nemo ignorat

atlantic ocean

two precious weeks a year - see you later

I dyed

beware, this will be a picture heavy post, with some ramblings about my life the last month.

Last saturday, I had my first possibility to sell my hand dyed yarns and fabrics. Before I could sell some (I did sell some, not many but I learned a lot about building up a booth, writing labels, telling people about what I do, how I do it etc) I had to dye them.

As it sometimes happens, the last 4 weeks were ... challenging ... to say the least. My mum (who is 86 and lives at my house) fell about 4 weeks ago and broke her hip (to be precise, she had a femoral neck fracture). She came into the hospital, got a surgery and a femoral neck prothesis and then we had to wait. Being in the hospital is not easy for anyone and after a few days the grumbling set in. Since last week she is in rehab, which is good, because the rehab clinic is very good, modern, nice and especially for seniors.

To make things even more interesting, we will go on vacation (our only vacation in the year, and we really need it) end of this week. Two weeks France, Brittany ... at the sea side. We're both looking forward to it but for a while it seemed as if we might not be able to go.

All the other things that can happen when a dear family member fells ill happened and didn't make it any easier. Others involved themselves and it got complicated. And it is still not over and still very complicated.

So, I was quite happy to have a reason to stand at the dye pots (in between visits to the hospital, washing drying and ironing and taking it back to the hospital, talking a lot over the phone, arguings and debates and legal stuff and burocratic madness).

There were lots of fabrics as well. All dyed with natural dyes.

Fortunately, I took these pictures yesterday in the sun. I will show some dyed fabrics today - maybe. Right now, it's 2 am and I can't sleep.

Below is silk thread. Really thin thread I dyed with indigo. It took me a while to learn how to handle this really thin silk thread during dyeing, but now it looks so beautiful and I'm looking forward to sew with it. Maybe a bit embroidery as well?

And there was some mending as well. I follow Jude's Contempory Boro Class very interested. At first, I wanted to mend my most favourite jeans. But I had to acknowledge its age and the lack of fabric integrity. But there are always shirts. I haven't bought a new shirt for me in years, because I always inherit some from DH and male friends. Some are torn (those came from DH) and some just fell out of favour (mostly from my friends).

When I get a shirt I want to keep for myself, the first things I do is remove cuffs (I don't like them), the stiff collar (I prefer a small mandarin collar) and I look if I can take it in somehow. (I'm not petite but most male friends we have are huge.) And thanks to Jude's commentary, I now remove the labels as well.

And then there is a black linen jacket. I got it from a friend who didn't want it anymore (never really wore it) because she felt like a circus director in it. It is true, it looks a bit like swallow tails from a tail coat. I wore it as it is and the linen feels good. But as I looked at it today, I thought what if I would elongate the jacket with some indigo linen and fill in the gaps between the swallow tails. This is something to ponder on.

Maybe I could ponder about the black linen jacket in bed. Better that than all the other things rushing through my brain keeping me awake.

Somehow, I am glad I didn't sell all the yarn. I want to see them knitted into socks. Warm socks in white and red/blue/green or yellow. Maybe they will be stripy? Mismatched, stripy socks would feel quite good right now. 

Good night wherever you are

circling on

stardust changed. somehow the sun part didn't feel right. so I added some more cloth weaving and some more circles/planets. it's growing - changing (and too large for the small empty space in my flat, which is why it moved into the garden for the photo)

don't turn around

One of the few places in my flat where I can lay out a cloth to have a look and experiment is in the living room cum office where the desks are. To try out some combinations, I layed out stardust (in between dark and light) and just turned my back to get the camera. When I turned around again, I saw this:

Albeit very decorative it was not what I had in mind.

This was more informative for my purpose (though not as cute, I admit):

Between books, fabrics, cloth and dogs, we seem to have developed a kind of organic living style. Our senior dog uses the book piles in front of the sofa to make the ascend easier for his old bones and Ramses, more a whole zoo in the body of a dog (I still think, he is a cat in camouflage), well, he tests every fabric and every fibre that is laying around for comfort. That's just the way it is - and it's a good way.

ombre blues and then some

well, nothing new from my dye studio, still working on the blues. Or better, stitching the blues. Which is a whole new field to learn. But, I had some really interesting and exhilerating results with my now 4 weeks old 1-2-3-vat.

Before re-heating it, I added a teaspoon of fructose to it. And lo and behold, it dyed a really good blue.

See for yourself (though the lightning wasn't good and although the damask looks really great, it doesn't like to be photographed):

 

and some trys at ombre dyeing:

the technique is not really good, but you can see how well the blue builds up in the middle part

here's a detail of the long cloth

and now another dragonfly - which looks a bit more like a flying fish, methinks ;o)

the body is better but the wings are fumbled. Well, we dye and learn ;o)

(all fabrics were dry but not yet ironed)

fat dragonfly shibori

Glennis showed us how to stitch resist a dragonfly in our indigo workshop. She asked us to do our own, because 'every dragonfly is different'

uhm, yes, every dragonfly is different and mine is definitely overweight or not a dragonfly at all.

Conclusion: technique works fine but I do have to work on my basic understanding of dragonfly anatomy ;o)

Since I had some thread left in the needle and some space on the piece of fabric, I free-hand stitched a spiral.

which worked a bit better.

more blue

Somehow I don't have any idea for an interesting headline anymore. Most things I do at the moment have to do with dyeing blue :o) So, here I am presenting some more indigo dyed fabrics.

I fell in love with this kind of dyeing. The above pieces are planned for some bracelets. But I think I will dye a larger piece for a belt. There is a kind of skandinavian folkware belt-pattern I really like and it would be perfect for this kind of resist dyeing.

another resist dyeing for braclets.

and some bookmarks. Vintage handspun and handwoven linen with resists and gradiation dyeing.

and some leave bookmarks

And now I'm off stitching for arimatsu shibori ;o)

Doodle Sunday

Of Light and Dark

I like the motto. And I think it will become the motto of the FKA Stardust Quilt, although the stardust theme did not completely leave me. I love the thought that we all are made of the stuff stars are made of. That it took a whole supernova to get the right heat and pressure to cook up the gold that's in my wedding band. Isn't this amazing? Anyways, right now, I'm IN BETWEEN and so I'm more into the question Of Light and Dark. Maybe my usualy mini jet lag from the switch to summer time and the suddenly darkness again in the mornings is a factor too.

At least, I'm slowly back on track again. Dog is behaving like he should, DH is back to work and even Mum is doing better. Which means, I had time to dye a bit yesterday. The 1-2-3 vat reached fermentation stadium. Which is totally normal. The 1-2-3 vat begins as a reduction vat (like any other chem vat) and after a while switches into fermentation mode because of the bacteriae that are acumulating. They take over and - voilá - fermentation happens. And about 3 weeks ago, when I had to move my old 1-2-3 vat, the handle of the pot broke and the whole vat spilled. So I began a new one, this time with henna as fructose source and 30g indigo on a 1 gal pot. When not in use, it sits in my kitchen in a corner and has a nice coppery skin on the surface. Before I use it, I re-heat it to about 50°C (about 120°F) and it develops some nice hana after a while.

This is a dye sample. Fine linen strips, 3 dips each, the left is from a rather strong PR vat and the right from the 1-2-3 vat. It is rather darkish and I should try some more dips. It might get stronger with continuing fermentation.

I mixed a strong PR vat because I wanted some gradiation for a new part Of Light and Dark:

This is still in its unbasted phase. I will do the stitching tonight. I used the same fine linen as in the sampler (I still have some strips left from a linen quilt project I sewed for a friend of mine some time ago) and some pillowcase cotton. I'm looking forward to seeing it stitched.

The next piece of fabric I dyed in a nice gradation was the cotton sheet I used to protect the silk brick from last dye session. It already had the darker center and the outward spread but I wanted the center a bit darker so I re-dipped it.

It looks really nice against the window, but I still haven't solved the problem of getting a half-curtain fixed to our insulated glass windows.

And then there was this sale of real silk velvet in a fabrics shop I frequent. It was a large piece of more than 3 metres with some spots and minor cuts for about half the price as usual and it is gorgeous and I couldn't resist. Here is a sampler in indigo:

And what happens when you wrap some linen voile around a plastic cone with holes in it and bind it with some mason's lacing cord?

This is only a section (almost the right half) and here is a detail from the other side:

Doesn't it look a bit like a feather?

And a whole string of moons jumped out of the vat as well:

with one gibbous moon in between:

The cotton sheet is this satin like cotton with woven in dots. I found it impossible to catch every dot during folding but one of them became perfect, don't you think?

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On a different note, my new background music* (new at least for me, their CD is from 2010) is  Gangstagrass.

I love fusion music. That's probably the reason why I like Abney Park, Les Negresses Verte and Les Ogres de Barback so much.  If someone here likes bluegrass and is open to fusion, I can only recommend to risk an ear. They play their music on their website. (I know, I know, I'm totally behind, they already got an Emmy for the opening theme of 'Justified' which I just discovered for me as well.)

*background music: I usually live in a rather quiet house (except for the occasional bark from my dogs). No TV no radio. But when I cut or lay out fabric, plan something, in short am in a kind of meditative state concerning sewing and stitching, I like to have some music accompanying me. Depending on the weather it usually is one of the above, sometimes film music, but I need some rhythm in it. I tried percussion only (Kodo, Ondekoza or even Steve Reich) but I can't concentrate with it, it goes right into my brain and all I want is to dance.

in between

"Granny Weatherwax had always wondered: what was supposed to be so special about a full moon? It was only a big circle of light. And the dark of the moon was only darkness.

But half-way between the two, when the moon was between the worlds of light and dark, when even the moon lived on the edge ... maybe then a witch could believe in the moon.

Now a half-moon*sailed above the mists of the swamp."

- Terry Pratchett. Witches Abroad

*the picture shows yesterday's moon between Jupiter and Venus - just have a look at it. I can see the Jupiter-Venus in between constellation from my bedroom window when I go to bed

Last week was ... a challenge. Friday a week ago, Ramses (the younger dog, my fox coloured Podenco) had a planned surgery. Nothing special and, as I said, planned. Unusual for his accident prone majesty who had in his nearly 5 years of life already 5 surgeries. And this one was the first we could plan beforehand. So DH took his left-over vacation days from last year, we planned it with the vet and off we went and everything was fine. Except, male Spanish dogs are bad patients (as any Galgo and Podenco owner will tell you). This and that I live with another dog was the reason for DH's help offer. Till monday I was under-nourished (I tend to forget eating when I am a bit stressed out) and tired-out from my night watches with Ramses. Although DH was at home, he "used" his vacation days to catch a flu, thus not being able to help me much with the dogs and my mum thought it was a really good time to need some special attention as well. Monday's post-surgical control visit with the vet was very positive - except that I fainted from hypoglycaemia. After that, the week didn't get much better.  I strongly felt like stitching but I'm in between. I'm still mulling over the stardust quilt. You know, the one with the three older pieces. I thought, I needed some more blues for it. Well, Glennis' workshop provided me with the right opportunity to dye them. And then I stumbled across the above quotation. Between the worlds of light and dark. This is how I felt and I think this is the appropriate theme for the stardust quilt. In between. I think, the quotation was the impulse I needed to get going.

And then there was some more dyeing. Although I had my three patients to take care of, I found some time in between (hah!) to go to the dye pots.

some blue wool. On the left dyed in the PR vat and on the right from the 1-2-3 vat. Not much difference.

blue silk. I dyed a silk brick in the PR vat. It was still coiled up as a brick and I packed it into a cotton cloth while dipping. It worked *s*

and some blue sock yarn. On the left from the 1-2-3 vat and on the right in the PR vat. I was interested in the differences.

I dyed lots cotton and linen fabrics as well, and my fermentation vat is finally active, so I christened some cotton and linen in it as well. but I haven't taken pictures yet.

Just another thing, I'm working on right now:

inspired by DebG's sky scarf I began knitting on it at the begin of March. After some rows I was so excited about how it felt to the hand that I didn't want to stop working on it and I quit the sky scarf idea and now I just spin and knit as I go. The fibres are some skudde (the white yarn), some skudde indigo dyed, and some Gotland (the grey yarn) and mixes. It looks like nothing I would usually knit (or wear) but it feels just great. thick and soft and full of texture. I spin the yarn thick on a spindle and knit it right away. It will give me warmth and protection when it gets colder again.