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laura and the wolf

An idea for a hat has been tugging on my sleeve for months. I finally charted out and knitted it over the scorchingly hot post-Christmas break and the cool, wintery colours sang to me as I worked, relieving my hot and sweating fingers…

Snowflake wheel

Laura and the Wolf

Drawn from a favourite childhood book, it tells of Laura and Carrie’s night ramble, bundled up against the cold, across the frozen waters of Silver Lake on a winter’s night:

“It was so beautiful that they hardly breathed. The great round moon hung in the sky and its radiance poured over a silvery world. Far, far away in every direction stretched motionless flatness, softly shining as if it were made of soft light. In the midst lay the smooth, dark lake, and a glittering moonpath stretched across it… Laura’s heart swelled. She felt herself a part of the wide land, of the far deep sky and the brilliant moonlight. She wanted to fly…

‘On the moonpath, Carrie! Let’s follow the moonpath,’ Laura cried.

And so they ran and slid, and ran and slid again, on the glittering moonpath into the light from the silver moon. Farther and farther from shore they went, straight towards the high bank on the other side… Close to the farther shore, almost in the shadow of the high bank, they stopped. Something made Laura look up to the top of the bank.

And there, dark against the moonlight, stood a great wolf! He was looking towards her. The wind stirred his fur and the moonlight seemed to run in and out of it.

‘Let’s go back,’ Laura said quickly, as she turned, taking Carrie with her. ‘I can go faster than you.’

She ran and slid and ran again as fast as she could, but Carrie kept up.

‘I saw it too,’ Carrie panted. ‘Was it a wolf?’

‘Don’t talk!’ Laura answered. ‘Hurry!’

Laura was glad to be safe in the warm room with the desolate prairie shut out. If anything had happened to Carrie, it would have been her fault for taking her so far across the lake.

But nothing had happened. She could almost see again the great wolf with the wind ruffling the moonlight on his fur.

‘Pa!’ she said in a low voice.

‘Yes, Laura?’ Pa answered.

‘I hope you don’t find the wolf, Pa,’ Laura said.

‘Why ever not?’ Ma wondered.

‘Because he didn’t chase us,’ Laura said. ‘He didn’t chase us, Pa, and he could have caught us.’

A long, wild, wolf howl rose and faded away on the stillness. Another answered it. Then silence again.”

Snowflake wheel

I love how this chapter speaks of Laura’s joy in the wild beauty of that desolate landscape and of the delicate coexistence of man and animal before the flood of settlers poured into the west. At a time when many across the world considered wilderness as full of danger and evil, it must have been only a few that could live in such a place and still celebrate its wildness. The Laura Ingalls Wilder books are often (at least here in Australia) considered a bit twee- maybe due to that TV series?!- but passages like these make me contemplate the places and ways humans have lived, the changes we’ve undergone and a time when children were allowed out into the night to run under the moon across a frozen lake. I don’t have children of my own so I can’t honestly say how I’d feel about it… but I do think that experience of such wildness is good for the soul, adult or child.

When I first had the idea of knitting this story into a tam, I wondered how to portray all the elements- the moonpath, the frozen lake, the wolf and the joy and panic of the girls. I found this wintery combination of yarns (Rowan Scottish and Yorkshire Tweeds, plus scraps of Shetland salvaged from an op-shop vest) in my stash and decided that the key was not to try to recreate the story literally (night-time, moon etc) but to pick out the elements that meant most- the light and snow, the lake, the wolf, the flight home and the love. I traded wolf colour for fox colour (sweet!) and hunted through various colourwork books, as well as improvising my own patterns, to make three border patterns that were 10 stitches across by 9 high, breaking them up with simple stripes.

Wolf in the frozen landscape

Running home across the lake

Heart

Border patterns

I used a twisted rib band to begin (I love the look but not the feel of corrugated rib) and followed the shaping from Mary Rowe’s Knitted Tams, adding a bit of length to accommodate my big head and using one of her lovely patterns for the wheel decreases. I have so much to learn about colour- for example, the hearts are so strong and the contrast between the white and grey so subtle that the snowflake kind of disappears, but I am excited to learn and I love it and am also very happy to have finished my first proper, not-just-a-scarf, all-my-own-ideas design : )

Ravelled here.

harris tweed upcycling

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My dad and I share a passion for Harris tweed… for him, that passion is rooted in childhood memories of Geelong and western Victoria, where he, like many boys and men, wore jackets made from it, tailored either here or in the UK. For me, it was the incredible textures and colours of this handwoven fabric that took my breath away…

Colours

A brief visit to the Outer Hebrides last year gave us the chance to explore the fabled woven cloth a little bit more, which only fueled our respect for the culture and tradition of HT and those who have made it for over a century.

Weavers sample book

The industry has waxen and waned over that time; recently, Yorkshire businessman Brian Haggis bought Kenneth Mackenzie Ltd in Stornoway, which at the time accounted for about 95 per cent of HT production. Haggas then reduced all 8000 HT patterns down to four, refused to sell to any one else and started producing exclusively for his own garment production in China. His efforts led to the closure of several mills producing the yarns used in HT production and the redundancy of many millworkers and and did not bode well for the future for the industry. However, a combination of the efforts of another local company, Harris Tweed Hebrides, and a renewed interest from local and international clothing and interior designers seems to gently suggest the possibility of a more diverse and robust future… for a far more informed view on the subject, Mike Donald’s blog, the croft, is well worth reading. Having spent many years on the mainland, most recently as a publican in Glasgow, this native Hebridean has returned to Lewis to undertake a weavers training and posts regularly on HT as seen locally and around the globe and other aspects of island life. Also interviewed here. This interesting BBC article on HT is also worth a view if you’re keen.

So Dad and I inadvertently started collecting HT jackets, really because, despite being reclaimed by the odd Fitzroy dandy and worn at events like the Glasgow and Melbourne Tweed Rides (still can’t believe I missed ours!), mostly these jackets (often with outdated cuts or the odd moth-hole) languish in wardrobes or on opshop racks. Which seems too much of a shame.

After rapidly accumulating half a dozen, we realized we were going to have to face the philosophical dilemma of what to do with them. Some we found were old– whether obviously well-worn or made of patterns that I’d not seen in the new models for sale in Scotland.

Textures

Others showed no sign of wear but were incredibly beautiful in their patterns. And the majority were lovely (aren’t all HT lovely?!) but much more standard herringbones and barley twists.

Perhaps I am too pragmatic sometimes but my feeling is that things should be used, especially clothes and textiles. I’d much prefer that, when I’m dead and gone, someone will unravel one of my handknit jumpers to reuse the lovely yarn than leave it sitting in a jumper drawer gathering dust and moth poo. So we decided that those jackets that were either old and interesting, lovely and/or a good cut should be left untouched so that they could be used by my dad or someone else and that all others were fair game for upcycling into something else.

After lots of careful unpicking and lots of thought, last week I finally took the plunge and used some of dads share to cover some old cushions of his. Very simple, nothing fancy- but they are lovely together.

Harris Tweed cushions

Tweed and velvet

Cosy

I have bigger plans for mine but, having only recently renewed my friendship with my sewing machine, it’s been good to start on something simple to discover how the fabric works! Now I need to explore interfacings and wadding to achieve the right amount of stiffness for the purpose… I’ll keep you posted on progress. I’m also planning to photograph those older and more unusual jackets so will post images here soon. And I should say that I am always on the lookout for more so would be thrilled if anyone wants to act as scout for me at their local opshops ; )

indigo and alizarin

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The final guild dyeing session for the year was focused on indigo and alizarin- so exciting! I’d been reading about the process of dyeing with indigo and the various methods of removing oxygen from the bath in order to allow the dye molecule to bond to fibres and wondering which we’d use- and it was the hydrosulphite vat method and powdered indigo, as it is the most easily replicated at home. Only slightly less exciting than extracting colour from the fresh plant itself, it really was as magical a process as I was imagining.

Some people dyed fabrics….

Simple pole shibori

but, for most of us, it was all about the yarn.

Jessica dip-dyeing handspun yarn

Not only undyed yarn though- wonderful colours result from overdyeing, especially using indigo over all the yellows and pale greens that are much more commonly achieved with closer-to-home plants- even I had quite a few of those, even though I haven’t been dyeing long…

Wendy's lovely ovedyeing

Despite being a little patchy, I am so happy with my results : )

Wool/ silk: indigo

Wool: from front- indigo, indigo over mint basil, indigo over ironbark

We also dyed with alizarin, which is the dye compound from madder. It has been commercially synthesized for industry use for many years and will be an interesting comparison to dyeing with madder root itself, something in the works for very soon. The resulting colour is a beautiful, subtle coral that is hard to capture!

Wool/ silk: alizarin

Wool/ silk: alizarin, pale exhaust bath

The guild group and teacher Robyn have such a wealth of experience and information- and are so willing to share it. And all for $4…

dye group 1

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Our new dye group had its inaugural meet on Sunday! Lots of excitement, enthusiasm and questions, some good ideas and knowledge and a little bit of chaos.

Preparing yarn for the pots

Three pots of eucalypt leaves and bark that had been stewing away for the best part of a week and one impromptu pot of mint basil- or basil mint?!

Eucalyptus cinerea

Eucalypts seemed like a good choice for our first meet, as a couple of windfalls had provided a good amount of leaves and we didn’t have to premordant any fibres for the day. Our Eucalyptus cinerea bath yielded some good oranges and rusts- though not the reds that I was hoping for so I am going to add some more leaves to the bath and try again…

Eucalyptus cinerea on various wools and wool/ bamboo blend

while the sideroxylon leaves, which should give orange to red, came out gold to pale olive…

Eucalyptus sideroxylon leaves (left) and mint basil (right)

and the sideroxylon bark, which I had soaked and heated several times over a two-week period until the bath was almost black, resulted in a surprisingly pale cocoa.

Eucalyptus sideroxylon bark

Some say that you can never really know what you’re going to get when dyeing with natural materials… others disagree. I guess I am falling somewhere in the middle at this point, as the variables of seasonality, rainfall and location seem to have a huge bearing on the colours you can get from eucalypts and other plants. I’d say I’m open to the magic and the intuitive side of the dyeing process but I’d also like to know my species and how to maximize colour extraction well enough to estimate what results I might get ; )

Eucalypts and basil mint

Rather than building a massive collection of tiny samples of colour, I’m skeining up the 2kg of Grafton- which sadly doesn’t seem to take up as much dye as other yarns ; ( – that I got in the Yarn Workshop sell-out into 50gm lots. That way, despite the possibility of ending up with a whole lot of different colours, I can turn the results of our experiments into some cushions and blankets- the last thing I need is more single balls of yarn to find uses for! Thanks, everyone!

chestnut, lichen and kangaroo apple

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Lots of experimenting going on at home… I’ve started seeing colour potential everywhere and have been wandering the surrounding streets and parks looking for windfall. The learning curve is steep and sometimes I fear I am not making the best use of the materials but, to a novice, even the palest colours bring delight ; 0

Soft shades

10gm skeins

From the top:

1. Castanea sativa (Sweet Chestnut)- hulls soaked, boiled and soaked again, then strained and simmered. Yarn pre-mordanted with alum and cream of tartar.

2. Unidentified foliose lichen (collected nine years ago!)- second bath, after remembering that I had to boil it before adding the yarn. Yarn unmordanted.

3. Unidentified foliose lichen (collected nine years ago!)- first bath, added unmordanted yarn and lichen to cold water then gently brought to simmer.

4. Solanum laciniatum (Large Kangaroo Apple)- leaves soaked overnight then simmered. Yarn pre-mordanted with alum and cream of tartar.

5. Solanum laciniatum (Large Kangaroo Apple)- as above, then modified with ammonia and copper.

6. Unidentified foliose lichen from property in South Gippsland- soaked, boiled and soaked again, then simmered.

It is making me think about how far I’ll go to get colour… the process of modifiying with copper opened my eyes to just the beginnings of how far one dye bath can range but, without knowing how much is left in the water, I am not comfortable introducing mordants of this kind into the environment simply for fun. I need to play around with copper and iron alternatives like using copper pots and adding rust to the dye-bath… and, anyway, I’m loving what I am finding without even going there yet.

There are now a series of jars in various stages of deshabillement around the house- containing soursob, flowering gum, rosemary, fennel and various mushrooms- and Scotto is slightly nonplussed about it all. I, however, am completely overexcited and so looking forward to both the first meeting of our new dyeing group in November and the imminent experiment with… deep breath… indigo at the guild. Undoubtedly more to follow here.