Author Archives: julesmoon

dyeing with dyer’s coreopsis

I’ve been doing quite a bit of dyeing again over the last few months! When we first moved to Glasgow and into our flat, I really didn’t think I’d be able to do much at all as the kitchen is minuscule and there are no windows where I could put jars of dye and fibre to catch the heat of the sun… but, since we don’t currently have a garden and I’m not currently doing any hort work at all, it’s been the finding and collecting of plant material for dyeing that’s been my main interaction with plants, so I had to find a way to be able to then dye with it! So I’ve worked things so that, if I’m careful to be super clean and keep all my dyeing equipment separate, I can actually dye in the kitchen. Happy!

I recently discovered a huge patch of Dyer’s Coreopsis growing in a council bed near Glasgow University and was really keen to try dyeing with it. Despite the temperature dropping and the days shortening, a huge number of flowers have continued to appear, so I got into the habit of swinging by there every morning and picking a handful on my morning walk. Thanks, Glasgow City Council! (Normally collecting plants is a great conversation starter as people are always interested in what you’re going to do with it but, in this case, the students rushing to class were mostly oblivious to the strange woman harvesting flowers!)

So the results…

I’m using my standard method for dye tests with new species so that, though I’m still in the process of gathering a wide range of different fibres to test on, I get a sense of the possibilities of a species:

I’m using an 8ply blend of Jacob, Portland and Leicester Longwool from Garthenor Organics (from Queen of Purls here in Glasgow) that dyes beautifully, I imagine because of the Leicester and Portland components… The large skeins are mordanted with alum and cream of tartar and the short lengths with iron (top) and copper (bottom).
I also added small samples of silk and silk velvet fabrics, mordanted with alum and cream of tartar.
At the top left, you can see two small samples of Polwarth from Tarndie, the original flock of Polwarth sheep in my home state of Victoria, which I added to compare how a yarn that is softer and less lustrous would show the dye- the top one is a pale grey and the bottom a white.
And, to the left, a number of flowers showing the varying ratio of yellow to red found in the flowers…

Coreopsis tinctoria

All of these fibres were dyed in the same bath of flowers that had been covered in hot water, left to soak for 36 hours and then simmered for 1 hour. The bath was then cooled, the flowers removed and put in the freezer for another bath (Coreopsis is meant to be very generous!) and then the fibres added and simmered for 45 minutes.

I then removed the fibres and checked the pH to find it was in the neutral zone so put aside one set of fibres, which became the test set for dyeing at neutral pH (including the Polwarth samples).

Coreopsis, neutral bath

I then added enough vinegar to lower the pH to 3-4, added one of the remaining sets of fibres to the bath and kept it on a low heat for 10 minutes. I then removed and rinsed that set.

Coreopsis, acid

And finally raised the pH to 9 by adding sodium carbonate and added the final set of fibres, again leaving them in for 10 minutes and then rinsing them.

Coreopsis, alkali

And so you can see that, while there is there a huge amount of lovely colour in Dyer’s Coreopsis, it seems to have more of bit more of an affinity with wool than silk. PH definitely alters the result, with acids taking the colour to yellow and alkalis to deep orange and, while the copper-mordanted samples are very similar to those treated with alum/ cream of tartar, the iron samples range from a very dark hunter green to brown.

Coreopsis tinctoria and fibres dyed with it

I think this is my new favourite dye plant! It might have something to do with the fact that I’m still getting used to how dark and grey Glasgow is at the moment but I love its cheerful, sunshine-y colours and the way the dye just poured out of it when I prepared the dye bath! I’m going to try to get the coral-red that is apparently achievable by leaving it in an alkali bath for longer so I’ll let you know how that little experiment turns out…

And in case you’re interested in learning more about dyeing with plants, there is one place left in my workshop at the Glasgow Botanics on November 15- you can find out more via my shop!

breed swatchalong

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I remember a long conversation with a friend or a customer years ago about the fact that it would great if Ravelry had a function that allowed you to track other people’s thoughts and experiences on the longterm wearability of a particular yarn…

Of course, there is the option to simply read the comments on the page but somehow that feels a bit limited as most people tend to only write a few sentences about a yarn. And sometimes cranky comments can rank higher in our memory (creating an vague question about the yarn in our head), not to mention the fact that it’s much more likely that someone unhappy with something makes a fuss about it than someone happy with the same thing. In the end, we came to the dissatisfying conclusion that what we were looking for fell outside what we could reasonably expect Ravelry’s yarn pages to be capable of doing and that they can at best function as a starting point for further investigation.

We both felt incredibly passionate about the idea of tracking yarn in this way because, like most knitters/ crochets/ weavers/ other, it’s not just how a yarn feels and behaves when you first pick it up and work with it that counts for me- I want to know how it responds to wear. Does it hold up and bloom when it’s worn or turn into a sad saggy, pilly mess? All of this can be related to the processing of the base fibre but it’s also a lot to do with the type and quality of fibre used. Either way, we’d both spent a lot of time trawling projects made in a given yarn, hunting for their maker’s initial and subsequent thoughts about the yarn and that had made us want to give as much detail as possible in our project pages, in the hope of sharing information about yarn and inspiring others to do the same. Because sometimes yarns that don’t seem particularly promising to start with end up being the ones we love because they hold up so well and even improve over time- and we just wouldn’t know that from picking them up in a yarn shop and using that old knitter’s trick of rubbing them against our cheek!

This particular project is a great case in point. I bought a couple of balls of Blacker Yarns Alpaca/ Shetland 4ply at the 2010 UK Knitcamp marketplace and dithered for ages over what to make with it. It felt sturdy and strong and a bit too rough for a hat or mitts and so I finally decided to use it doubled to make a Winterberry hottie cover.

Winterberry in Blacker Alpaca/ Shetland which, along with my Hansel, keeps us snug and warm

Winterberry in Blacker Alpaca/ Shetland

As a plant nerd, I fell in love with those bobbly berries and thought they were a great use of the bobbles that so many of us love to hate (and, using it for the first time, discovered that they also made for a great foot massage!).

Now, a yarn with a 50% alpaca content is not the obvious choice for a project that needs to keep its shape because alpaca has little memory and so is very prone to stretching! But I worked it quite tightly on small needles, anticipating that it would grow… which it did. On blocking, the FO went from very tight and stiff to soft with a bit of give and I slid it onto my hottie (filled with hot water) when it was still damp so that it would mould perfectly to the shape and size of the bottle.

Over the last eighteen months since I finished it, I’ve used it all the time! Despite the feet rubs and having been taken camping and all over Scotland, it looks like it was made yesterday. Although the alpaca gives it a halo, the stitch definition is definitely good enough to show up both the rib and the bobbles clearly. The odd pill forms every now and then but they are those lovely, discrete balls that pull off cleanly. Even with a 50% alpaca content, because it was knitted firmly, it hasn’t stretched out of shape at all.

Winterberry in Blacker Alpaca/ Shetland

There is just no way that a merino yarn or anything in the soft end of the range would stand up to this wear and use and still look this good! Well, unless perhaps it was processed beyond recognition but that is something I choose not to use. And who needs a hottie cover to be that soft anyway?

So I’m really excited that Louise from Knit British has kicked off the Breed Swatchalong, a community project that encapsulates so much of this- embracing the different strengths and virtues of the many sheep breed fibres, being creative in finding uses for a them and documenting thoughts and experiences with them, thus enabling the trackability of yarn (or fibre). Joining in involves the simple process of comprehensive swatching with British (or local-to-you) breed yarns and then documenting and sharing your experience and thoughts on that yarn.

All contributors will create a Ravelry project page for each swatch, outlining source, preparation method and other vital stats and, more importantly, their thoughts on its life, longevity and use, including possible applications (stitch patterns and projects) and any changes on blocking (and how it was done) and wearing (next to the skin for the day).

Some swatches and summaries will also be featured on Wovember as part of the movement’s goal to build a deeper understanding of what British and local breed yarns are like to work with, hopefully encouraging other knitters to give them a try. And, once the KAL is finished (there is no end date as yet, due to the huge number of yarns out there to try!), Louise will make summary reviews of all British breed wools available on KnitBritish so that anyone searching for information on breed wool can find thorough reviews in one place.

So what am I going to swatch with? One of the stipulations is that yarns used are undyed and I have so much undyed in my stash that it was really hard to choose a yarn to start with! But I’m going with a ball of white Isle Yarns (the sister yarn to the Hole and Sons yarns that were the viral hit of the northern summer), a beautiful, small-batch yarn from Sue Hole of Purbeck, made from her son’s flock of Poll Dorset sheep and spun by the Natural Fibre Company in Cornwall.

Isle Yarns

I’ve never knitted with Poll Dorset but I know it has a beautiful bounce to it, which Sue and Sue (from the Natural Fibre Company) have enhanced by woollen-spinning it. More thoughts on it over the next week or two, plus some other other yarns I’m planning to document.

So… will you be joining in?! You can find all the details over at KnitBritish and join in on Instagram and Twitter with the tag #breedswatchalong.

cowl collaboration

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Hello! I’m back from six weeks of travelling and all I can say this morning is phew! The last six weeks have been a whirlwind, mostly full of really wonderful stuff but also some that was challenging- I’ll share more of what I got up to as I download over the next week but I’m just so pleased to be home with Scotto… and am looking forward to a quiet late autumn and winter here, getting to know the winter face of this city, walking (and hopefully camping!) in snowy woods, making stock for some lovely spring festivals, working on a couple of knitting patterns….

But today I’m preparing for a shop update with a new cowl design inspired by conversations with Kate from A Playful Day. Kate and I met at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival and immediately connected over our love for plants and adventures in nature and the conversations that stemmed from that meeting led to the idea of creating a colourwork pattern from cow parsley, a favourite spring wildflower.

Cow Parsley

This lovely plant is part of the Apiaceae family, a large group of plants that includes many culinary and medicinal species, such as carrot, celery, parsnip, fennel, anise, lovage, parsley, coriander, caraway, centella, angelica and hogweed, as well as the deadly hemlock. The family is characterised by umbelliferous flowers- inflorescences consisting of a series of short flower stalks- and a distinctive scent from the presence of volatile oils. And a bonus- many of them are also dye plants, including cow parsley!

Cow Parsley is traditionally found as part of roadside hedgerows and is commonly seen in large swathes, such as in this inner-Edinburgh gardens:

Meadow of cow parsley, downtown Edinburgh

Meadow of cow parsley, Edinburgh

But, as always, I’m always interested in what it looks like close up…

Cow Parsley

So I started looking at the form of the umbel flower and wondered how to capture both its curves and geometry, something that was not immediately easy since colourwork lends itself better to linear forms. But the little clusters of flowers enabled me to get around that by using them to create a curve and, after a series of false starts, I ended up with a umbel motif in six colourways that should evoke the Scottish landscape in all its beauty…

Cow Parsley Cowl

Cow Parsley Cowl in Straw

Cow Parsley Cowl in Willow/ Bleached White

Cow Parsley Cowl in Sage Blue/ Bleached White

They’ll be up for sale in my shop at 8pm Glasgow time this evening but you can see a preview of them there in the meantime, in case you’re keen to look at the colours and have a think!

And you can find out more about Kate and her ace podcast covering creativity, community and a whole lot about things happening in the British knitting scene (including an interview with me as part of her month theme of Sustain) at A Playful Day. Thanks so much for the inspiration, Kate!

shop update: pouches

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Hello! I hope you’re all well and life is mostly sweet… A little heads-up that I’ve just added 20 pouches to the shop, most of which are Harris tweed from a series of jackets I collected in Melbourne.

Pouches

The incredible textures and colours found in HT never cease to take my breath away, especially when I get in close- and, in this case, I had no choice as my main lens is broken so I had to use my macro lens- apologies for the even shallower depth of field than normal ; )

Pouch in rust Harris tweed

Pouch in earthy houndstooth Harris tweed

Pouch charcoal Harris tweed

Pouch in teal/ rust Harris Tweed

I’m also really excited to be using some beautiful, heavy linen produced locally in Fife to line my pouches! I’ll still use secondhand fabrics where I can but it’s not always easy to find the right ones and, this way, I get to support (in a very small way) the last major domestic producer of linen… and I can also avoid having to interface the tweeds, meaning that the only non-natural component is the zipper tape!

Enjoy xx

vintage shetland blog tour

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If you are a knitter (or are in any way interested in the history of fashion and knitwear), you really need to know about the Vintage Shetland Project, the culmination of several years of research by knitting anthropologist Susan Crawford, who, with the help and support of Carol Christiansen, textile curator at the Shetland Museum, has been researching hand-knitted garments and accessories made in Shetland in the 20^th century.

For the past four years, Susan has made the trip to Shetland twice a year to take a selection of knits from the museum’s archives through a rigorous process of analysis, with the goal of writing up and publishing them as a beautiful hardcover book on vintage Shetland knitting- what a labour of love!

Susan Crawford in the Shetland Museum archives

Susan has worked to create garments as close as possible to the shapes, textures and colours of the originals; every stitch was transcribed, each garment carefully measured and Fenella, a 2ply that knits to a vintage 3ply weight and comes in 25 shades matched to the museum garments, was developed specifically for the project. The result is a collection that feels just like what I think of as Shetland knitting but that encompasses a huge variety of different styles, time periods and construction methods, including lace, menswear, accessories and, of course, Fair Isle techniques. Susan says that she struggled to narrow down the vast number of designs on offer to twenty-five as there were so many beauties in the archives and we agreed that one look at the museum’s collection blows out of the water the idea that Shetland knitters were traditional- there is just so much variety in their output!

All of the items in the archives have been donated to the museum and are largely the products of creative knitting minds, rather than from commercial patterns. To me, this beautiful piece from Susan’s collection demonstrates that…

A favourite piece from the collection

While the motifs and shades used in this pullover from the late 1920’s or early 1930’s are traditional, the way they are used is anything but! The way the allover checkerboard pattern is broken up and inserted into geometric panels reminds me very much of the pieced satin evening dresses of the time. And yet the way the designer (who was most probably also the knitter) has continued the background colours under the lice or birds eye stitch in traditional style and used corrugated ribbing and modified drop shoulders shows that the piece is still very much of Shetland. This illustrates beautifully the innovative nature of Shetland’s knitters and their desire to move with and respond to ever-changing trends in fashion.

A favourite piece from the collection

With the research completed, patterns in the process of being written and final photography shoots happening in Shetland in July, the project is nearing completion and Susan has launched a Pubslush crowdfunder campaign to create the Vintage Shetland Project book. Needless to say, there has been overwhelming support for the project and she reached her goal in just over 24 hours, but you can still support the project, with additional funds going to support a wide range of extras- and you get the added bonus of getting your hands on a copy of The Vintage Shetland Project before Christmas and general release in 2016 (or a series of other enticing rewards)…

Congratulations on a wonderful project and a hugely successful community undertaking, Susan!

This post is part of The Vintage Shetland Project blog tour and Helene Magnusson is hosting the next instalment tomorrow. You can find out more about Susan’s journey at susancrawfordvintage.