Carding by hand–la technique

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Millet’s Woman Carding Wool

“The purpose of the carding process is to align, thoroughly, all the fibres and to spread them evenly across the carders. This process is essential for the production of a woollen thread and is often employed in preparation for a semi-woollen and semi-worsted yarn.”

—Eileen Chadwick, The Craft of Handspinning

Why use handcards when you can use a drumcarder? Handcards are easily portable and great for blending colours. They are also perfect to make rolags, which are, I believe, the best preparation for longdraw woollen spinning.

Gradient of natural colours. Carded by hand

I like my handcards, especially for making rolags. Yes I could use my drumcarder, but for a recent project where I wanted to achieve a gradient effect for a woollen yarn, I stuck with my handcards. Rolags seemed like the way to go for a nice woollen yarn. Carding up rolags is not particularly time consuming once you get the hang of it. You will quickly get a feel for how many rolags you need to spin a bobbin of singles.

Here’s a short video of me demonstrating how I card.

I’m not saying this is the way. It’s the way I was taught by an experienced guild member and reflects the technique Chadwick described in her book.

A couple of tips for handcarding success:

Don’t overload your cards with fiber. Handcards aren’t designed to take big quantities. Go for 5-10 grams at a time.
Easy does it, don’t grind your cards together.
Don’t worry that all the fiber doesn’t transfer from one card to another. It’s not supposed to.
If your forearms get sore, you’re doing it wrong. Stroke one card gently over the other.
Check out Eileen Chadwick’s carding how to: pages 33-37 of The Craft of Handspinning.
finished project!

Daffodils, St David’s day & Welsh cakes

 Rachel Wolcott

 Blog

Welsh cakes

It’s St. David’s day, the day commemorating Wales’ patron saint. It’s a day for daffodils and making welsh cakes, which are a sort of scone/pancake hybrid and delicious.

Today I embarked on some St David’s day-inspired craft activities–dyeing with daffodils and heather–and made a batch of Welsh cakes. The cakes are all but eaten and I have some dye results to share.

I was inspired by an article in YarnMaker to use daffodils as dye stuff. The sample in the article was a lot more yellow than what I’ve been able to achieve. However, I’m sure if I used more flowers I would have gotten a stronger colour. Still I like this pale yellow.

Here in England the daffodils have been out for a few weeks and there are many more to come. Anyone who has waited all winter to get out and gather some fresh dye stuff, daffodils are a great place to start I used 6-8 small blossoms for the dye stock and mordanted my Norfolk Horn yarn with alum and cream of tartar. The dye stock was a vivid yellow but it took quite some time for the colour to strike. I’m going to try this again with a greater quantity of flowers.

Daffodils, alum/cream of tartar mordant

Winter-flowering heather is a hearty if tiny blossom that gives orange/brown to grey and brown/grey colours. It’s another option for those looking for fresh dye stuff in the winter months. Heather is associated more with Scotland than Wales, but I’ve used some handspun Llanwenog to keep the Welsh theme going.

Heather and a few mahonia berries

I used a few handfuls of white heather blossoms in my dye pot and after awhile a orange/brown colour appeared.

The first sample (bottom) here is with the alum/cream of tartar mordant which to my eye has made a light rusty brown. (It’s not easy to see in the photo).

Top: heather, iron mod
Mid: heather, copper mod
Bot: heather, alum/cream of tartar mordant

The second sample (middle) was from the same dyepot to which I added copper sulphate as a modifier. To me this sample is somewhere between a yellow, a pale green and a brown, depending on the light and what colours it sits next to. It doesn’t look like much, but I love it’s subtlety.

The final sample (top) is again from the same dyepot with iron added as a modifier. I see a pale blue/grey. I love how these three sample look together. I can envision using this palette in a weaving project or perhaps a sweater or wrap.

Spring time is still a few weeks away, but more dyestuff is popping out of the hedgerows and flower beds everyday. It’s been warm here and I’ve seen gorse for a few weeks now and the first broom flowers have started to appear. Gorse gives a yellow and its smell is unbelievable–think pineapples and coconut. Broom should also give yellow with alum and a green with copper.

Warm weather means that sunny spots other flowers are growing. Keep your eyes open for calendula. There’s also leftovers to gather. I pocketed a few handfuls of Mahonia berries the other day. Allegedly they give some colour. There are also ivy berries and acorns.

How to choose a fleece for handspinning

 Rachel Wolcott

 Blog

Herdwick: cute, but not a fleece for beginners

Buying my first fleeces to process at home for handspinning was hugely exciting. I’d just been to my first meeting of the Mid-Essex Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers and it happened that two of the members were having a fleece sale that day.

I was lucky to have two experienced guild members there to show me how to look over a raw fleece. They unrolled the fleeces and talked me through what I was looking at, pointed out some of the desirable qualities that hand spinners look for in a fleece. Those are attributes like crimp, softness, good lock structure, cleanliness (no straw, grass or poo, etc). More on that later.

The first fleeces I bought were a Hebridean, a Shetland and a Ryeland. Maybe I went a little overboard. It took a lot of work to get the fleeces scoured, dried and ready to spin. And even though I benefited from having some experts on hand to help choose my fleeces, if I were to do it all over again I would have done my homework first.

Before buying a fleece, I recommend reading up on different breeds and the characteristics of their fleece. There are about 60 sheep breeds in the UK alone and all their fleeces are a little different.

Some, like Cotswold, Teeswater, Lincoln, Leicester and Wensleydale–longwool breeds–have fleeces that are more hair-like, lustrous and require some experience to spin.

Then there are the Downs breeds–Southdowns, Oxfords, Hampshires, Dorsets for example–which have dense fleeces with short staple-lengths, but feature lots of crimp and bounce.

Fleece sale!

Then there are the many other breeds that are favourites of hand spinners, like the Shetland, Blue-faced Leicester, Cheviot, Manx Loaghtan and Jacob, which all have their own characteristics. There are also plenty of breeds which aren’t particular favourites of spinners, either because their fleece is too coarse or just not suitable for spinning.

So before jumping in and buying a fleece take a look at some of the books available like Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook or The Spinner’s Book of Fleece to get an idea of what you might like to spin as well as the huge choice available.

There are other questions you want to ask before diving in and buying 4-5 pounds of raw sheep fleece. Are you going to make a worsted or woollen yarn? It will be hard to spin a woollen yarn from a long wool, for example. Which fleeces will best suit your project? Do you want a coloured fleece? How important is softness in your project? Are you looking to create something durable or more lightweight?

What to look for in the fleece

Now that you’ve decided on a breed, what are you looking for when choosing the actual fleece?

Steve Kennett, vice chairman of the Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners & Dyers, visited my guild back in September to speak on how to pick out a fleece.

Steve unrolled one of the fleeces supplied by a member and gave a few pointers on picking a good one. It had a lovely staple length, beautiful crimp and was muck and VM-free. Steve held it up to demonstrate how the fleece should be nice and open—like a lace curtain.

Jacob lock from raw fleece. Nice staple length and crimp, no breakage or second cuts

You can see in the photo of the Jacob lock what I mean by crimp. It’s simply the little waves in the wool. Crimp makes wool easy to spin as it twists together and the crimp helps the wool lock together. The rule of thumb goes that the more crimp, the finer the wool. Merino, for example, can have 100 waves (crimps) per inch. Longwools have less crimp and often used by spinners to add texture and lustre to yarn.

Steve Kennett also said to look out for second cuts (short bits the shearer missed on the first pass) felting and second growth—ie when a sheep hasn’t been sheared and begins to grow a second fleece. He recommended taking off a lock of fleece, holding it firmly in one hand and giving it a good tug. If the lock is breaks avoid the fleece as it is brittle, will not be nice to spin and could result in weak yarn.

The best part of the fleece is going to be on the neck, front legs and back (between the shoulders). Fleece on the back is generally good. Fleece from the hind legs is generally coarser and kempy. Steve recommended being picky about fleeces and perhaps buying several, but only using the best bits.

I don’t know if I’d go to the lengths Steve does–buying many fleeces and throwing a lot of it away. If I were to go back in time, I’d probably have started with one fleece (Shetland) and made life easier for myself. If buying a whole fleece is intimidating, get a friend to share one with you.

Starting with a fleece instead of tops or roving is, I think, a great way to learn more about sheep breeds, fiber prep and spinning. Fleece you’ve scoured and prepared yourself is going to feel and spin differently from commercially processed fiber. Some of the women in my guild consider commercial prepared fiber to be “dead”, because they view it as flat and lacking crimp. I agree with that to a certain extent, however I have found that top or roving from smaller mills tends to retain some of the bounce and crimp.

Gotland sheep
Commercial top (l)
Raw fleece (r)

Still it’s an eye-opener when you compare commercially prepared roving with that you’ve cleaned and carded yourself. Take a look at this Gotland fiber. On the left, straight up commercial roving, on the right Gotland right off the sheep. Looks a lot different right? Doesn’t even look like it came from the same breed.

For more information on scouring fleece see these posts: Hot tips for scouring fleece or More hot tips on scouring fleece without soap.

Mitten Mission

 Rachel Wolcott

 Blog

Whatever your brand of fiber fancy– knitting, weaving, crochet or felting–mittens are small canvases for your creativity. Mittens can be bulky or refined and most knitting traditions have their own take on shapes, patterns and embellishments.

This year the Mid-Essex Guild’s holiday challenge is mitten making. I’ve only knit one pair so far, but I have done a bit of armchair traveling while browsing mitten patterns.I picked up The Mitten Book little volume of mitten patterns from Gotland, an island off the Swedish coast, home to the eponymous sheep. In its overview of knitting in Gotland and the wool trade is a description of typical Gotland mittens. The yarns were dyed with natural dyes and the traditional patterns took inspiration from nature heavily featuring ivy and wildflowers–columbine, clover, roses– as well as wheel motifs and birds.

Traditionally mittens were knitted with the date or the recipients name or initials on the cuff or body. Sometimes mittens featured collars that extended all the way to the elbow. Mittens were often felted to give them added firmness and durability.

My version of Jodis mittens

This description tells a story of an everyday piece of winter clothing at once sturdy and practical but also carefully embellished and personalized. Their patterns and construction ties them to a place and time. You could say the same about mittens from other traditions–fair isle, Norwegian, Estonian, New England etc. Mittens are made to keep us warm, but mitten-making is a wholly creative undertaking.

I want to take a quick look at Maine mittens, before I get onto sharing a few of my favourite patterns and hopefully inspiring everyone to run off and make mittens.

Sheep mittens

In Fox & Geese & Fences, A Collection of Traditional Mains Mittens, author Robin Hansen observes that these days most mittens and winter clothes are made in countries where it is never cold enough to wear them:

“…the mittens are usually just silly, knit from brightly colored synthetic yarns, and so thin that one can see skin through the stitches. …for mittens, northern peoples must rely on their own traditions and products.”

In Maine, writes Hansen, mittens are knit for density and thickness with good mobility. Mittens are knit fine and tight, felted, or using special stitches to increase thickness:

“Some Maine mittens are meant to be worn wet, soaked in salt water and wrung out before each wearing. Inland in Maine, mittens are knit with two strands of yarn in close all-over patterns reminiscent of the palm of a Norwegian mitten. … Another traditional Maine mitten is knit with bits of combed fleece tucked into the knit, creating a fluffy lining that changes to a thick, woolly mat with use.”

Tatiana

That’s one U.S. state with many mitten traditions. It turns out the fleece-stuffed (thrummed) mittens and caps are an import from Newfoundland and Labrador, which reminds us that when knitters travelled their patterns and techniques went with them. Here’s a how-to on Thrummed Mittens. There are some beautiful examples on Ravelry.

Anyway…mittens.

There are loads of patterns to choose from and I’ve put together a gallery of a few of my favourites on Ravelry. Amongst my very very favourites are the poetry mittens and the sheep mittens. I love anything with colour work and those poetry mittens, well how cool!

These Tatiana mittens are just fabulous. So creative. I also love the Let It Snow ones.

The ones I actually knit were the Jodis mittens from Rowan’s Nordic Knits. The pom-poms were a big attraction for me and I like the length on the cuff. This pattern has you knit the mittens flat, which works fine. But in future I think knitting in the round is better, because flat fair isle knitting is a drag. Spoiler alert–those are the ones I made for the Guild competition. Further spoiler alert, I don’t think I’m going to win. Not that I’m competitive.

Handwoven and sewn

I also made some little mittens out of some felted handwoven fabric following this tutorial. The instructions are for making mittens out of felted sweaters and use a thin fleece lining. If you’re using felted handwoven you might not bother with the lining. These were very easy to make. Definitely try out this pattern.

If I have time I may knit one more pair of mittens before the Christmas. If I do, it will probably be the Let it Snow pattern. I love those birds!

More hot tips for scouring fleece–without soap

 Rachel Wolcott

 Blog

Soap nuts!

Have you heard of soap nuts? They’re the little glossy shells from the fruits of trees and shrubs of the Sapindus genus. They can be boiled in water to make a liquid soap or popped into a muslin bag and added to laundry. Even though they’re called soap nuts they’re not soap as is commonly known (lye plus fat). Soap nuts are lauded as a non-toxic and sustainable laundry alternative. Oh, and they’re a lot less expensive than commercial detergents.

So what does this have to do with scouring fleece? I started using soap nuts for my family’s laundry mainly because of their eco credentials, but also because they lack the heavy perfumes present in so many commercial detergents. Smelly detergents! Yuck! They worked incredibly well.

I also struggled to find an unscented, eco-friendly detergent to use on fleece and thought the fleece scouring solutions (like Power Scour) on the market to be on the expensive side. When it came to getting ready for a big fleece scouring session I thought, hey, why don’t I try the soap nut liquid on the fleece?

How did it go? Well, it worked.

I made up the soap nut solution–boil 50 grams of soap nuts in 2 litres of water for 10 minutes. Cool. Strain. (50g of soap nuts can make 12 litres soap.)

Bowmont fleece soaking in soap nut solution and hot water

I filled a bucket with very hot water, gently added about 250 ml (roughly 1 cup) soap nut solution and then added my fleece. Immediately I could see the water turing that milky brown colour you get when washing fleece. I let it sit for awhile before draining it and spinning it out in the washing machine.

Yes, I put wet fleece in my washing machine on the spin cycle. It’s the same technique Sally mentioned in her post on scouring fleece. Your fleece won’t felt. If you’re worried about smell you can clean your machine with white vinegar and baking soda. I didn’t have a smell problem.

The next step was to rinse the fleece in hot water. I had a very greasy fleece (Bowmont) and it felt sticky when I took it out of the washing machine. To address this stickiness I added a good dose of white vinegar to the hot water rinse. I figured hey, it won’t hurt the fleece, right? My theory was the acidic vinegar would help reduce the stickiness.

Bowmont fleece drying

When I added the vinegar the fleece fizzed and bloomed, opening up nicely. I let it sit for awhile before spinning it out in the washing machine and spreading it out on a sheet in the garden to dry. There’s no vinegary smell on the fleece either.

It occurred to me that I’d run this experiment on a relatively clean fleece–no muck, negligible VM. What about a muckier one? I found some fleece that needed a little more work, picked out the really gross stuff and soaked it in the soap nut solution and ran it through the same process in the washing machine and vinegar rinse.

Muckier fleece

This fleece is a 3/4 Southdown lamb and not nearly as greasy as the Bowmont. The soap nut and vinegar treatment worked really well.

Getting the dirt out! (3/4 Southdown fleece)

You get through a lot of water when washing fleece. I didn’t want to pour it down the drain and instead used it to water the garden. That’s another benefit of using soap nuts. Yes the water is a bit greasy and mucky, but there isn’t anything harmful to plants or the wider environment in it.

There is another way to wash a fleece without soap–the fermented suint method. Basically the method is: soak your fleece in rainwater until the suint (sheep sweat) ferments creating a kind of soap. I have not tried this method, but I’ve spoken to a few people who swear by it. Although apparently it’s better for low-lanolin fleeces and it’s even smellier than scouring fleece with soap.

Last of the summer dyes

 Rachel Wolcott

 Blog

Marigolds

Autumn has been a mellow affair. Trees are only starting to turn colour and drop leaves. Flowers continue to bloom and there is plenty of natural dye stuff still to be gathered. It’s time to get a basket and take a walk to find some dye stuff to try out now or over the winter.

Coreopsis

I’m drying dahlias, marigolds, calendula and coreopsis from my garden. Acorns and walnuts are both good for dyeing as are sumac leaves, rhubarb roots, carrot tops, willow leaves and bark, chrysanthemums and pine cones. Not all plants will give you color and some that do–especially berries–are not colourfast. Don’t waste your time dyeing with blackberries or beets, for example, because the colour will fade quickly.

Dahlias

Lichen is also an option, but not all lichens give a dye. Sally is planning an in depth post on lichen dyeing so I will just give a few pointers on lichen gathering and preparation. Do your homework before you go out to identify lichens that give a dye. If you’re not sure there is the bleach test. If the lichen turns red when treated with a drop of bleach it should give colour for dyeing. Here is a helpful link on lichen dyeing.

Personally I’ve had no luck with lichen. Any pointers are appreciated!

As Autumn becomes winter there won’t be as much dye stuff around. However ivy berries and leaves might be worth a try along with mahonia berries. And there is always the humble onion skin. It gives a beautiful golden color and is simple to find and use. Other household items that give color include pomegranates and avocados.

For those of you who need help identifying plants I suggest a book that has pictures and descriptions of plants local to you. As Sally found out it’s properly identifying plants and trees is pretty important.

I use River Cottage’s Hedgerow book for identification. Books like the Ashford Book of Dyeing and Jill Goodwin’s A Dyers’ Manual give a lot of information on what colors certain plants give and whether they are color fast.

One other project for the budding natural dyer is to grow your own dye plants. I’ve started madder this year, which I need to re-pot into a larger container. Other flowers like dahlias, marigolds and coreopsis have all given loads of lovely yellows and gold colors this year. They’re all easy to grow and inexpensive. If you have space you might also try woad, indigo, St John’s Wort and safflower. It’s easy to find seeds online or from another natural dyer.

Summer of craft: portable projects, children’s activities

 Rachel Wolcott

 Blog

Only a few more days of school to go and the UK branch of Sheep Cabana is getting ready for the summer holidays.

I tend to travel with fiber, handcards, a drop spindle, knitting and a crochet hook… you can see where this is going. No wonder my bags are always inspected by the TSA! When we go camping later this summer, my Ashford Joy will come with us.

Last year I considered bringing my 15″ Cricket loom with me on holiday, but decided against it. There are more portable weaving projects like tablet weaving, small tapestry looms and pin looms that are better suited to travel. One of those (or two) will be in my suitcase in the coming weeks.

Pin looms are also a great way to get children interested in weaving. They’re small and easy to handle.

Kids love rigid heddle looms

That said, I recently set up the Cricket for my six-year old boy and he loved it. Imagine me glowing with pride as his project grew. Amazing!

First project

The May/June 2015 issue of Handwoven featured two fun-looking projects for children. One was a Hula Hoop rug. I found this tutorial on YouTube posted by a young woman who made something similar for a girl scout project. I love the idea of children sharing their craft knowledge online.

The other Handwoven children’s project is sort of a mini-tapestry necklace or decoration by Jennifer Lee. All you need is some cardboard, yarn, a tapestry needle and maybe some beads. There are plenty of similar projects demonstrated online. I’m going to try this out with my little one. Once he gets into something, he tends to go into manufacturing mode. We shall see how many of these we have at the end of the summer.

Mini tapestries

There is also a free e-book on the Interweave site with weaving projects for kids. If you are massively ambitious and have tons of Lego, check out this automated loom. Wow. For those of us who prefer something low-tech, don’t forget the ultimate portable and child-friendly fiber project: pompoms!

Pompoms!!!

Here’s another idea from Handwoven that caught my eye: grass cloth. For those of us wondering what it is, grass cloth simply is cloth woven with dried grass in the weft. Apparently grass cloth wallpaper is trendy these days. Who knew.

Weaving grass cloth is not really a portable project, but it does require grass that you might find when you’re strolling along the beach or through the countryside as part of your summertime ramblings. Handwoven’s grass cloth journal instructions for the rigid heddle loom can be found here.

What I love about this project is it can be made from materials gathered either in your neighbourhood or while on holiday. It’s sustainable, eco-friendly and a keepsake.

But is it yarn?

 Rachel Wolcott

 Blog

Art yarn?

Ah the allure of Art Yarn. Behold its super-chunky sparkle, its beads, its coils and luscious locks. Resistance is futile. Or is it?

When I started to spin I announced to Sal that all I wanted to make was art yarn. I probably told her I wanted to explore colour and texture. I was making it up.

Sal told me something like this: If you’re ever planning to make anything like a sweater or a wearable garment you should think about making less-arty yarn.

She had a point.

These days I think about hand spun yarn completely differently. What I used to consider art yarn, I now classify as novelty yarn.

Most of the time I’m experimenting with new materials and techniques. I’m spinning to weave or to knit. My use of art yarn is sparse. That’s partly thanks to my fairly boring sartorial habits. Sal tells me that’s a trend now! Yay!

So what about art yarn?

Last month Alison Daykin gave my guild a talk on art yarn (see below). Beforehand I was curious what she would have to say and it got me thinking. What is art yarn? Is it yarn for yarn’s sake? Is it a novelty item? Does anyone actually use it?

I still make a lot of art yarn, but I call it handspun. Like most spinners I’m experimenting with colour, texture and gauge. Most of it isn’t sparkly or bejeweled. The excitement is in the color or the materials.

Here’s some sport weight yarn I made for a weaving project.

Blue yarn

The blue colorway is a combination of natural coloured and dyed fleece.

The red is a blend of acid and natural-dyed fleece as well as natural coloured. To me these are rich in colour and texture. I’ve made little aesthetic decisions throughout the making process.

Red yarn

Is it art or is it yarn?

These are some examples of what are more commonly considered to be art yarn. There are the dyed locks, the thick/thin look and some bouclé-like yarn.

Bouclé, sort of

Thick thin

Yarn or art? Both?

Lexi Boeger sees it this way: “I believe the onus is on the buyer to look at the yarn and be able to determine an appropriate project to use it for. This puts more work on the buyer, but ultimately it will make that person also more creative..” (See Spinartiste)

Boeger goes on to say that art yarn can help the knitter (or weaver for that matter) think beyond the pattern and become a designer. My reading of that is: art yarn can be a starting point. It asks the question: what can you make with me?

It’s worth pointing out that Lexi Boeger isn’t making art yarn anymore.

Locks

JazzTurtle has a long list of patterns that can use art yarn. But to me art yarn is perfect for weaving–especially saori weaving, which is all about experimentation and personal expression. It’s not really concerned with pattern or convention.

This saori-inspired piece uses some art yarn. For me this piece was a big departure from the norm. Here are colours and textures far from my comfort zone. It marks a step in a creative journey, but I’m not sure the path ends at art yarn.

Weaving with art yarn

[Sal here. I’m going to horn in on your post for a minute]

I would argue that handspinning is technology, and as such there is an intrinsically practical component to the resulting product. Some yarns take a good deal of skill to make well (bouclé for example), or have aesthetic consideration in their colors or textures (as yours do above), and this intersection of technical skill and aesthetic consideration I would call “craft”. Calling something “art yarn” is almost oxymoronic. Yarn for yarn’s sake, as you say, really makes no sense— like building a chair that you can’t sit on. But I know plenty of people who spin and never do anything with the yarn because they don’t knit or crochet or weave, and are perfectly happy that way. I suppose there is a Venn diagram we could make that shows the people who like to build chairs, but don’t actually sit down. I think one could certainly make yarn that’s an end in and of itself, and it could be considered art instead of artisanal, but I think the intention behind it is key, because it would be subverting the concept of yarn. The rest, as you say, is novelty yarn. I’m curious what your guild speaker had to say on the subject. And if they have any good patterns.

[Now back to our regularly scheduled blog post ;)]

Fancy Yarn and permission to spin

When Alison Daykin came down from Derbyshire to talk to the Mid-Essex Guild about art yarn, like Sal I was curious what she had to say about art yarn. One reason for that curiosity was I suspected [knew] many guild members were dubious of art yarn. Many–not all–take the view that art yarn is what you make when first learning to spin. “Don’t worry,” they tell new spinners. “You’ve just made art yarn!” And then everyone laughs.

Alison Daykin described what she makes as fancy yarn, not art yarn. Fancy yarn, Alison explained was any kind of yarn you made that’s non-standard–core spun, bouclé, crepe, thick/thin–that has some irregularity in the making. That irregularity could be introduced in any or all of the steps for making yarn: prepping fiber, color blending, spinning and finishing.

According to Alison, fancy yarn isn’t anything new, in fact Mabel Ross, author of The Encyclopedia of Handspinning, was an early advocate of fancy yarn. However, when Alison started spinning in the late 80s/early 90s she felt spinning non-standard or fancy yarn was discouraged. She was taught that the point of spinning was to churn out yards and yards of yarn that looked like it had been made in a mill.

“I wanted to make different yarn and I felt inferior, because I didn’t want to spin plain yarn,” she said. But after taking a course on spinning and dyeing for tapestry weaving from Bobbie Cox, Alison felt she had, “Permission to spin whatever I wanted. Once you know the rules, you can break them.”

Art yarn, Alison said, is a term that grew out of a trend of making yarn out of recycled materials like plastic bags and cassette tape. She did not see the point in putting yarn in a bowl or hanging it up to admire.

“If I can’t use the yarn, then I’ve wasted my time. Use it to make a garment look different. If you use a little yarn in a piece, it can look lovely. Art yarn has got to be practical as well as beautiful,” she added.

Natural dyeing with cotton

 Rachel Wolcott

 Blog

left to right: onion skins, madder, indigo on organic cotton yarn

It’s funny what can get you off and running on a project. Dyeing cotton really wasn’t on my to-do list until I read an article in the Winter 2015 Spin Off where Dye-lishus premordanted cotton sliver was tested and reviewed. My first thought was, what’s the fuss with cotton that would make premordanted sliver desirable? Would it make dyeing easier?

One of the things the Dye-lishus premordanted cotton sliver apparently can do, which home mordanting can’t, is allow the fiber to take acid dyes, which are made for dyeing protein fiber (wool, silk, etc). Dye-lishus’s USP is: you can dye this fiber with anything–acid dye, food colouring, procion dyes–and it will stick.

However, my interest in mordanting my own cotton was stronger than my desire to try out the Dye-lishus fiber. Another day perhaps.

A quick internet search informed me that mordanting cotton for natural dyeing is a two- to three-step process, depending on the kind of cotton used. It’s not complicated. It’s not particularly labor intensive. It’s just one or two more steps than mordanting wool.

There are some important things you should know before mordanting and naturally dyeing cotton.

* Cotton is mordanted with tannic acid, then aluminium acetate. Those are different mordants than the ones used for wool. Both are available from natural dye suppliers.

* Depending on what kind of cotton you’re going to dye, you may want to scour the yarn or sliver. I washed my yarn in very hot water with soda crystals. If you’re using organic cotton, don’t bother with this step.

As with all aspects of natural dyeing–on cotton, wool or otherwise–there are many recipes. I used the simplest one I could find, which happened to be on the Wild Colours site. It has lots of information on natural dyes and mordants.

I used 10 percent of weight of goods (WOG). To mordant 100 grams of fiber and yarn, I used 10 grams of tannic acid and 10 grams of aluminium acetate. It’s worth getting a digital scale to weigh the mordants. Put a clean yogurt pot on the scale, zero it, then tip in your mordant.

Soak your fiber/yarn for a good hour before adding it to a dye pot in which you have dissolved 10 grams of tannic acid. You want there to be enough hot water to cover the fiber and give it a bit of room. No need to heat the pot, just leave it until you’re ready for the next step. I left mine overnight.

Repeat the process, but this time dissolve 10 grams of aluminium acetate and then add your wetted down fiber. Again, you need hot water to dissolve the aluminium acetate, but you don’t need to heat the pot. I left mine to soak overnight in a bucket.

When ready to dye the fiber, make sure to rinse it well to get out any mordant that hasn’t attached to the fiber. Do it now or it makes the fiber a bit chalky after dyeing. Otherwise make sure to rinse your fiber well after dyeing.

I dyed with madder and onion skins, because that’s what I had to hand. I soaked the madder root in hot water overnight. I used 50 percent WOG of madder. Onion skins are very generous in terms of dye yield. I used a few handfuls and that was plenty.

cotton yarn, madder dye bath

Give the madder about an hour to simmer. I strained the root into a jelly bag, which I then returned to the dye pot. It saves you having to pick out little bits of madder from the fiber and makes sure you’re getting your money’s worth from the dyestuff. I fished out the onionskins with a slotted spoon put them in the compost.

Once the fiber was in the dye pots I left them to simmer for about an hour. I then removed them from the heat and left them to cool.

Dye baths made with natural dye stuffs do not exhaust the way acid dye baths do. That means there will appear to be a lot of color left in the dye pot. With acid dyes, you know the dye bath is exhausted when the water is clear. That doesn’t happen with most natural dye stuffs.

madder on cotton sliver

top: cotton sliver, bottom: cotton yarn with onion skins

Rinse your fiber well and leave to dry.

Last, but not remotely least, cotton can be dyed naturally without any mordanting or pretreatment whatsoever. Just make an indigo vat, following Sal’s fabulous fruit vat instructions. Indigo is a substantive dye–like walnuts and lichen–and does not require any mordanting process. Just look at it. Beautiful!

Indigo on cotton yarn (top), wool (middle), sea cell (bottom)

Many ways with warps on a rigid heddle loom

 Rachel Wolcott

 Blog

Getting creative with warp yarns is a great way to make the most out of your rigid heddle loom. Using different coloured and textured yarns in the warp, ordering those yarns in a certain way or not at all will yield different, beautiful results without having to worry too much about pattern.

plain weave plaid

Let’s start with texture and colour. In this sample, I used two smooth yarns and two handspun boucle yarns in the warp. From right to left– black, magenta, then the lighter

boucle and the darker one. For the weft I used the four yarns in the same order to create this nubbly plaid-like sample. Simple to weave, but lots of potential as a cloth. I could easily weave something similar and turn it into a Chanel-style jacket.

Randomly placed many-coloured warp

Next up is a piece I wove

recently entirely out of handspun. The plan was to make the warp yarns the feature. I randomly wound the three colours of yarn—pink, purple, green— onto the warping board. On the weft I used a single colour—a grey mohair and wool handspun with a few dollops of green and yellow as a feature. What I like about how this piece turned out is the strong warp colours slightly muted by the greyish weft. Also the slight unevenness of the handspun give the whole piece a subtle speckled effect.

Choosing handspun or many colours of yarn in the warp is one way to use colour and texture in the warp to great effect. A variation on this theme is the multi-coloured warp. Instead of using a few different coloured yarns in the warp, wind on a neutral coloured warp, carefully remove it and then put it the dye pot and apply colour.

Dyed warp

In this sample, I used a commercial silk warp thread and dyed it with gold, purple, green and a little pink. Woven with a camel/silk handspun, with some saori-style accents, the warp still comes through, but this time with different colour pools.

Dyed warp, Saori-style accents

You could take this technique further and go for an ikat-style weave by tie dyeing the warp or even painting a design onto it, then threading the warp onto the loom. Another approach is to take some self-striping or variegated sock yarn and wind your warp so that the colours sit together. There’s a great description of that technique here.

log cabin weave

Log cabin weave is a rigid heddle loom classic. It’s simple, just alternating blocks of light and dark yarns (LDLDLDLD DLDLDLDL etc) in the warp and then weaving the same way. More about log cabin in my November post.

Using multi-coloured handspun or variegated sock yarns that have less contrast also create a nice effect. Check out this blog post on this variation on log cabin weave. I’ve also seen log cabin done with some saori-style embellishments that look fantastic.

One last technique that emphasizes warp is using the variable dent rigid heddle reed. It’s a reed that allows you to mix up the dent sizes in the reed to then use different weights of yarn. I haven’t tried out this tool myself, but apparently one of the effects you can achieve is a ribbed fabric.

All these techniques bring a lot of interest and texture without having to mess around with pick up sticks. Don’t get me wrong, pick up sticks are great, but don’t think you need to use them to get the most out of your rigid heddle loom.

Some resources for rigid heddle weaving:

Ravelry’s rigid heddle weaving group

Schacht spindle blog

Weavezine