Cochineal dyeing photos

I've dyed my grey wool yarns for the OLG workshop and I'm pleased with the results though I would have thought that I would have ended up with more variations in the colour.
Here are the cochineal bugs that I grounded in an old coffee grinder that I keep specially for this.
I forgot to make a picture of the grounded bugs, when you see a lovely red colour coming out.

I can show a picture of the grounded bugs in the water ready to go into the dye pan. Here you can see colour!


The yarn that I have dyed is this on the left. The yarn in the top of the photo is on the cone as I bought it and below a skein of the cleaned yarn, a big difference to be seen. The water from just wetting the yarn was very dirty. Only after cleaning (heating in soapy water) and rinsing did the water become clean.

Next, I put my soaked grounded bugs in the pan and I added 6 skeins of yarn and started heating slowly and left it for more than an hour heating on low heat but it must have been near boiling point. I left it overnight to cool and took the skeins out next morning and heating up the water slowly again with another 3 skeins and left this for the rest of the day. Took the skeins out when it was cooled and added another 2 skeins and let this heat for another hours. I now had 3 batches ending up with 3 variations of colour looking like this on the right. As I only had 2 skeins from the 3rd bath I divided one of these skeins in 3 so that I could do some more experimenting.
I took a skein of each batch and put them into part of the dye mixture where I had added some copper water (you make this with water+vinegar+copper piping and leave to rest for a while), next I added a skein of each batch into part of the dye mixture with added iron water (water+vinegar+rusty nails and leave to rest for a while) and the last was dye mixture with fresh lemon juice and a skein of the 1st and 3rd batch added. I might have used to little of the copper and iron water (or my water had been standing idle for to long, I've had it for ages, not sure how long this keeps, I presumed indefinitely). The difference is so minute that you hardly notice.

Here are the photos of all the different colour variations, as you can see very subtle differences.


It is very difficult to get the exact colours to show up in the photos.

The photo with the 3 different bath's is probably the best, colour wise. It is great fun to do this dyeing and at the end I hope to have a big selection of red yarns for weaving.

Next job is to dye my white yarns in cochineal, the dye mixture is already waiting, just a matter of having enough time to do the different experiments and I'm hoping for more spectacular differences this time.

Dyeing with cochineal

I've been busy preparing myself for the April OLG workshop given by Debbie Bamford. Roots, woods and bugs: working with red dyes.
I've been making lots of small skeins in the last few weeks so that I can do different experiments with the red dyes. Yesterday part of the skeins were cleaned and mordanted.
At the moment my first colour is on the stove: cochineal.
I have to wait until the dye is cooled down so that I can add the skeins to the dye bath. I'm doing 2 dye baths as I have grey Shetland wool and white wool to dye. When I cleaned the grey, the water stayed very dirty (and that was only soaking in water stage) but I did get clearer rinsing water after I had cleaned the yarn with soapy water. I opted for separate dye baths as I do not want to risk that the grey will affect the white wool. Later tonight, the grey wool will go in and I will do the dye bath for the white wool tomorrow. I will post some photos when I have my first results.

Braiding

Our Guild had a practical day today, making braids together. We were told to bring some thick yarn with us. I took some wool and cotton yarn but compared to the others mine was fine though it is far from my finest yarn. It just takes longer to finish the braid but I'm pleased with the result.
We were shown to make 2 different braids today.This is the first braid we made. Starting with 3 colours. Two groups of 3 double threads at each side (mine was 2 yellow and 1 green) and in the middle a group of 2 double threads (mine was red).The threads are clamped to the table so that you have a hold from where you can start braiding.
I was so busy learning the braiding that I forgot to take photos so I have made a new braid and taken photos at most stages trying to explain how this braid is made.I have used slightly different colours on the left (yellow/green) and right (dark yellow/blue) set of 3 double threads, hopefully showing what is happening to these threads.
These outer sets are threaded by bringing the under thread over the top thread, see in the drawing. This "fixing" is done each time after a change in the braiding.The red threads go from the centre again to the side, repeating all sequinces again until braid is finished.

The second braid that I made was this one, I will just place the photo:

Springtime

Spring at last!

Sunshine, flowers and lots of buds in the garden. Although the temperature is still low, it just shows what is in store for us very soon!

I have not much weaving to share at the moment as I'm busy preparing myself for next month's Online Guild workshop Roots, woods and bugs: working with the red dyes.

At the moment I'm rewinding larger skeins of worsted and lambswool into smaller skeins. I have 1 kg of each yarn and I'm hoping to end up with lots of different colours red at the end of April. There should be enough yarn together to make a project. I already have something in mind but I will have to wait and see if it will work out the way I intend it to go.
I'm planning to dye with madder, redwood, sandelwood and cochineal. I also have dye extract from Pure Tinctoria that I want to use for the first time in this workshop, in particular red Lac but may be some more red colours.
So watch this space next month :-)

Bradford days

Cally has in this post said some nice things about Doni and myself. I feel flattered to have been named by her. Reading blogs of people you have met make them even more interesting to read.

The link between Cally, Doni and myself is that we all started the Bradford course together in 2005. With a group of 15 individuals we began the course but as we progressed we bonded and became more of a group for the duration of the course, and beyond. Something special we have shared together with the ups and downs of the course. Our group was the last of the HNC Handwoven Textiles course, now changed into HNC Woven, Knitted or Embroidered Textiles. If you want an insight of the Bradford course do go and read Nigel's blog together with his photo albums. He is a current Bradford student and describes his Bradford process here in a unique way.

Starting my blog at the beginning of this year was for me a way of getting focused again on textiles and weaving in particular after a period where focussing in general had not been easy. Blogging has learned me so far to really look at what I have woven and how to describe this. A great learning curve that will continue to grow.
For my blog to be named by Cally was a surprise, I'm no longer hiding but in view of a bigger audience.
For me to name other blogs, I would have to choose, and many already have been named by others. We would keep going around in circles. So I choose to leave it at this. ;-)

Creative Spinning workshop

I've just come back from my creative spinning workshop by Jane Deane and Alison Daykin.
It was a great workshop, I've gained so much! I've now been shown how to create a yarn, not just spin a yarn.
I had taken my object with me, my Azurite stone.
We had to look at it and think what was inspiring about it, was it the colour, the texture or the shape? We spent yesterday morning working with this in more depth, also drawing and colouring before we started spinning after lunch.

These are the results of my spinning. I'm very pleased with the yarns. The top purple (it looks blue but is more towards purple in real) yarn is a slub yarn. Is it not great to design and produce your own yarns like this. It is now a matter of finding the time to blend and spin the fibres into yarn and making enough for a weaving project.

The blue is in fact more toward the purple. My first yarn was more an Indigo blue but did not match the Azurite at all. In this photo you see the blue and purple yarns I made (here the purple yarn is the same as the yarn with the stone), I just cannot get the colour right in the photo. They are both a bit darker for real.

Here a close up of the slub yarn.

There are 3 different coloured green yarn, this is the darkest of the 3 but the photo shows it up much lighter than it is.

If you are also interested in doing a Creative Spinning workshop, Jane and Alison will be teaching this at Summer School in August this year. I can highly recommend this!

Spinning Blue/Purple

I have been busy spinning this week
to empty my bobbin as I need all of them empty for this weekend. This is space dyed merino wool that I bought years ago and I have enjoyed looking at the lovely colours until I decided to spin it up. It was only 50 grams but I now have 198 meters yarn for weaving.

This weekend I'm going to the workshop Creative Spinning with Jane Deane & Alison Daykin at De Spinners. Amanda Hannaford will also be teaching a workshop there. Really looking forward to meeting all the other spinners.

Tonight I've been busy baking as a surprise to take with me.

We have to bring a picture or an object for inspiration.
I'm bringing this:

This is a stone that I have had for years which has 2 totally different sides. I believe it is an Azurite. The blue is a really deepblue colour with some sparkle and the green layer has many colour variations from pale to dark with some brownish red. That should be inspiring for some lovely coloured yarns hopefully!