#plant dyed yarn

[comfortabletextiles]

Had some sun in the living room today 😌

The scarf is done btw!

Right now it's having a bath

#weaving #hand woven #hand dyed yarn #plant dyed yarn

[dreamsinombre]

Delightful haul from a wonderful local fiber festival yesterday. I got to spend some quality time with one of my favorite people, drink mead, get sheep kisses, and squish a lot of yarn.

I got a skein of Jacob, two alpacas, and a sw merino that was (somewhat) locally botanically dyed (the one I got was dyed with orange dahlias).

The brown/grey alpaca I'm pretty excited about because I got another skein of the same type (different vendor) last year, and now I definitely have enough to make a whole sweater! Debating making another version of an original sweater I'm working on now, or designing something new for it.

The chocolate/black alpaca was just too lovely to pass up. It's hard to capture in the photos but the colors are just so incredibly rich. Not sure what I will make with this. Might just keep it to touch constantly.

This particular skein of grey jacob called to me, but I have no idea what I'll make of it. It just called to me the first round we made of vendors and then I came back to it immediately and so I got it. I've got a dark jacob/alpaca blend that I inherited from my mother, so I might pair them. We'll see!

Last, but not least, the botanically-dyed sw merino is going to a different home! I'm participating in a yarn swap (partners kept secret about who is sending their package), and I wanted to have a couple local yarns to send to them, since they are in a different country. (They don't follow me here, so I feel safe in posting about it before they get it.)

In perusing the wide array of yarns at the festival, I find myself gravitating more and more toward not only non-superwash yarns, but also diving into breed-specific yarns beyond the usual merino. I'm really enjoying feeling the difference in fiber across different breeds (even the identified blends, like the jacob/alpaca I have) and just seeing the divergence in softness and loft and look and so much more. It's also making me really looking forward to finishing spinning up the dyed fibers I have and moving onto the undyed fibers I have: shetland, jacob, corriedale, and bluefaced leicester.

I enjoyed crocheting a lot over the summer, and have transitioned to working on knit sweaters during the transition into autumn, and I am anticipating feeling a pull toward spinning once it's winter and we fire up the wood stove for the season again.

#yarn #indie dyed yarn #botanical dyed yarn #botanical dyed wool #plant dyed wool #plant dyed yarn #jacob yarn #alpaca #alpaca yarn #merino #merino yarn #sw merino #sw merino yarn #yarnblr

[lordcephalopod]

I realized I never started sharing my hand dying escapades in here. Get ready for some instagram-ass ready photos y'all.

(also FYI I'm getting most of my info/methods out of the book Wild Color from Jenny Dean)

I also got a boatload of marigolds from my mom's place, and thought you know what would be cool? Making my mom a cowl dyed in her own marigolds!!! So let the experiments begin.

I knew there was a reason I kept those random broken screens...

I followed the instructions in the book and either I did my math wrong, the book is wrong, or these are some POTENT ASS marigolds because I just used a tiny fraction of what's shown above and have dye for days. It colored way more tests than I have shown in this post and it STILL is loaded with dye potential. I think it led to some of my tests coming out SUPER dark.

None of the tutorials SUGGESTED it, but my project only junker slow cooker worked super well. But oh boy. The smell... Like microwaving pumpkin baby food. SO glad it was in the garage.

At first I was really optimistic about my results on cotton, but it seems like as it dries it oxidizes and turns brown? Or something? I also tried some modifiers! The base/acid changes were...negligible, but the iron was extremely cool.

The WOOLS though. Turned out beautiful. The hanks from left to right are a vintage 100% wool+alum mord, the extra tiny hank is superwash merino/nylon with alum mord, cotton with tannin+alum dipped in iron, cotton with alum only, cotton with tannin and alum, and cotton with iron mord. It's so hard to pick up the colors well in photos.

Tried cool dyeing the cotton on the left two most shades on the big swatch, it looks nicer in photos than in person. I don't hate the color but I know they fall into the genre my mom considers "baby poop." If only I could just use the wool.......Then I remembered silk is a thing, and I have some undyed silk fabric.

Yep, might be making a silk cowl at this rate. More tests are in order but I need a break from yellow, and my buckets of soaking plum and cherry bark are starting to get real nasty... so we'll see how those go!

#hand dyed yarn #fiber arts #natural dye #knitting #plant dye #dyeing

[toverijenspokerij]

Sheep soup anyone? So far I am enjoying dyeing yarn. This will now rest over night and tomorrow I will give the yarn a rinse. Lets see what will remain of the colour after that. But for now? I adore this yellow.

#toverij & spokerij #dying yarn #dying with plants #spinning wool #folk catholicism #catholic folk magic #folk magic #folk magician

[kindsoulbuddy]

I managed to create a kind of 🌈🌈rainbow🌈♥️ with natural dyes 😍😮♥️

And then Oscar decided it was a comfy spot for him…

#natural dyes #dying with plants #dying with roots #rainbow #yarn #cat

[jackthevulture]

getting back into crochet reminds me why i was so interested in foraging plants for textiles to begin with. yarn cost money.

like i got back into crochet because i became interested in the possibility of making yarn from the dogbane growing around me and i wanted something i could actually DO with said yarn. but now im back into crochet. and i wanna try nice soft, beautifully dyed material more too sdfasdfasfas

[mchmmbls]

little habits the karasuno boys have - second years

tanaka: rubs his hands over his shaved head because what is there is fun to mess with. chews on the ends of his pencils & sticks holes into his erasers because he never grew out of it in middle school. prays every night before a match, not necessarily because he’s religious, but because he did it before the aoba johsai practice match that first time and they won, so he kept doing it. buys the first years little snacks before school and sneaks them into their bags so they have something to eat after morning practice.

nishinoya: fiddles with the dyed part of his hair when he’s anxious. taps his foot against the ground exactly three times when he’s putting on new shoes for the first time. eats his bananas from the end rather from the stem. leans in closer to whoever’s speaking because he has minor auditory processing issues & he’s loud, so he wants to give them a visual cue as to the fact that he is indeed listening. flaps the ends of his jacket sleeves if they’re a little too long. caws back at birds in the park.

ennoshita: pinches the bridge of his nose & sighs whenever he’s irritated. paces while he’s talking on the telephone. orders the exact same drink whenever he goes to a café, regardless of whether he’s alone or with friends, to the point where the barista knows his order. cracks his neck before every single volleyball match he participates in. runs his hands over the backs of books in the library while he’s browsing. keeps his pencils meticulously sharpened. keeps dog treats in his jacket pockets to give to dogs he sees on walks.

kinoshita: picks at the edges of his water bottle stickers, and the undersides where they’ve lost their stickiness are kind of gross and gummy because of it, but he stubbornly refuses to take them off the water bottle. hums songs that get stuck in his head. twiddles his thumbs. fidgets with his pencil when he should be taking notes in class, regardless of whether or not he already knows the material. reflexively turns to look at the door whenever someone walks in or walks out of the room he’s in and sometimes gets hit in the face with a volleyball because of it.

narita: kicks his feet when he sits in tall enough chairs. quietly names things that he’s attached to, whether that be stuffed animals or plants or a stray cat that always meows loudly when he passes by the place it lives on his way home. writes poetry in the margins of his notes and gets embarrassed about it if anyone brings it up. twirls string around his fingers when he’s holding onto a balloon or is holding yarn for someone who knits. has to go to a specific stall that sells baked yam at the start of winter every year.

#— ✿ musings. #— ✿ memories. #haikyuu #tanaka ryuunosuke #nishinoya yuu #ennoshita chikara #kinoshita hisashi #narita kazuhito #character headcanons

[cozyhearthyarnworks]

Hey y'all! It's been quiet here on the New Posts front for a bit because I'm finishing up a big custom spinning order, but I thought it's about time to check in with all our beloved Tumblr fans - once I have free time again when this order is done...

[encephaloscope]

plants and bird and rocks and things

I just published a new pattern on Ravelry!

It's a cute cropped t-shirt with everything I love:

RAGLAN SLEEVES!! of course.

nice, rounded neckline because I don't like my neck to feel stuck

short sleeves b/c I'm always hot

just a little positive ease at the bust

lil' pop of color to make things interesting

cropped because layering is fun

When I was still working on it, the Ravelry project page title was "a crop top with no name" and it kept reminding me of America's A Horse With no Name so I turned to the song lyrics to find a name. I went with "plants and birds and rocks and things" and one thing about me is when I find a name that makes me chuckle a bit, I usually keep it. I loved how long it was so it stuck.

How it's knit: cast-on the neck stitches, knit flat to shape the neck, knit in the round until sleeves/body split, finish the body, finish the neckline, finish the sleeves, surface crochet for the vertical lines. So it's all one piece, top down, no sewing, no colorwork. My patterns always have you finish the body before the sleeves but in reality, after I have split the body and sleeves, I knit the body until I finish my ball of yarn, then I do neckline-sleeves-body. That's because I like to maximize the use of my yarn and I am pickier with sleeve length than body length, so often I will knit the sleeves to fit what I have in mind and then whatever's left goes in the body.

I only need three 100g skeins of fingering weight for a 4XL cropped t-shirt so that's why I love crop tops. I can still use nice hand-dyed yarn but it's less expensive. This design needs 2 to 4 skeins only, and is graded to fit from a XS to a 6XL. I follow the Craft Yarn Council charts for sizing, but I add a little more ease to the sleeves.

I don't write my patterns with beginners in mind specifically, but if you're an adventurous knitter, even if you've never knit a sweater, I think this one should be easy enough and you should be able to find resources easily. Plus, it's a short sleeve crop top, so it doesn't take as long as a full length sweater - it might be more encouraging if you've never undertaken a big project like that.

I really hope someone out there uses all different colors for the vertical lines!

The yarn was generously provided by Julie Asselin, who is a wonderful person and a treasure of the knitting community. I am using her Fino base, which is a lovely mix of merino, cashmere and silk. I love this base for a layering piece, because the cashmere and silk give it delicious drape. The color here is Brume. I absolutely needed a pastel/lavender sweater, and Brume delivered.

My contrasting color is Are U Crazy? from my dear friend Bleu Poussière. Can you believe this pastel neon yellow was obtained with NATURAL DYES? She only uses nature for her colors - flowers, roots, mushrooms. My favorite color of hers is anything dyed with logwood.

#ravelry #knitting #knitters of tumblr #knitting pattern #plants and birds cropped tee

[kohanakonohana]

Hello! I have been wondering, does using natural dye for your fabric make the fabric sticky, starchy, or other unique feelings depending on the type of plant used for dye?

I love seeing your kimono and fabric dyeing work!

Hello, actually some kinds are feeling oily or having smells ...and, all dyed yarns are damaged compared to the non-dyed silk because of heats or mordants...

I hope to make more lovely colours and fabrics ,thank you!

[comfortabletextiles]

Soooooo the poll said I shall work with the plant dyed Merino

And I found 4 patterns I like!

Help me decide? Pls?

The yarn in question: SW Merino light fingering around 400meter/437yards

The patterns:

Edit: no cardigan, after more research, indefinitely don't have enough yarn...

very cute cowl, and i think the pattern could show the color really well!

Lace with beads?? do i need to say more, to me this looks like artistic interpretation of dragon wings... but maybe doesn`t show the varigation of the color really well...

a second cowl, a bit wider, i think it would be really cute to have it drape over my shoulders, and warm, and the color should show well...

#knitting #patterns #hand dyed yarn #plant dyed yarn #plant dyed

[dreamsinombre]

Last up for now are hats and a blanket!

I made this set of hats for two dear friends and their kids, out of worsted acrylic yarn mostly for the matching colors and softness of the yarn:

This hat is a gift for a friend, specifically acrylic because she's unsure if she has a wool allergy or not, and also because the colors were a perfect match to her preferences, even though it's fingering weight and felt like it took forever to get the gauge/size right

And a blanket that is actually still a work in progress—this is made all from indie botanically-dyed dk weight wool yarn, mostly from both Yarn and Thyme and Bone and Birch (who are both just lovely people who dye amazing yarns). It's my goal to make a whole blanket out of just botanically dyed yarns, and it is honestly one of the absolute softest pieces of crochet or knitting I have ever made. It's just a little on the narrow side currently, so it's still an in-process project.

There are technically three more blankets I want to show off, but I have to locate two of them first; I want to show them all off at once because they are related in a unique way that needs all three of them to really show off how. But, I will make another post with them when I find those two and get photos of them.

There are also a few more things that are in-process (always) of my own design that need finishing up, so those will also come in due time, and when I remember to snag photos of them. And, as always, there are things that I've sent off to friends and forgotten to get photos of before packaging them up and shipping them—namely a shawl, a little scarf, and a hedgecowl—but perhaps I can ask my friends to get a few good showcase photos of them to share here.

#fiber art #fiber arts #fibre art #fibre arts #crochet #knitting #hat #hats #knit hat #knit hats #handmade #handcrafted #indie dyed yarn #yarncraft #yarncrafts #yarn craft #yarn crafts #botanical dyed yarn #plant dyed wool #wool #hand dyed wool #hand dyed yarn #blanket #crochet blanket #acrylic yarn #yarnblr

[lordcephalopod]

Dyeing escapades part 2: Bark bark

I jerry-rigged myself a new-improved dyeing corner and I love it. Shutout to the previous owner for abandoning so much useful garbage in the garage.

I have the artistic interests of a pinterest mom and the aesthetic befitting my redneck heritage. come at me.

Both barks soaked in buckets of (softish) tap water for about a week. I skimmed the stank ass mold off, then they were heated to around 150F for an hour or two, then strained and left to sit for like 24 hours.

Wild Color had cherry and plum trees in the same entry, but specifically noted they used cherry bark for the sample swatches. Oddly though, my cherry bark results were...uninspiring.

I don't hate the colors. But "oh man I dyed this naturally with plants, look at my sweet ass light brown" just isn't very fun, y'know?

Honestly I think it turned out as just a straight tannin bath. The dye liquid looked like what I get soaking the tannin out of (barkless) wood for my aquariums... I have a few hypothesis on why it came out so meh:

1: The cherry tree in my yard is a wild species. It might just not have the same amount of the dye compounds as domesticated types.

2: Some bark was from dead wood, maybe the dye compounds had already washed out? The rest of the bark came mostly from small sucker trees, which, alternatively may not have developed them yet?

3: I cut up more whole twigs than I did for the plum bark so maybe more wood to overwhelm the bath with tannin? But I'm less hot on this hypothesis, as I started soaking some baths of straight bark, and the cherry was always tannin-brown-yellow where as the plum water turned a red amber real fast...And I REALLY hope I can cut up twigs instead of peeling them because uhghghghghg

This is plum bark liquid that had soaked for less than 24 hours when I took this pic.

THE PLUM RESULTS ROUND ONE: I'M OBSESSED?

Such rich peaches and coppers and oranges...that are so hard to photograph

I ran out of per-mordanted cotton, but seeing the pink the un-mordanted cotton turned? I HAVE to mordant more and try again. The semi-variegated skein I dipped one end in a citric acid bath, and one end in a soda ash bath. Love the base-bath color.

Unlike my marigolds, my tests yarns almost completely exhausted my test bath. So it works out to almost 1:1 grams of bark to grams of fiber for this depth of color....which is rough because harvesting bark is a pain. But I am re-soaking that same batch of bark, and more red seems to still be seeping out! We'll see how far I can stretch it!

Also the hot bath for the dye treatment seems necessary. I'm screwing around with the exhaust bath cold dying and getting very meh results. But it's not overly scientific.

Luckily our demented ass plum tree needs some heavy therapeutic pruning, so I have a legitimate reason to harvest more branches for its own health!

#hand dyed yarn #fiber arts #natural dye #plant dye #dyeing #knitting #i should start putting these posts on a sideblog

[toverijenspokerij]

Today was a slight adventure! From this primordial soup;

To this- lovely swamp ghost green;

To the magic that is indigo and air;

Seriously the moment the yarn leaves the water, it happens. Magic. Alchemy. Change. Call it whatever you want. But it is beautiful. The wind picked up this afternoon, a slight summer storm, so at one point all these hanks were indigo striped/brushed before setteling into this state. Me and my mother just watched it happen and 'oooh' and 'aaah'ed' at it.

The magic of indigo is certainly worth all the fuss.

#toverij & spokerij #folk magic #catholic folk magic #folk magician #catholic folk witch #dying with plants #dying yarn #witches spinning yarn

[kindsoulbuddy]

This is onion skin dye and a white cotton shirt…

Here it is washed (with regular detergent) and dried!! I’m so proud this is my first time dying with a plant.

Also here is white cotton yarn that I dyed with marigold and saffron, also rinsed and dried (with some white yarn for comparison).

I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing and I’m not sure how to measure the mordants or how long to simmer things but I’m so proud that I’m teaching myself a new skill. 🥳

#dying with onions #natural dyes #dying with herbs #dying with plants #🧅 #yarn #cotton

[archaeology-findings]

Adventures in Plant Dyeing: Part 2 - Weld

After the mild success of my foraged yarrow dyeing, I decided to dye some more of my undyed yarn collection, this time with dried weld.

Weld is a dye plant native to Europe and Western Asia and produces a bright yellow colour which can be deepened through the use of chalk added to the dye bath.

I chose 100g of 2-ply pure wool as well as small balls of cream and grey wool I had leftover. I was curious to see how the grey yarn would take the dye, and it did not disappoint.

Firstly I mordanted my chosen yarn with alum to make it lightfast and to improve the colour. According to several other blog posts, you're meant to use at least a 1:2 ratio of dye to fibre, however I had 112g of fibre and only 50g of weld. I decided to use it all and simply pray that it would still turn out vibrant. Since the water in my area is quite hard already, I also chose to skip adding the chalk. I added the dried weld to boiling water in the dye pot and simmered it for an hour, before turning it off and leaving it to steep overnight. Much like the yarrow, it also produced a rank smell, which unfortunately clung to the wool itself.

The next morning I strained the weld from the dye bath and reheated it before adding the wet yarn. I left them in the pot on heat for an hour before turning it off and leaving it for a few hours. Next I removed the yarn and rinsed it.

The undyed yarns became a bright, warm yellow, as expected. It was much brighter than the yarn dyed with yarrow, which was probably due to my choice of yarn and the fact that I used foraged plants rather than dried weld which had been cultivated especially for dyeing. The grey yarn however turned out a light shade of green, which was unexpected. I forgot to take before photos but here they are together after the dyeing process.

Next I plan to acquire some madder root and dye some more of my yarn collection.

#plant dyeing #reenactment #experimental archaeology #dyeing #fibre arts #living history