Hangin' Out With Mama Jude

Colors of the Season~~

2011-11-03T20:51:00.004-04:00

There are always dye plants to find--even in Winter, but one of my favorite times for dye plants is Autumn! In my shop, I tend to use more standard dyes--ones that I know will last and that are readily available throughout the year, but in the past, I loved to dabble more often with stuff right from the woods or the yard or the side of the road. When I started to run out of my yellows a couple of weeks ago (Osage Orange sawdust from a woodworker in Missouri and dried weld from England), I had to improvise. For weeks I had been driving around enjoying the bright golden yellows of the goldenrod. How lovely! If only I had time to harvest some.....if only I had some fiber to dye. Suddenly, with my standard yellows run out and waiting for more to arrive, I just had to take the chance. "Pull over in that parking lot, please." I asked my husband. He already knew what I was going to do. Grabbing a plastic grocery bag from the car, I walked across the road to a vacant lot behind a local gas station. It was late in the season. Most of the goldenrod blooms were spent. I knew from experience that the earlier blooms can yield an almost neon yellow. I didn't want that bright of a yellow, but had I come too late? Were the remaining blooms still going to give me enough color? Carefully picking through the briers and raspberry canes, I just broke off the freshest looking blooms. As I picked, I thanked the plants and I thanked the earth for these gifts. I wrapped my scarf around my neck to keep warm and keep the scarf from getting caught on the prickers. Later, my daughter and husband who watched from the warm car would comment that wearing my plant dyed scarf, I had blended right in with the flowers and shrubs that had surrounded me. At one point, they even had trouble picking out where I was in the lot. When my bag was full, I headed back to the car.

Later that evening, I pored over several of my dye books. I had some notes from about 12 years ago on goldenrod. I had drawn a yucky face--"early blooms are too neon" was the comment. I checked with a number of sources, and with a bit of renewed confidence, I began my experiment the next morning. I boiled the flowers for several hours--thanking them again before and after boiling. I was pleasantly surprised! I dyed up some Merino rovings. The rovings on the top rack that are green or yellow were done with the goldenrod. I dyed them all yellow first and then gave some of them a dip in the indigo. I plan to use some of these rovings for my Phatfiber samples in November. Can't tell yet--I need to card them up first ;D

So now I'm thinking I need to take a fresh look at new sources. I've already experimented with black beans (great information in the natural dye groups on Ravelry for those interested). I'm going to try and continue to look at the world around me for long lasting dye sources closer to home. Should be fun! Happy Autumn, Y'all!

Indigo!

2011-10-07T08:59:00.012-04:00

I love indigo, and lately nothing in my home has been safe. My indigo vats have been particularly strong as of late. As a result, I now have indigo dyed sheets and pillowcases, indigo dyed towels (in gradations of blue), dish towels with shibori designs, and even indigo rugs in the bathroom. I was so enthusiastic that I dyed up a mess of T-shirts for the Pine Lake Lakefest last weekend. We did pretty well. We never sold much plant dyed yarn or felt at Lakefest--just smatterings. Not everyone knows how to knit or crochet or sew. Maybe folks will like T-shirts, I thought. I went to Old Navy and bought the most beautiful white, gauzy blouses on summer clearance. I also bought T-shirts. Old Navy mostly had womens and girls shirts, so my gal and I also went to Walmart. The sturdy, Faded Glory T-shirts were on sale in the boys section. They took the dye so well! I got some mens T-shirts, too.

As I was dyeing the children's shirts, I wondered what I could do to make designs. I was tie dyeing some or making shades of blue, but I wanted to do more than just use rubber bands and marbles. I didn't have time for some fancy kind of resist. Then I spied a bottle of washable Elmer's glue! I drew turtles, flowers, and hearts on shirts. I spelled out Pine Lake. It was great! The glue worked as a resist, but had a soft look to it--not like wax or other resists. When I washed the indigo shirts after dyeing, the glue washed right out. All of these shirts sold! I'm sharing this here because it was such a great technique. If you are nervous about starting your own inidgo vat, the Jacquard Dye Company makes an indigo tie dye kit that is very easy to use. I've used them before when I was doing a summer camp and needed to do a large amount of dyeing.

This is a fun actitivy for families, classes, fund raisers, parties, etc.... The kit, which I got from Binder's Art Store, was easy to use. It comes with pre-reduced indigo which is ready quickly. It's good to have extra rubber gloves on hand.

Another way that I'm trying to spread the indigo love is by making a hat for a special person. This year I've started teaching at LEAD, a homeschool organization in Atlanta. My first Handwork class is very tiny--only four students--but we have a great time! To get to our classroom, we have to walk through a rather large Robotics class. The Robotics teacher has been very tolerant and understanding of our comings and goings. I want to make something for her, and a Robot Hat seems just the thing. Here are some of the yarns I've dyed up for the pattern so far. I'm thinking if I do the robots in bright yellow (weld and osage orange), they will show up well against the variegated indigo background. There's plenty of indigo to go around!

Recently, I was asked to speak at the Chattahoochee Unit of the Herb Society of America at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. For the presentation, I did some more research on the history of indigo. It was a predominant crop in the colonial Southern US, but it's history goes back much, much further. You can find remnants of indigo in Egyptian tombs from thousands of years ago. Thousands of years ago, indigo was used in Central and South America by the Maya. You find it prodigously throughout Asia (India, China, Japan, Indonesia), but some of the most historically compelling roots of Indigo are found in Africa. The Yoruba People of Nigeria developed a complex method of applying cassava flour paste to fabric with chicken feathers. (I'm not mentioning Indigo Ikat or Shibori here because they are more commonly known.) This Nigerian technique is called Adire and is still practiced today. One of the best books on the history of indigo in Nigeria is from the University of Ibidan. The designs often had special meanings. I also found a story from Liberia that tells how the secret of Inidgo was given to a seeress. The story is tragic because it involves the use of tears, urine, ashes, and the death of a child, but the ending is powerful and uplifting. Okay, now I'm just rambling about the history of Indigo.

Indigo is magic. The dye comes from fermented leaves and will only dissolve in an alkali solution (thus the ashes and urine in the story from Liberia). In the past, recipes called for urine from pregnant women or men who drank strong drink. There were probably variations in the metallic salts. The urine had to ferment for about six weeks, and dyers were associated with bad smells. (Now we have easier, less smelly chemicals to use.) When the indigo is dissolved, the solution is a yellow green color. As the oxygen in the air hits the indigo--BAM! the item turns blue right before your eyes--Indigo Magic! I loved doing this with middle schoolers as a chemistry experiment--you could talk about bases and then you could neutralize the base with acetic acid (vinegar) to cause extra indigo to fall out of solution.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that this color is amazing to make, very healing to the soul, and pleasing to the eye. You can also just toss shirts and stuff you've dyed with indigo in the washer and dryer with the rest of the laundry--it's lightfast and colorfast. It's accessible and easier to use than you think. Why not give it a try? Bring some fun, amazing, healing blue into your life! A little Indigo goes a long way ;D Happy Dyeing!

Wet Felt, Hearts, & Baby-Friends...

2010-04-18T14:27:00.018-04:00

Boy, this sure has been a busy week. We are all striving to return to our daily routines and habits after being away at the beach. It was good to return to the dye pots. Rainbows have been abundant, but I'll talk about that in another post. First, my daughter and I finished our rainbow felt pieces that we had started weeks ago. That's one of the things I like about wet felting--you can walk away from it, let it dry, fix trouble spots, and come back to it when you are ready. We had started with a BFL roving (blue faced leciester breed of sheep) base and had teased out plant dyed merino roving for the top layer. The BFL came from Gales Art on Etsy. Gale is a fellow Phatfiber buddy, and I was thrilled when I joined the Peachtree Handspinner's Guild and discovered she was already a long-standing member.

The plant dyed merino was stuff I had dyed here and there over the past few months. Some of it is South African merino and was a special gift from a Waldorf Mama/Etsy/Natural Dye friend. (We are in the Waldorf Mama group on Ravelry and the Natural Dyes group on Ravelry, too.) Some of it is from New Zealand and is from a special Etsy/Phatfiber friend--Maude and Me.

My daughter and I had worked on our felts the day we laid them out, but it just would have taken too long to finish them that day. So we dried them out on some towels and a few weeks later, we rewetted them. This is why I save all those old dish soap bottles. It takes almost two large bottles of hot, soapy water to rewet my felt. Thank you Vibeke Pedersen (hope I spelled that correctly), Master Handwork Teacher and Master Felter, for all you taught me about wet felting. It all just comes back so easily. Okay, maybe teaching wet felting to middle schoolers for 8 years had something to do with it too.

So there was more patting, and then eventually gentle, circular rubbing, and finally fulling. I am always amazed at the fulling process. You're so tired of patting and rubbing, and suddently you move on to fulling, and voila! You really have a sturdy piece of felt. My daughter didn't really need to full her felt. She did plenty of patting and rubbing as she saw fit. And of course, with that Sanguine-Serendipity-Do that children so often have about them, her lovely piece of felt turned out in the shape of a heart.
My daughter's felt, we are calling "an art." She does that. "Mama, is that an art on that wall?" "Yes, Peanut Butter. That's an art."

My felt, once rinsed and dried, had a different purpose. It was destined to become sweet little bunting dolls that I call Sleepy-Pie Baby-Friends. I first started making these dolls over 10 years ago from plant dyed felt. There are some of my older dolls in the pictures.

It's really a funny story--funny in a sweet, sentimental way, not necessarily a funny, ha-ha way. When my daughter was born, I was still working full-time as a Handwork teacher. I loved my job, but there wasn't really much extra time for making dolls or toys for my daughter. This made me really sad. Then my mom sent me a doll she had purchased at one of my craft shows over 10 years ago. She had kept it in a safe place all these years. Now she gave it to my daughter, so my daughter did end up getting a doll that I had made. A few months later, my Godmother sent me a package of some toys her grandaughters had outgrown--most of them made by me. In the package was another Sleepy-Pie Baby-Friend. Now we have two--one for my gal and one that is played with but also serves as a reference for mama when she wants to make more dolls--which I've done--well, only one so far.

But she sure it sweet! She's sitting in my shop now--an ideal first doll for a baby. I just love the soft wool and the plant dyed colors. When I look at the older bunting dolls that I had made years ago, I am rather pleased at how the colors have lasted. Ten to twelve years ago, I was still finding my footing with the plant dyes. My daughter still loves to cuddle these babies. And that's where I think I need to end for today. I'm hopin' to make some more--especially some with brown skin. It's so important for children to have dolls with a variety of skin tones and hair colors. The first doll should look like the child, but after that.... Off to make more baby-friends! Thanks for lettin' me share! Happy Handwork! Happy Spring!

Reforming My Life--Shaping the Year

2010-04-12T08:09:00.008-04:00

What a wonderful year I am having! For me, the school year starts around August-September. That's just how it is with teachers. (When I taught college English years ago, everything was defined by semesters.) I find myself reshaping my life after almost a decade of teaching full-time at a Waldorf school. Don't get me wrong; I loved teaching there. It was one of the most profound and fulfilling experiences I have had in my life. Now I am having a new kind of life and a new adventure. I've spent the year so far learning some really healthy habits about my time and my family. Working from home and being with a toddler forces that to happen. Rhythm, routine, and form have been key. I have to remember to put my family first, hence the long break since my last blog posting. I've also taken time to feed my creative self. I have done more spinning on my beloved, hand-me-down Louet S-10 in the past 6 months than I have in the past 6 years.
I want to thank Tjitske Lehman (hope I spelled it right!), Master Handwork Teacher from the Kimberton Waldorf School, for giving me this wonderful wheel full of love. Oh Tjitske! I am learning so many new things--plying, core spinning and coil spinning, how to plant dye roving, milk fiber, alpaca--yearling mohair loves plant dyes! I even bought a drum carder! Since I've become more involved with spinning and Ravelry (an online knit and crochet community--also full of spinners), I'm hoping to carry plant dyed batts for spinning and maybe even some roving.

At the center of all, though, is my home life and especially my daughter. A year ago, I didn't expect to be home with her. I thought I was going back to college to work on a degree in the Textile Arts. Frankly, I think I was afraid to be home with her. Would I be good at it? Would I be able to meet her needs? How do you be at home with a toddler and teach homeschoolers and run an on-line dye business? It has been surprising how fun and fulfilling it has all been. I love being at home with my daughter! We have created our routines, and our form makes for a sense of security. We even go to Morning Garden--a Parent-Toddler group at the Waldorf School of Atlanta.
Teaching homeschoolers fits wonderfully into our lives as does plant-dying. In some ways, I feel like a pioneer woman living long ago. Daughters learned at their mother's side how to bake, cook, clean, even dye. Of course I am grateful for my dishwasher and my washing machine, I must admit.

Something that my daughter and I have been able to experience more fully are the seasonal changes that occur. They permeate our lives in a deeper way. We have also started a compost heap!
Oh, and by the way--Spring is here in full force in Atlanta as evidenced by the lovely yellow-green coating of pollen on everything! I spent the early part of last week dying up some yarns and helping a fellow dyer dye up some large pieces of fabric. I had some of the Peach Cobbler Home School students help out with the dying. They seem to have excellent "color-luck"!
They created some lovely colorways and were very inspirational for me as well. I explained how my method of plant dying is similar to the way they use watercolor paints--three basic colors: yellow, red, and blue. Everything builds off of this. They all understood right away.

Well, back to work! I've loaded some new yarns and felt packs on my site. They were photographed this past week while I was visiting coastal South Carolina, so there might be some salt marsh in the background. There ae also new yarns for my Phatfiber contributions for April--All Creatures Great and Small. I chose the Luna Moth and the Painted Bunting. Thanks for lettin' me share! I might try to write once a month or perhaps more often now that I feel more settled in our daily/weekly rhythms. Happy Handwork! Happy Spring!

Long time no see....

2009-09-12T16:56:00.021-04:00

Hi Everybody--I am sorry to have been away for so long from writing. I have started my school year with teaching handwork to a wonderful group of homeschoolers, grades 1 through 7. I have also been working on a latch-hook rug for someone. The rug was designed and started by a dear Waldorf community friend. She designed the rug for her daughter, and I am finishing the hooking for her. It is quite large and very beautiful. I hope to be done by the end of October. In addition, I've been dying up a storm trying to stock my shop for the fall. I've got a festival in early October here in Pine Lake, Georgia--Lakefest. I will have a booth, and I'm working on smaller items to sell at this time. Okay, enough chit-chat. Let's talk dying....

So here's a great shot of one of my mordant pots. I really load 'em up. I think this one has mohair yarn, mohair boucle, worsted, handspun angora rabbit by Misty from Desired Haven Farm, maybe a silk....I will put up to 11 skeins of worsted in a pot to mordant. Usually I do 10, and on rare occasions, when I had a big crew coming over to dye, I have done 12. Here's my recipe--4 Tablespoons of Alum--scant--(potassium aluminum sulfate) and 4 teaspoons of Cream of Tartar--super generous--per pound of fiber.

I should mention that anything still in the grease (with lanolin) I scour in the washing machine. It is a trick I learned from Tom Knisley at The Mannings in Pennsylvania. You run hot water in the washer. I add laundry soap and my yarn. I agitate for about 20 seconds and let it sit for an hour or so. You can see the lanolin coming out of the yarn. I spin it out, fill it with hot water to rinse, agitate for 20 seconds again, let it sit a bit, and spin it out again. I'll continue rinsing until I don't see any soap. My yarn is then really clean for dying. I do this with all the base yarns I get that are not scoured. Some come scoured already, and then I just rinse them with hot water in the washer. I love how the house smells when I mordant stuff. First I have that lanolin smell from spinning out the yarn. (Oh, I spin out raw wool and mohair that way too.) Then there's the mordant smell. I don't know. I just makes me happy.

A good chunk of August was spent with earth tones. I just felt them calling me. I dyed just about everything I could with earth tones--yarn, felt, milk fiber, mohair locks, BFL locks, wool fabric, cotton knit skin fabric...you name it, I was trying to dye it. I didn't even think that much about selling it. I dyed the wool fabric on a whim. Maybe it could be used for making root children babies. It ended going to another Etsy seller who is using it for Reiki attuned dolls that she makes. I thought that was so cool. Another Etsy seller has requested some skin fabric for the tiny necklace dolls she makes Rosemary4Remembrance. I have purchased from her before. Her work is exquisite! Back to the earth tones.

I'll now share one of my complicated techniques used for dying variegated yarns. Yes, strewn about my kitchen counter, out of the reach of the two year old wonder girl, you will find various bits of cord in various lengths and loops. I also use different drawers and cabinets for dying varying lenghths of colors. Oh, I bet there might be some of you wondering what milk fiber is. I only found out in July, and if you are all already in the know, forgive me. It is an extruded protien fiber made from milk protien. It has some interesting properties. It is very soft, and it also has some antibacterial fighting power. I think it is bacteria. It could be virus. Oh darn, now I'll have to go look it up. Anyway...I hope to be writing again sooner. I will try to put milk fiber next on the agenda. I have had quite a bit of success dying the fibers with plant dyes. They are lovely. Until then, Happy Fibers to all! Thanks for letting me share!

Better Late Than Never....Weld, Osage, and Brazilwood

2009-07-23T01:16:00.027-04:00

So sorry that it has taken me so long to post the dye pictures. When you see how many there are, you will probably understand. Also, my husband, Kini, and I have been teaching an extra week of summer camp (We are doing wet on wet watercolor with 3 to 6 year olds.) and are also preparing to drive over 800 miles up North to visit relatives. Kini's also getting his classroom ready to start with Grade Four in a few weeks. I digress. Back to the dying.

I've got some pictures to share of weld/osage orange and brazilwood dying in my kitchen. I have a great assistant, my two year old daughter. Sometimes dad helps too to make sure she doesn't spill anything. I'll start off with the weld/osage orange pot. I had been using just osage for yellows for many years. I could get a great variety from a lemony color (first pouring of first boiling) to a golden color (second and later boilings). After a few years, the yellows seemed dull, and greens made from the osage yellows could get dull as well, especially on silk. In search for a more strong yellow, I started using weld. It's pricey, so I mix it with the osage. It gives the osage a boost, and I'm hoping that truer yellows will last longer with the weld added. Only time will tell.

The weld is the green plant material in the pot. This is American grown weld. I have recently ordered some new weld--half of the order is American and half from the UK. I'll let you know if I notice a difference. The osage is in wood shaving form. This wood was used by the Osage Tribe to make bows. The French name for the wood is actually Bois d'Arc (forgive me if I misspelled that) and literally means wood of bow. I use hefty amounts of dye. In this 20 quart pot, the dye materials are several inches deep on the bottom. I've probably used half a pound of weld and almost a pound of osage. I'll be dying several half pound skeins of alpaca, and the alpaca seems to take dye more slowly than wool, and it seems to need more dye material. I will reuse these dye materials several times. Each time I will add a bit more weld and osage just to freshen the pot.

After adding water, I will boil this mixture for at least two hours. It's better if the weld has soaked overnight. This hasn't seemed as important for the osage.

Once it has finished boiling, I will strain the mixture into a large, heavy duty, plastic bucket. I use an old cone strainer for this. These are still used for making applesauce. I picked up a couple at flea markets over the years. The metal frame fits nicely just inside the edge of the bucket. As long as I'm not leaning on it, the cone stays in place while I pour. I'm using an old T-shirt as an added filter. I will dump the stuff from the cone back into the pot. Once I am totally done with the osage and weld (about 2 or 3 dyings from now), I will use it as mulch on my azaelas.

After pouring, I will immerse some of the fibers totally. Here my daughter is helping to push the fibers under the dye. These fibers were thoroughly wetted and lightly wrung out before immersion. They really must be wet in order for the dye to penetrate. (Sort of like wet on wet watercolor painting for those of you familiar with that.)

Oftentimes, I will hang skeins from a knob on a drawer to get variegated colors. The green alpaca I dyed for the Phat Fiber July Sampler Box was a variegated green--some shades were more blue green--others more yellow green. I needed strong variations in the yellow to make that happen. This way the yarn can go from blue grass to chartruese.

I have to admit, even though the alpaca takes longer and I sometimes have to leave the yarn hanging on a drawer knob or immersed overnight, it's well worth the effort. So far, I'm very pleased with the weld/osage orange results I've had in the past couple of months. I'll look at some samples in a year or so and compare. I like to be a long range planner. I like colors that last. I think I'll stop here after the weld/osage for now. I've got to get some sleep before camp tomorrow. I'll try to post the brazilwood pictures tomorrow evening so that they are up before I head out to visit relatives for a week or so.

Happy Fibers Everybody!!!

In the Mordant Pot....

2009-07-10T17:00:00.004-04:00

Here's two and a half pounds of alpaca yarn that I mordanted yesterday. The yarn simmered for about an hour and a half. I think there might be a silk sarong in there too. (Maybe I'll make that a rainbow sarong inspired by Shelley the Waldorf Mama.) So the alpaca has sat overnight in the alum and cream of tartar mordant (scant on the alum, heavy on the tartar). I'll rinse it out in the washing machine, and then it will be ready to dye. Maybe I'll get some osage orange and weld going this evening. I'm dying some of the alpaca green and some orange--had some special requests from the Phat Fiber group--and both of those colors need a strong yellow base. I also need to do some blue variegated and purple variegated. Who knows what else....

Hangin' Out With Mama Jude

2009-07-09T22:08:00.000-04:00

Hi Everybody!

Went to a meeting last night at a local artist co-op and learned all about having a presence on the web. Didn't really think I was blog-worthy, but hey, I'll give it a try. One thing's for sure, it amazes me how we can connect to one another all around the globe. I can visit the site of handwork friends in South Africa. I can chat with a toymaker in New Zealand who loves plant dyes as much as I do. I'd love to have a way to share all that I've learned about plant dyes with the world, and maybe this is one way to do that. Thanks for stoppin' by. I've got lots to dye this weekend with the release of the July Phat Fiber box coming up. Maybe I'll take some pics when I'm dying up some alpaca yarn. I already mordanted it today, so I'm good to go. Catch ya later!

Mama Jude