Lessons in colour part 2

Even though I did a test 'swatch' it was with plenty of nervous energy that I dropped the shawl, I have been knitting for the last two weeks, into the simmering pot of red dye.

But I am SOOOOoo glad I did it!

 Let me just show you what it looked like finished in the old colour scheme

and now...

The first picture up the top shows the actual colour better than these last couple (late afternoon, poor light, high ISO bla, bla). 

I am feeling very pleased with the result and am delighted that I can wrap up this gift and give it to a beautiful friend next week when she turns 40... She says she is not celebrating but I think she will like it all the same.

Craft Group ~ Play Silk Dying

The wind whipping through the trees today was perfect for drying our freshly dyed silks ~ don't they look beautiful?

It is so nice to do something that doesn't invove any pins, needles, threads, scissors or very much time... Perfect really for our last crafting day before FestiValley, our spring fair. The weather is not feeling very spring at all tho...winter is doing a final blow through and has us all wrapped up and snuggling heatpacks! let's hope the sun comes out on Saturday.

They look pretty dry, too.

A nuno felting experiment

Possibly you all know of my relationship with fleece; tis quite good with the stuffing variety but a little strained with the tops and the whole felting gig. BUT I am determined to work with my flagging will and continue on my felting journey.

A friend had a baby last week (a sweet little pink girl) I had an idea to make a baby wrap. It is very hot and humid in Brisbane so muslin is perfect...I'll tell you my idea so you know where I was heading (so you will know where I went wrong). I wanted a light wrap with swirls - just a few, not too much fleece or it would be too hot. I wanted neutral on neutral and then planned to dye the finished felted wrap to a very pale rose pink. I imagined that the muslin would be one colour and the fleece either a lighter or darker shade....

It started well enough. I lay down the unbleached muslin and fiddled with fine strips of fleece and just a touch of pink silk.

and then I began to felt. I had my doubts from the beginning; the section I read in my little felting book says:

"Nuno felt takes more rolling than normal flat felt as there are less wool fibres to tangle and matt together"

Hmmm I am not a fan of rolling. Tho I rolled, and rolled and rolled (I also did the hot cold thing and threw it quite a bit ~ most satisfying). And this is what I made:

It is really hard to see but it was quite pretty at this stage ~ light and airy, understated. I stuffed it up with a dye pot!

The label on the pot said 'raspberry' I figured if I used a minimal amount, scant even, I would get a soft pink. I weighed the fabric (88grams!) and calculated the amount of dye required then quartered it, and then go rid of a bit more. I have to say at this stage I was dubious, it looked quite purple. I checked the label again and it definately said raspberry. I mixed it up and it was quite definitely purple BUT you know when you have your hair dyed and you freak out cause you want brown and you are quite sure the hairdresser has just smothered your head in yellow dye and it comes out brown anyway? Well I had one of those moments, I trusted the label said RASPBERRY and raspberries are red!

I plunged the fabric in with a sinking feeling

While agitating and waiting I read more of the label. It was fibre reactive dye specific to celluose fibres ~ plant fibres, like cotton .... hmm I got that sinking feeling again....wool is a protein fibre ~ animal. Ah well what is done is a little undoable.

Purple is ok I guess.

Wednesday Craft Group - Rainbow sun dyeing

Wow what a week...I have been at the computer all sorts of crazy hours madly writing for my job at the uni and haven't had a chance to look up BUT craft must go on!

Today we dyed felt ~ rainbow style. The most wonderful Avril came and gave her time and skill (she said it was the blind leading the blind...but I for one think she leads very well!)

We used cold water dyes and the the heat of sunshine set the colours
 ~ it was great fun and so relaxing for me!

And to top off my morning, on the way home I saw a little spring kid and his mum. So cute!

ps ~ I have finally written the instructions for the kangaroo - you can find them and the pattern here.

The Spring festival is next week so there will be no craft group but I hope to have some beautiful pictures for you. Then the school holidays are on (yay!) and we are off on a big adventure so no craft for a month!

I'm sure I'll find something to blog about tho, busy stitching a dragon for a birthday gift and a few other little things...

Dyeing with onion skins

Is really cool! Today I dyed wool for the wee girl's doll's hair. I followed Linda's tutorial for eucalyptus bark dyeing only substituted brown onion skins for the bark.

here is the dye before I strained out the skins - I boiled it for 30 minutes then turned off the heat, let it cool and stand overnight. To the side is my skein of wool waiting for the pot - I soaked it in plain water, as Linda had done, for about 20 minutes after I took this picture.

then into the warmed, strained skin juice

I let it sit over low heat for awhile and then turned off the heat and let it completely cool for pretty much the whole day - at about 4:30 this afternoon I took out my wool, rinsed it under tepid water and ta da!

pretty isn't it?

It is autumn, it is raining (pouring even) and I have been making rainbows

One of our favourite little songs to sing is this one -

paint some red up in the sky,

some orange and some yellow way up high,

paint some green and blue,

some indigo too,

then paint some violet,

and what do you get?

all the colours of the rainbow...

I sang it while I 'jelly' dyed metres and metres of light weight unbleached calico

and then I sang it a little more while I sewed and hemmed and hung ...

they look very pretty, don't they? (even tho I didn't iron the hems..) Class 3 is most impressed with their new curtains.

Oh! and thank you mum for your help pegging and pinning and ironing xx