of small frogs and toads in the grass beside the pond.
They had more then 20!!!

At home i got my dyeing pan and put in the flowers... boiled them for a while.

 

 

The dyebad turned a dark reddish purple... a bit like red wine :)

 

 

 

 

after cooling it,  i added alum and roving and heated it again.  Actually the next day i put the flowers, fiber and alum all at once in the pan. Brought it to boil, and that worked just as good! Yep i'm actually a very lazy natural dyer ;)

I played a bit afterwards. Putting some pieces of fiber into a rusty nails in water afterbath, and other pieces in a ammonium afterbath. The last mentioned turned the fiber bright green!!!

The hardest part of it all was getting the greens show up right in de pictures... almost impossible!! 

So i had to play a bit with a photo edit app to show the greens as i see them.

offcourse i started spinning as soon as they were dry!

 



Allready have plans to knit a top with these yarns. But first i have a lot more spinning to do!



 great bowl isn't it! I found it during our summerholiday, the town we stayed had a shop where people could rent a table and sell stuff they made or didn't need anymore. So much fun, from fresh baked bread and jams to clothes and toys, books...  on the last day i found this wooden bowl. I'm not sure what kind of wood it is, but i loved the spalted pattern. Spalting in wood is discoloration made by fungi.

All this little skeins of handspun just scream to be to be knittend, but i really want to spin everything before a start knitting.

This reminds me of a moment on a big knitting event a few years ago, there was a booth that sold packages with different skeins of naturally dyed yarn. i LOVED them!!
 But back then i thought they were very expensive.... little did i know back then. But i never could have imagned dyeing such skeins myself one day :)


Enjoy your day!!

it's been to long....

Well hello.... i know it's been way to long since i posted a blog.
A lot has happend since then and offcourse there was a fun filled summervacation.

We spend it at the house of my sister in law, who lives almost in the forest. Great fun for the girls. Because we live in the city, with a small garden, with no forests closeby... so we went to the forest almost every day!

Our youngest with her self  harvested rhubarb :)


The weather wasn't always sunny and warm but due to bad weather we found out our oldest really enjoys watching diving competitions on tv...

We went to the zoo, the pool, did enjoy a lot of outdoor activities in beautifull places! We found a great nature reserve, only 10 minutes on bike from the place we were staying. It's very big, heather growning everywhere, sheep walking around, lizards in the shrubs...  lovely to walk around a looking at all the beautifull nature!

It's called Heidestein, it used to belong to a family, who where living in India, but their daughter suffered from asthma, so they came back, bought this land and build a beautifull house and developed this land into a beautifull place. For my dutch readers here's a bit of the history with pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the creative part a lot has happend to, offcourse a big event was de Tour the Fleece, for the people who don't know what that is... during the Tour de France a lot of spinners worldwide try to spin every day... exciting enough was that the tour came trough our city!!



I spun a lot during the tour, even on vacation! I brought some spindles with me... enjoying the outdoor spinning a lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just before the Tour de France a dream came trough... for a while i was looking around for another spinningwheel. I was hoping for a double drive norwegian wheel.  I found out you're not bound to find one for sale very often. So i tried my luck on a dutch spinning group on ravelry. Posting an in search off message. Soon enough i had a reply from a lady who was willing to sell hers, she bought another wheel and didn't use her ''Noortje'' (nickname) anymore. She was kind enough to bring it here, because we don't have a car!

She is a beauty, not made in Norway, it's probably handmade in the seventies. I thought i would take quite some time to get into the double drive spinning.. but we got along from the beginning! I just started and reluctantly left her at home during our vacation.

But, yes there's a but, i don't like this type of wood. But offcourse that can be changed easy with some paint!!

So here she is, my new colorful wheel!

 

I did some knitting, a shawl, 2 cute little dogs my girls really wanted, it's victoria a pattern of zij maakt het on ravelry!

Right now i'm knitting with a lovely sockyarn i got i think in a swap from Ineke on ravelry, she dyed it herself. It's a real autumnal yarn... i tried it in a shawl, but i didn't like it.
All the color nuances seem to dissapear. So i went browsing on ravelry and found these great mittens... so this afternoon i cast on. And allready 1 repeat is done!!

Actually a bit strange to start on such an autumnal project on a glorious summer day! Warm and sunny really lovely ''being outdoors weather''! 
Probably these warm tempratures will get the gladioluses to open up quite soon

Well from now on i'm going to blog more reguarly... for now it's time for my lunch.

Yes it's a juice, a cucumber,carrot, apple, celery juice! Homemade with our slowjuicer!
I'm back on the healthy journey again, i'm on day 5 now and feeling better already.

Cheers ;)

finished my summershawl

I brought it along with me lots of times, when the girls went playing in the park, and that helped, my summer shawl is finally done!! It was a KnitALong at the dutchwooldiva group at ravelry.

I bought this bamboo blend at  the dutch wool diva just before the tour de fleece last year. If i remember correctly it's called silver blood ball.
And i spun it during the TdF into a thin 3 ply, navajo style to keep the gradient colors together.
It was about 650 meters!

And it became this shawl!!

Just a plain stockinette shawl with a small lace border. I wanted the gradient to really show! It's actually quite a large shawl. Funny enough these are so not my favorite colors, i decided to choose something out of my comfortzone, but i do like this gradient a lot!!! The bamboo gives the yarn a really nice shine.


Oh and i wanted to show you these little notebooks i bought. On a very small flea market aren't these cute!!

today we had a little trip, it was a very spontaneous one ! I was telling my husband about new colors of stylecraft and about lucy from attic24. And somehow we ended up cycling to the trainstation on our way to Alphen a/d Rijn. To a shop called echtstudio. They have quite a spacious shop, filled with colorfull yarns, room for workshops. Offcourse with two little girls and a husband, one has to choose quite quickly. But i already knew what i wanted... stylecraft!!
I got two of the new colors, i didn't like the pale lavender grey one, but i really like the new sage and storm blue!
I also got denim, violet, cloud blue, meadow, lime, grape and parchment. Seeing all the colors makes choosing so much easier!!

actually this is a present from my husband for mothersday :)

After that we walked around Alphen, we haven't been there before. Josanne got an childrens atlas she's very happy with it!


This morning the girls had fun with my other stylecraft colors!

and now it's time for some crochet!!!

ugly dolls

It's been a while since i blogged, i've been busy with loads of things.... not all of those involved knitting and spinning. 

A few weeks ago i came across a message on facebook, about a lady from Tasmania, Sonia Singh, she is the creator of Tree Change Dolls. She buys second hand dolls and removes the make up and changes them into natural girls.

So inspiring!! I've talked about her works and the dolls with my oldest. I showed her one of the dolls, a bratz doll.

 

 

And asked if she liked it, she thought the doll looked silly with such big lips and strange eyes. Then i showed her how we could change them. She really liked the ''natural'' dolls Sonia Singh makes.

 

On the 27th of April we celebrate our king Willem Alexander, it's  a national day with music, parties, and all kinds of activities.

 For us it means waking up quite early around 6:45  to go to the fleamarket in our city. And afterwards we travel to my parents to celebrate my dads birthday!

 

 

The flea market was great for searching for ugly dolls. My oldest daughter was a great help in spotting them, hey mom here's another ugly doll!! Saying such things gives funny reactions :)

 We ended up with a few bratz and some barbies. The girls both had some money to spend and had a great time. They did found great new toys. And Josanne really knows about the value of money, when she found something was overpriced, she would say it and walk away!

 

 

I still had some acryllic paint and aceton, so the next few days i gave it a try. I can surely say it's hard!!! Especially the eyes, giving them the same shape is so hard!! I still have to find realy fine brushes, the smallest i was able to find where size 2 and i should use size 000.

 

But it's so much fun to do!! My girls wanted to try to, so they used some very old ugly dolls ;) due to bad hair not really useable for me. So we spend an afternoon together painting our dolls.

 

 

And now i found a good use for all those little balls of thin handspun... knitting dolls clothes!!

 

 

Here a few before and afters, i still need lots of practise! But they don't look so creepy anymore! And it sure is really fun to do and see the dolls change :)

 

If anyone has some ugly dolls they don't want anymore.... i would like to take them off your hands ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                              kinda creepy look don't you think....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

to be continued....