Adventures in Natural Dyeing

With heavy hearts the children waved goodbye to their British grandparents last week. We see them regularly and they were with us for two weeks but it is never enough for the children. We all really needed a pick me up so we got in the car and made our way to the lovely Tisserie at Branderion, a small but delightful little museum concerned with fibre, textiles and weaving. 

All the different animals who provide us with fiber

Really fun guess the animal fibre baskets

I'd signed the children and I up for a natural dyeing workshop and we weren't disappointed. Not only was the welcome warm and the museum's exhibition interesting, the workshop itself delighted everyone. We were eight participants and we covered three forms of natural dye, cochineal (cochenille en français), indigo and leaves. 

For the first two we experimented with tie-dying using elastic bands and dye baths. 

 

Noah and Maya watch the bugs leak their dye!

For the cochineal, the dried bugs were mixed with boiling water, vinegar and bicarbonate of soda before we placed material samples, one wool, one cotton in the dye bath and left them to soak until the end of the workshop. 

The indigo bath was already prepared. We took it in turns to dip in aprons which we'd contorted with elastic bands. The later batches initially displayed an acid green colour alongside the dark blue but this faded as the aprons dried. 

Noah dips his apron in the Indigo

Maya's turn

And last but not least, Lotta

For the third technique we picked fresh leaves outside and then after placing the leaves under a thin piece of cotton, used a hammer to release their dye. The material was then placed in a special bath with a fixing agent. 

Take the leaves

Place the thing material over them

And hammer...

The children were really delighted with all the results especially the aprons. The leaf dying really surprised them and they are very eager to try this again at home with other leaves as well as flowers (I'll keep you posted!). 

The big reveal to Noah's delight

Apron's drying

 
 

Five Little Things : Knitting

A bag of wool in the post

There are few things that bring me as much simple joy as wool and mail. I love getting post, particularly packages but also letters and post cards. When the two combine together as in one lovely package from the great people over at De Rerum Natura it makes me one very happy person.

De Rerum Natura's wool makes me especially happy because of their humanist ethos which means that the lovely wool I get to knit with comes from sheep who've been very well treated. It feels great to be knitting with wool from happy, loved sheep.

And the endless possibilities it announces...

The thing I love most about wool is the possibility. From a simple string of twine you can make almost anything - socks, mittens, sweaters, hats, leggings and tea cosies. And that's a very tame list. This wool was destined to become a sweater for Noah and it's knitting up beautifully if slowly. But even the slowness of (my) knitting doesn't really bother me because for me therein lies the beauty. Stitch by stitch, row by row I can see something growing and even if I only knit one stitch or one row, I am moving forwards I am making something.

Noah's new sweater, a work in progress

This slow but constant progress has been a lifesaver to me over the years when with a young family I often didn't have long stretches of time to create. But I could knit. And I did. I took it to the park in a bag and knit while I stood around watching the kids play. I knit on the train and the bus. I knit in the little snippets of time I had between naps or when everyone was finally sleeping in the evening. And it made me feel better. It made me feel okay that my days went round like a fixed loop endlessly repeating the same gestures as I fed and cleaned and played and slept.

So I'm grateful for sheep and I'm grateful for needles and I'm so glad you have your whole life long to learn new things and that knitting and I found each other. And I'm so, so grateful for one more ball of Malabrigo Rasta to finish my first shawl. I know it's going to keep me warm for many winters yet.

Malabrigo Rasta Azules

My Offhand Lace Shawl