Archive | Dyeing Yarn

Our Week so Far and Black and White Wednesday

By Linda on August 25, 2010 in Black and White Wednesday Photo Challenge, Dyeing Yarn, Family, Gardening, hand painting yarn

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…

By Linda on July 29, 2010 in Dyeing Yarn, hand painting 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…

By Linda on April 12, 2010 in Dyeing Yarn, Outdoor Challenge

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

By Linda on March 1, 2010 in Dyeing Yarn, 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.