Wool, Wonderful Wool and Wool Giveaway

The dyeing process is finally finished, I really enjoyed it, the wool has come out a gentle, light reddish brown colour with flecks of grey (that aren't showing up in the photos at all) but I can see them and I am so happy they are there. It has a whole Autumn feel to it... I think I'm going to cast on my Tea Leaves Cardi tonight, I can't wait!! I have never knitted from such a huge pile of wool before, I dyed an extra 3 skeins for just in case.

I have started a new pattern, this one is for a Rhino...

The super wash wool is finished being spun, I was going to knit a hat, but Kye has asked for 'white mittens' instead, (he loves the book called The Mitten) so I am going to offer this skein as a giveaway.
If you would like to win a skein of super wash hand spun rainbow Merino wool, please just leave a comment below:)
I will announce a winner on Saturday in this post.

Congratulations to:

vicarno's mamaApr 5, 2012 09:32 AM

I am a wool addict, so it would be great to win this!!! Love the colour of your self-dyed yarn, it has a 'tenderness' in it, a bit of slow beginning of autumn...

Please could you send me your postals address and I will send off your rainbow wool, you can reach me on lindadawkins@mweb.co.za

Hope your day is filled with some kind of wonderful.
Linda

Natural Wool Dyeing with Rooibos Tea

I have been needing to dye up some Rooibos Tea Merino wool for a Labrador dog that I am going to knit for someone and I thought I would share the process with you. Dyeing wool is such fun and I enjoy natural dyeing because I am using something from nature and that makes it very special to me. 

So here we go, just grab some wool and tea and we are off...:)

Materials:

Some  Rooibos tea bags, I used about 6

100 grams / 3.5 ounces of wool

Vinegar

First I soaked my wool in some warm water and added a little liquid soap, I left that to soak overnight and then the following day, I squeezed the water out of the wool and placed it in another basin of water and added some vinegar, this helps the colour to stick to the wool. I left the wool in the vinegar water for about an hour.

On the stove, I heated up enough water to cover the wool (once added, not yet) and added the tea bags, brought the water to the boil and let it simmer to release the tea from the bags. Once the water was a lovely rich tea colour and had cooled down quite a lot, I squeezed the water out of the wool in the vinegar solution and added the skeins to the pot. You can remove your tea bags if you wish, but I always leave mine in the dye pot. I slowly heated the dye bath until it was very hot but not boiling and then I turned it down to simmer for about an hour or so. I removed the pot from the stove and allowed it to cool, I usually leave my wool in the dye bath for a few hours and then remove the wool from the pot and place it in a basin of water to rinse out the remaining tea. Keep rinsing the wool until the water runs clear and then hang up to dry.

And there you have it, lovely golden Rooibos tea skeins of wool! Such fun:)

I had a few extra skeins, so I have added them to my shop:) The wool is DK and can be knitted with 4mm / 6 US needles.
Happy dyeing,
xo
Linda

Gardening and Dyeing Yarn Naturally

Yesterday, Caiden started a new Spring homeschooling block all about gardening, planting, insects etc... The block can be found on this wonderful Yahoo group called Waldorf Home Educators, it is an amazing homeschooling resource that is freely available on the internet. It is Marsha Johnson's beautiful Yahoo group. If you haven't already joined as a member, it really is a wonderful place to visit. You could quite easily put together your own curriculum from everything she offers in her 'Files' section, under 'Age Specific Curriculum'.

Caiden decided to plant his own veg garden, he chose the veggies that he wanted to grow and then I found some craft sticks. He labelled each stick with the plant name and the date of planting and put these at the end of each row of veggie seeds. He really enjoyed planting his own garden. Now he will be able to know by looking at the date on his sticks, when a good time will be to plant again for succession planting. He is also going to save some seeds for next years planting.

Labelling his veggies...

I was so excited to discover this little Lady Bug on one of the broad bean plants. All the beans are healthy and there is just one that has aphids. Sure enough, this little bug was there getting rid of the aphids from the plant and restoring balance. This was such a lovely learning experience of how nature swoops in when she is needed without us doing a thing

Green...

Today, I custom dyed some mohair yarn for someone to be used as Waldorf doll hair. I dyed my yarn with Eucalyptus bark. It has come out a lovely honey blond colour. I am going to dye up some more for the shop too.

I just had to share this beautiful bear with you. My brilliant and very talented friend, Heidi has designed this wonderful African Flower Bear Pattern, the bear's name is Lollo, isn't she just gorgeous!!! The pattern has just been made available for purchase on Ravelry, I love it!! The pattern is so detailed and wonderfully written, I can't wait to start this project:)

I am off to start preparations for my mom's birthday tomorrow, Caiden's 10th birthday on Thursday and our trip to the farm...

Take care
xo
Linda

The Wool and Yarn Room

This is my wool and yarn room... I have been trying to organise this space somewhat and I thought I would share it here...

The glass door cupboards used to be in our lounge, but when we repainted we decided we preferred the room without them and so into the wool room they went. I love them here because of the glass, the yarn is more visable and I can quickly see what I am looking for. (They are kind of full though... so I need to find more space soon!) BUT I have decided to start knitting up my stash...

This cupboard on the left contains some of my rovings, dyes, and of course yarn. In the cupboards below, I have large bags of Alpaca roving etc...

Ok, I had to take a photo of my drum carder... time to make some batts...

Cupboard on the right... more yarn... I know so many plastic bags... whenever I buy yarn and rovings they always arrive in the post in these plastic bags, I repurpose the bags and use them to store my wool and rovings, it keeps my yarn safe from moths etc... and I use the bags over and over...  and when I no longer need them, I will once again repurpose them and crochet or recycle them into shopping bags etc... I also put soap blocks, and lavender into my cupboards to let the little insects think twice about setting up home here:) I believe you can also use cedar blocks as well.

I am going to knit a bath mat with this beautiful two ply organic cotton from here.
Wishing you all an inspired week...

Our Week so Far and Black and White Wednesday

It is wonderful to be blogging again after this long absence... Thank you so much to everyone who sent me emails to see if all was well over this side of the world, I really appreciate it:) We are very well, we have had a lack of internet connection, which has only come back on in the last half an hour, so here I am:)  and I have had some wonderful custom yarn orders to fill which have kept me busy for the last few days. I am so enjoying the hint of Spring that is on its way. We have been working in our garden, planting fruit trees, I found different varieties of Almonds, Naartjies, Plums and Nectarines.... so exciting, AND, I even found two varieties of Pear!! Our apricots are in flower and so are our nut trees! I cannot wait to see if they fruit, it will be their first year of fruiting:) Our asparagus is sending out the most amazing thick shoots from the earth, so our veggie garden and orchard are looking good! We have planted three different varieties of lettuce and we are already eating our cauliflowers. We have also discovered that our new chickens have started to lay the sweetest little eggs. I love Spring, the buds on the trees, the green leaves, all so beautiful!

We have always recycled our paper and glass, but now we are able to recycle plastic as well which is amazing, even though we try to buy everything in glass, it is not always possible and now we can take it off to a recycling centre.  All our veggie peelings either go into our compost heap or our worm bins and I also have another wonderful little composter, called the Bokashi Composter which is amazing. We are really trying to reduce our Carbon Footprint as much as possible and be self sufficient. We are getting there...

I love that every time I walk around to switch on our water tank, I am met with the wonderful fragrance of Jasmine...

Our blossoming fruit trees...

We have almost planted up all of our veggie beds. We have stopped planting veggies in the new veggie garden and turned it into a small orchard as the Hadedas' fly in and dig our produce right out of the ground, roots and all...

Our Oak tree has green leaves...

My new Pear tree has blossoms! Do ya think there will be fruit?

We have also been dehydrating this week and the strawberry and banana fruit roll Erin made was awesome! I also made broccoli chips, yum!

This is what has been keeping me busy... Jenna also loves to dye yarn, she has been helping her mama and I love that she is learning along the way... Our new custom hand painted yarns...

 

Peacock Rainbow

Vibrant

Pastel Rainbow

Black and White Wednesday:

Caiden and Kye washing their dad's car together when Kye was still 2 and a half...
Happy Wednesday!
Shannon is also having a wonderful giveaway at the moment.
xo
Linda

Dyeing Yarn...

On Monday I went on an amazing yarn dyeing workshop with my wonderful friend Heidi. We had such fun and learned so much from our lovely friend Dana... Jenna and Erin were so excited when they saw me hand paint some yarn later that day, so they joined in and hand painted some masterpieces! This is what we have been dyeing...

Erin dyeing some Merino, wearing her newly knitted scarf...

My rainbow yarn...

Erin's finished result...

                                                                               
                                                                         Jenna's yarn...

Wow, it's like a whole new world of colour has opened up, I just love it! Well, I'm off to dye up some more, my yarn is soaking in the kitchen:)

Take care...

Todays Activities...

Today was a day for dyeing quite a lot of boucle' Mohair yarn. I have been experimenting with Eucalyptus bark and the colours have been amazing. I dye it specifically for Waldorf doll hair and the results were wonderful...

This is the honey blond colour of the first dye bath, the following skeins were a little lighter and so pretty, they are still drying on the lemon bush outside:) I will list these skeins in my Etsy shop for sale today:)

Can you see my little love in the photo above? This is my youngest, Kye, he is always with me and is so sweet! He is keeping me company in my studio while I am working. This room is filled with my work and I really enjoy this space but I also love sharing it with my children. They will often join me here and knit on the couch, Kye has a space for his wooden toys too and his stove resides in this room, so he serves me the most wonderful cooked dishes and cups of tea while I am spinning or skeining my yarn... He also has many pirate adventures too because his pirate ship and village live under my work table and I love listening to all the details of his voyages and adventures he goes on while we are here together...

I love that my children are a large part of everything that I do,we learn so much from eachother and have the greatest discusions, it is wonderful to be present in these moments and never be too busy to listen to what they have to say. I guess, I am a happy mama, so honoured to spend these days learning alongside my family:)

Here are our outdoor photos for today... We have a huge cardboard box that has lent itself to so many wonderful play experiences, a pirate ship, space ship... Today they flattened it out on the grass, went to fetch their crayons and drew beautiful pictures in the shade of the afternoon sun. They loved this and told me how much fun they were having. Great hey... to be outside... Later they took their box over to the hill at the bottom of our garden and slid down the slope like they were on a sled...shouts of joy followed:) What a brilliant day...

Happy Monday friends:)
Warmly
Linda

Dyeing Yarn Naturally with Eucalyptus Bark, A Tutorial

Early this morning, while walking in our garden, I could feel the slow approach of Autumn. The air was crisp and cool and sunsets seem to arrive earlier each day now... I thought today would be a lovely day to take a step towards Autumn and dye some Boucle' mohair yarn in this lovely Autumn shade. I really do enjoy Autumn, it is my favourite season...

I am going to share a tutorial here with you of how I dyed my yarn, I am dyeing this yarn especially for Waldorf doll hair as I thought it would be a lovely addition to my shop... Quite a few months ago our family went on a bike ride together and we rested for a while in a park. The park had so many Eucalyptus trees and there was so much bark lying all over the grass. We collected some and brought it home and it does dye up so beautifully. I was amazed at how the water changed from clear to a delightful red brown as soon as the bark heated up in the water...

This is some of the Eucalyptus bark I used, 100 grams / 3.5 ounces dyes up 100 grams / 3.5 ounces of yarn. I broke the bark into small pieces and added it to the water and heated the pot until steaming and let it heat for about an hour.

Then turn off the heat and let it stand for about 12 hours, ensuring your bark is wonderfully wet and has let out most of its colour. When you are ready to dye your yarn, don't let the water boil or it can change the water to a brown colour instead of the lovely red brown.

While the dye bath was heating up again slowly after standing for 12 hours or so, the boucle mohair yarn was soaking in water for about 20 minutes.  

This is the lovely red brown colour... Then, when the dye bath was warm, I strained it and just used the lovely rich liquid...

I squeezed out the excess water from the mohair yarn and added it to the warm dye bath. I let it steam, not boil, on a medium heat for about an hour. Then I let it cool down and rinsed the yarn out until there was no brown run off and the rinse water was clear.

I hung it out to dry.

It dried to a beautiful golden brown colour...

I am so happy with the colour. You can also save your bark and use it over 4 or 5 times again:)

Happy Monday everyone:)
Warmly
Linda

Sun Dyeing Yarn...

As part of our crafts we enjoy with our homeschooling days, we decided it would be tremendous fun to do a sun dye... First we soaked our undyed Merino yarn in vinegar water, I had about 3 litres of water to 1 cup of vinegar. We let the skeins soak for about 20 minutes.

Then we squeezed the vinegar water out of the skeins.

We used nice large glass jars with screw top lids for the dyeing. Fill just under halfway with warm water and add a little vinegar too. Then place your skein into the water until it is fully submerged.

We used food colouring for our dyes. Erin chose a few colours, green was one of them. Above she is pouring the colouring into the glass jar, just a little at a time and then change to another colour. I usually use a metal spoon and gentle move the yarn about so that the colouring reaches different areas of the yarn, then quickly add another colour and move the yarn again so that a lovely varigation of colours can form.

Cadien's sun dye on the left and Erin's on the right. Once the colouring has been added, we put the lids on the jars and carried them outside to a really warm spot. We left them there for most of the day. The sun really heats up the water to almost boiling...

Kye said he would like to sit with his jar and watch it , so he found a spot right next to his blue jar, and he did... (He wanted to dye his yarn blue like Pelle, from Elsa Beskow's book Pelle's New Suit ).When you are finished, fill up a sink with cold water, bring the jars inside, open the lids and let the water cool down in the jars. Then take out the skeins gently and place them into the sink water to rinse. Rinse gently until there is no more colour run off and then hang them up to dry outside.

This is the end result! Caiden's on the left, Erin's is the green and the blue is Kye's. They are quite varigated from the twists in the skeins and should knit up beautifully... This was such a wonderful experience for all of us...