Category Archives: knitting and yarn

purple basil

Once you get a taste for dyeing with plants, you start to question the potential of everything around you: plants in your garden and surrounding landscape, your fridge, your food cupboard and even your medicine cabinet if you’re into herbs! I recently bought a bunch of purple basil to infuse in oil and serve with baked vegetables; rather than leaving the remaining half-bunch to turn to sludge in the fridge, I simmered it in water for 45min, strained the leaves out and added some yarn pre-mordanted in alum and cream of tartar to see if any of the dark red of the dyebath would bond to it.

Purple basil on wool/ silk and wool

Interestingly, the wool/ silk took up a lot of colour, while the wool just a touch, whereas sometimes the opposite happens. I’m starting to think there must be affinities between certain plant pigments and certain fibres… or perhaps the capacity for bonding is pH-related. It’s an enigmatic art.

ursula

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Happy 2013 to you all! I really hope there has been some resting and relaxing in your small corner of the world and that you have some good plans for 2013… we’ve been sweltering in Melbourne since late December (there are small and large bushfires burning all over the southern parts of Australia, which is very worrying) and yet, in a bizarre repeat of last year’s holiday, I started a colourwork project, Kate Davies’ Ursula. You’d think that holding a strand of yarn in one hand would be enough in this kind of weather but I’m going two-handed- nuts! I’m not sure if I’m trying to evoke my cool, damp memories of Shetland by knitting a Shetland-inspired cardigan with Shetland yarn or what, but something seems to be working, as I’m totally loving both the emerging fabric and the knitting of it… so that’s a good start to the year!

Ursula

I can’t get the colourwork to lie flat enough to get a clear shot of the design but hopefully you get the idea. I’m super pleased with the colours (Jamieson and Smith 2-ply and Rowan Scottish Tweed), which is a relief as I find it hard to know how colours are going to interact until I’ve knitted quite a large piece! The main colour is Scottish Tweed in Herring, a wild and elusive colour that looks blue-grey but actually has a bit of everything in it.

Herring

I wasn’t sure how the other colours would work with it but I they seem to pick up and highlight all the different shades in the blend.

Wine, herring and natural

This’ll be my first full-size, steeked colourwork project and I’m pretty excited! For you non-knitters, steeking involves knitting a garment as a tube and, at the same time, inserting columns of extra stitches where you want the armholes and front opening to be and later cutting up those columns to enable you to work the openings. This is done because knitting colourwork is much quicker and easier in the round! Below, you can see the columns of stitches that form the steek.

Steek!

It’s been a while since I felt this excited about knitting and what I was making- I feel like I’m learning to knit all over again! I want to keep pushing myself to try to learn new things, so I have to thank Kate for providing that inspiration- as always, she’s produced a beautiful, well-written design with lots to keep me engaged and some solid techniques to learn.

I’m converting the design to a v-neck as I always wear cardigans unbuttoned and I think it’ll hang better that way. As always, I’m finding myself being extra-cautious about not working the colourwork too tightly and so my tension is a bit looser than it should be! I think the end product will be a bit bigger than planned but that kind of suits me- I’d be quite happy if my cardigan was slightly grandpa-ish, rather than fitted (shh, don’t tell Kate!) and I may add pockets later if that is the case. A friend told me that the colours reminded him of James Herriot (a great compliment given that he, along with David Attenborough, was my biggest childhood crush!) and I guess I’m hoping that the finished cardigan will fit in in the city but hint at its island roots!

What’s your first knitting/ sewing/ writing/ planting/ creative project for the year?!

workshop with susan guagliumi

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A few weeks back, I was lucky enough to attend a workshop with machine knitting innovator, designer, writer and teacher, Susan Guagliumi. This woman has been on the scene since the early eighties and has a serious amount of expertise and passion for the craft, so it was a privilege to listen to her talk and to watch her demonstrate bridging on her machine. I must admit that I was so engaged by her that I didn’t absorb much of the actual techniques! I just wanted to absorb her stories, thoughts and energy… I figured I could learn the techniques from her book anytime but it’s a rare thing to have access to her in person.

Below are some of the amazing swatches she brought along to demonstrate some of the many applications for bridging.

Short-row heels

Detail of short-row heels

Chain-link cable

Tuck

Short-row wriggles

Short-row bumps, pre-and-post-felting

Rolled cable

For more on the workshop, read my lovely friend Christine’s post!

ratanjot

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Ratanjot is the Hindi name for a number of plants in the borage family (including Alkanna tinctoria or alkannet) traditionally used for colouring textiles, food (such as rogan josh!), vegetable oils, wines, medicines, cosmetics and varnishes. It is currently used as a red food colouring agent (E103 or alkannin).

The species most commonly used in India (where this plant material came from) is Arnebia nobilis, which is imported from Afghanistan. The purple-brown roots, twisted roots are covered in a papery bark from which the dye is extracted. Dark red, purple and browns are the most typical colours achieved.

Two methods were used:

Dyebath 1: powdered ratanjot mixed with alcohol and left for an hour to extract colour.

Dyebath 2: powdered ratanjot mixed with cold water to form paste and left overnight.

Warm water was then added to both preparations and both were brought to the boil and then down to simmer. Pre-mordanted yarn and fibre were introduced into both baths and left at 80c for approx 1 hour.

The yarn and fibre in dyebath 1 with alcohol all came out brown, whereas those in dyebath 2 came out soft shades of purple, mauve and aubergine. Ratanjot seems to be light-sensitive; the colours intensified and moved towards purple when the freshly-dyed skeins were exposed to sunlight. Next time, I’d like to see how pH affects the colours achieved; apparently, using an acidic vinegar afterbath results in pinkish shades, whereas and alkaline ammonia afterbath results in greyish blue.

Ratanjot on wool/ silk yarn: dyebaths 1 and 2

Ratanjot on cotton cloth

soursob

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Apparently, this is the year to get your neon yarn on…

Soursob on cotton

Solar-dyed, using a handful of soursob (Oxalis pes-caprea) flowers in a jar and adding boiling water and a skein of unmordanted cotton yarn. Left for 7 days on back deck in weak, late-winter sun.

I was very surprised how much colour the yarn took up, given that no mordant was used; it is much brighter than in the photo but I couldn’t capture the colour. Need to test for light-fastness.

I think I’ll dye the other 2 skeins I have (maybe grey or indigo) and use them together to crochet a shopping bag…