Art yarn and Bring & Buy sale

Today we held a talk/ hands on squishing session about art yarn, in preparation for our art yarn skill share later this year.

Members brought sample art yarns , both hand made and commercial, that we examined to see how they were constructed,  colour balance, and texture.

Our bring and buy sale was well stocked with some of us disposing/acquiring goodies and the Guild getting a small proportion. This all helps the Guild in making purchases on behalf of members.

As well as our usual mix of spinning and weaving, one of our members was busy making lace. Beautiful work.

Solar dyeing

I went a slightly different route and rather than the what grows from the garden approach, I went through my dyeing suppliers and opted to investigate using Brazilwood powder in a Solar Dye as opposed to a dye bath.

 

For 50g fleece, this is home grown fleece from my flock (see willing volunteer), I used 50 gms of brazil wood Powder and ¾ tsp of chalk. 

 

I wanted red, I think I have got red.  And through the jar I can see variations ranging from a rust orange to a pinky red, so will leave it be for the next month and then see what the fleece looks like.

SD 

A different perspective

I went to the last Guild meeting expecting to be mildly interested in the solar dyeing session that was on offer.  I don't do "natural"dyeing; if I must dye I prefer "chemicals" so there are no surprises, good or bad, and I'd sent apologies to our chair person for my lack of interest....

Having fought through pouring rain to get to the meeting there was a reward in the shape of weaving samples from Angela and Brenda who had done a weekend course in advanced techniques, much gnashing of teeth here, I was booked to do it but was dragged away for the weekend instead!

Meanwhile Maggie had set up two tables with enticing things on them:

As you can see from the basket, she has a range of samples dyed with plants from the garden, and the stand up card shows how some of them look when treated afterwards with modifiers such as citric acid.  The range of colours was a surprise to some of us!

She demonstrated how to set up a solar dyeing jar using pomegranate skin (it's very warm in her garden!!!) and to our amazement it began to work immediately.  I was so impressed that I immediately dashed off to the supermarket  to buy 2 pomegranates, and my solar dyeing jar is now set up  -  in the pouring rain.

I have since discovered however that I am missing a major ingredient for solar dyeing, at least in our climate, and that is patience.  I am itching to get my fingers on that wool to see how it looks, but I suspect I have at least 2 weeks more to wait - I'll keep you posted!

Solar dyeing - Guild skillshare

We held a session on solar dyeing this week.

Here is a list of readily available dye materials, some you may have in your store cupboard, especially if you're like us and throw little away and find out of date stuff on the shelves.

You need equal weights of plant material to weight of yarn or fibre.

Jenny Dean's book is a great reference.

• Used Tea bags—golden brown
• Old kitchen spices—saffron—yellow
• Turmeric roots—yellow, green
• Avocado Skin and Stone—tan
• Pomegranate Skins—yellow/olive green
• Daffodil flowers—yellow, green
• Ivy—greens, slate/grey
• Hawthorn Blossom, berries, leaves and twigs—yellow, green to dark navy/grey
• Fruit tree bark when pruned
• Willow leaves, bark and leafy stems
• Dark Hollyhock Flowers
• Birch bark—pink
• Elderberry leaves—greens
• Nettles—lemon to green, depending on time of year
• Staghorn Sumac leaves—green
• Rhubarb leaves and roots
• Dahlia flowers and leaves—orange/yellow and greens
• Eucalyptus leaves Tan/orange to maroon
• Hibiscus flowers
• Red cabbage – blue
• Honesty flowers - greens
• Buddleia flowers - greens
• Primula and pansies – darker flowers
• Onion skins – yellow to tan

Our annual dyeing day

The first such session at our new venue Flitwick Village Hall.

This was, as usual, a busy, vibrant, productive meeting. Some members, like our visitor, had not done any acid dyeing before but all were keen to achieve success, learn and produce attractively dyed yarn for their, mainly, weaving projects.

Apart from getting our project yarns dyed, protecting the laminate floor was an aim of this event, if we were ever to be allowed to do this again.

With this in mind, preparation began some time ago, saving newspapers and sorting out protective sheets for the floor and table tops.

The first stage, after preparing the area, was to mix our dyes from our own supplies or those bought for the guild resources. The dye shade cards produced a couple of years ago along with ‘The Guild of Long Draw Spinners’, came in useful when deciding the proportions of colours to mix for a required shade.

Oh Dear!!!!! Where was the fixative? It was there each times the equipment boxes to be brought on the day were checked. Two searches revealed no sign of it! Embarrassed chairperson!

Dianne to the rescue. Dianne, thankfully had a whole new pot, more than she needed for her own project. Face saved, time to get on! Such a relief!

We had been given saucepans and steamers by one of our members, sadly unable to come, others brought their own. A cooking range full of these utensils meant that we all got our dye colours set in two 45 minute sessions with time for a quick rinse before transportation home.

There was time left to relax and spin, knit or natter and look at what the non-dyers had brought.

Su had dyed her tops at home and brought them along for us to see (wonder what they will become?)

Hopefully, the dyed dried yarns will be revealed at our next get together.

What became of the missing fixative?

It was there all along….migrated and invisible, obviously feeling more comfortable in a tray of containers similar to itself, rather than with those messy, smelly dye powders.

Colour workshop with Jill Sheperd

Saturday saw our spinning with colour workshop, hosted by Jill.  Starting off, she took us through the history of colour at a brisk pace, whilst keeping us entertained.

Colour theory was more practical as there was a sea of fluff to play with. Jill took us through practical excercises to get us to not only step outside our comfort zone but also understand tangibly how colours work together.

Amongst other things we were shown how to create batts based on our inspiration cue, ranging from images to music.  It was interesting to see that no two were alike.

This was followed by punis from a drum carder, art yarn and much more.  All the workshop participants had a good day, going home with their dream batt to spin. We're looking forward to seeing how they all spin up.

Guild Skillshare - rigid heddle weaving for Beginners

One of the great things about belonging to a Guild, other than the lovely people and cake, is the generosity of members in sharing their time and skills to help others learn.

This was in evidence on Saturday with our Skillshare on warping and then weaving on rigid heddle looms.  Our two tutors gave up their day to help the newbies, and I suspect from the output since have successfully started them on a path they will get lots of pleasure from.

In other news, a weaver was busily sampling ...

Members had kindly brought in some inspiration to fondle and admire...

And lastly, we discovered Mary Poppin's basket, that is always full of nice things.