It’s cold down here in the south of NZ. Most mornings are soupy grey with the inversion layer engulfing the town. By midday sometimes the sun has come out, often not. The past 3-4 days have been beautifully sunny with no clouds, pure blue sky – at 7C. But you have to show patience, and bundle up. Even indoors. Despite heating systems, the house doesn’t rise above 17C for quite a while. My dye studio is quite cold with hoare frost on the windows! Still no door, still no plugged in electricity. We live in hope!
That doesn’t stop me from dyeing. I can’t weave all day!! Finally my idea is coming to fruition. I have organic cotton handwoven shawls from India that I now naturally dye. I am very much hoping to be able to source these from my new contacts in Purulia as I really want to support their initiatives. But that will have to wait until November. In the meantime I will use these shawls that I bought like ages ago! Look at the beautiful mass of colour in these shawls! Super fine and perfect for summer, sarongs, wrap around your neck, drape over your shoulder – totally bohemian. Four are finished for now and are in the shop. More are in the makings.
Naturally dyeing is a time intensive project. Not like acid dyes were you wet out your fibre, then add dye to a pot, heat up, add the fibre, wait an hour, let cool, rinse and when dry you’re ready to go. Well, it is a tad more complex as you have to get the colour right, and the timing. But still. Natural dyeing does all of that but at a totally different pace, with many added steps. The fibre must be prepared to take the dye. I usually spend the best part of a weekend scouring and mordanting the fibres. The pots are only so big, so I can only do so many items at a time. I do try to get enough done and after they’re dry, I store them in a box so they are ready to take out when I want to dye.
The dyeing bit is faster – once you know what you want to accomplish: straight dye, exhaust bath dye, indigo or iron overdye. But once dyed, and dried, the fibres have to set for at least a couple weeks. None of this I’ll dye this up and starting weaving tomorrow mindset. After that set time I devote an afternoon to washing and rinsing and then hanging to dry. Hoping for a light breeze and some sun. Once dry it is pressing or reskeining time, so that the shawl or yarn looks like something worth admiring and perhaps buying.
In the meantime, I have a new loom so can have multiple projects (well, two) on the go at a time. My old loom (not really old) will eventually be devoted to muslin jamdani weaving. I’ve done some more Echo weave and another Paul’s Plaid in linen. Currently I have hand dyed ultra fine wool on Springy (the new loom), and a undulating wool/bamboo on David.
It’s Birthday Month!! The Mr. bought me the Tree of Life Throw kit from Marie Wallin and the knitalong just started the end of July. Step one is knitting the 8 octagons that form the basis of the throw. This is all done in flat Fairisle (so knit, turn and purl). Incredibly often colour changes. The next Step/Clue comes out towards the end of the month but I doubt I will be ready for it. Took me just over a week to knit the one octagon. But it is not a race and I enjoy the personal challenge of completing the throw.
