Crikey! It's Giveaway time again.

 I can't believe it's the 1st June!  Where has the time gone? Apart from the fact that we've been away working so much the time just seems to fly by!

So it's time for the Summer Giveaway. On the 21st June we will be drawing a name from the hat and for this season we have chosen Linen Laceweight (16/2) dyed in our own Walnut Husks! The hank size is 50g, more than enough to complete a scarf like mine. 

The colour is quite a lush brown, and beautifully even, the linen has a lovely sheen to it, almost silk like! I adore working with this yarn - particularly for crochet, although it will knit up very well too. (Or if you're into historical textiles it's fabulous for finger braiding, lucetting and tablet weaving!)

We always have

 a good supply of naturally dyed linens on the stall, 8/2, 16/2 and 28/2 are our standard thicknesses, all are available in 25g balls, the laceweight and 8/2 are also available in 50g hanks. (undyed can be purchased in 100g hanks) Take a look at the Event Calendar on the website to see where we will be next! To purchase online take a look at the Knitsisters website.

To be entered into the draw simply "follow" this blog, "like" us on Facebook or join our Group if you're on Ravelry.

Good luck!

Winter draw results

The winner of the Winter draw is Ladka who follows this blog - if you would like to send me an email with your snail address, please, I will get your parcel in the post to you next week. Congratulations and thanks to everyone for joining in!

We are going to Brussels tomorrow for Christmas, back on the 27th. I'm hoping that it will have thawed out enough to get back into the dyehouse next week - I have lots I need to be getting on with! I also want to do some more walnut experiments as I have had some husks soaking since about September!

To pur you in the right frame of mind for the weekend here's what the walnut trees have been looking like all week - the squirrels have been thoroughly enjoying gambolling in the snow and hunting for missed fallen nuts!

Merry Christmas to everyone, hope it's good for you - wherever you are!

Walnut Catkins

The walnuts just seem to be going on - I said this would be a recurring theme for the year! The catkins have fallen with a vengeance - there is a huge carpet of them all around the trees, but I collected about a kilo to experiment with.

The first thing I noticed was that although they looked very green as they were falling, they quickly oxided to a browny black. I was a bit concerned that this would affect the colour as Ethel Mairet is so adamant the with the husks they must be green, however the only way I could avoid them going brown would be to collect them before they fell - I may try that next year, but certainly for this year want to see what the crop is like and what happens at each stage.

I always do the same thing when experimenting ( unless I have read something specific like need to soak in alcohol) it gives me a good overview of how a dye works. So to start with I soaked them in cold water for a couple of days. As it was so hot and sunny last
week they actually started to ferment a little, getting "frothy" at the edges of the pan. Then I brought them up to the boil and simmered for about an hour. I let them cool down and "rest" overnight. They were then strained and the fibres added, heated to simmering and kept there for an hour. After cooling to hand hot the fibres were rinsed and put out to dry. (You can see the colour of the dye liquid underneath the collander in the pan.)

I am really impressed with the colour - it's more golden than it looks in the picture, really quite lush! I will certainly be collecting them again next year and using lots of them. I dyed a kilo of "Blarty" with them and then a T shirt and then a 300g hank of wool. The exhausts were quite pale, but very pretty!

I am now scrabbling round collecting the little nuts that have fallen in the wind over the weekend - waste not want not!!!

Walnuts

I mentioned briefly that we have 2 Walnut trees growing in the garden and that I want to do some experiments. I'm actually very excited about the trees - I've only ever got pale fawns from the dried husks that you can buy - unless I add iron or copper as a modifier. In fact I am more likely to choose Cutch than Walnut if I want to produce a brown. It's actually very frustrating, because the bath is always a really rich, thick brown colour and whatever is being dyed looks gorgeous until you squeeze it out! Anyway this is going to be the first of probably many reports throughout the next year on the experiments and their progress.

So to start - here are the 2 trees. One has leaves and catkins, the other only buds and the beginnings of catkins. From these I would say they are both Juglans Regia, which originated in Asia Minor, but long ago became naturalised to to temperate climates of Europe. The king of trees, they were highly valued by the Romans - Pliny gives a recipe for dyeing hair to stop it going white and the use of fermented husks is recorded in the early days of dyeing in Persia. (Juglans Nigra or Black Walnut is originally from Central and Eastern America, also quite common in Europe as well now but obviously from a much more recent date)

This image shows the catkins and leaves quite clearly. According to John and Margaret Cannon the catkins can be used to dye I wasn't going to take any this year thought that that would be a later experiment, however it's been pretty windy today and several have been blown down, so I've collected them and will try them during the week.(I only thought the leaves and husks were used, but the roots also get included to get darker colours, they're collected before the sap begins to rise).

I have dyed with dried leaves and had some really lovely results - research so far recommends collecting in early summer, so I'll try some fresh leaves in July. The walnuts themselves may be quite a lengthy process. The recommendations seem to be that they are collected when green, covered with water and a lid to keep them from oxidizing and then stored for - some say 1 year others 2.

As I do the experiments I will give my sources and results. According to Cardon the most common colour obtained from walnuts on their own is fawn, it would seem that you have to combine with madder or indigo to get darker colours, I'm hoping to try as many different methods as I can to build up a good knowledge of their potential.

A lovely day!

Today has been a lovely day - in more ways than one!

The weather has been gorgeous - lunch was under the Walnut trees in the coutyard, I only needed a T shirt on for most of the afternoon (and my trousers of course!!!) But the big thing was I was working in my dyehouse!
John has done a temporary fix for water and drainage, so I was able to get out and make a start on getting some yarns ready for Wonderwool next week. I know this is very last minute, but we were working in Pontoise (near Paris) over the weekend at an historical market and I need to re - stock!!


Something I'm really excited about here is the walnut trees - I have always had to buy in walnut husks in the past and have never managed to achieve the really good colours I know you can get with them - so I can't wait to get
experimenting! They haven't even got leaves on yet and I'm planning what I want to do!

I wonder if you can dye with hydrangeas?