Problem Water

I have a commission I'm working on at the moment - I was hoping to be putting a lovely report here about it, however instead I am reporting a problem that at the moment I haven't a clue how to deal with!

I need to use cochineal to get the shade of red I'm looking for, I know it doesn't like hard water - but even with soft water in N Wales I had got into the habit of starting with de - ionised water, then adding that to the main bath.

I started sampling for this commission when I was still in Wales, so the colour I have to match was dyed there - I have already done some cochineal dyeing with the hard water we have here - so know I can get good red! The photo shows some wool I dyed just a few weeks ago, although I wasn't trying to colour match with this particular hank!

So to my problem! Last week the water went off - the whole village  was turned off and no one had any water coming into their house for about an hour. After it had been turned back on a note came round from the Commune to say that we must not drink the water, couldn't even use it to clean our teeth. It must be treated with "Javel" (bleach) at a certain percentage before consumption. This state lasted for a few days and then a couple of days ago we got the all clear. I have been doing my preparation work over the past few days - the scouring, mordanting and rinsing. Now I'm not sure if even the mordanting has worked properly. 

 The cochineal itself I did my usual method of soaking out in de ionised water, heated to boiling and then allowed to cool, I wanted as much colour as possible from this dyebath! The colour at this point looks rich and red, seems a good colour to me!

Yesterday I filled the big dyebath with tap water and then added in the cochineal. Horror - the bath went black! Then the cochineal precipitated out, I've never seen anything like it! It's horrid! It smells like a cochineal bath, but there the similarity ends!

This morning it looked gloupy and thick and black! I took a small amount out into a pan and added a small hank of wool and a small piece of cotton ribbon, heated them to boiling to see if there was any "dyeing" power in the bath at all - this is the result. A bit of "purple" maybe but I'm not a happy bunny! I wonder if they could have added more bleach - in the form of ammonia,  rather than chlorine but I really have no idea what they have done to my water!!!

I have now made lots of small hanks of the same wool but from some I had mordanted before, so I can do some experimenting! I will wet out in de - ionised water and then try making a small dyebath with filtered water, try other dyestuffs with the tap water - try anything to make it work!

 It's not good for a dyer to have problems with the water like this!

Being Silly!

I am currently working on a commission - which I will tell you about soon, but as we're home and the weather is good we have also been trying to get some work done in the courtyard. We had very large pine trees growing just by the side of the house - quite scary really, they were HUGE as you can see from this picture!

When we started moving over in January a tree surgeon  cut down several of them, but there was one left. John has been wanting to get rid since January and finally took the plunge - set up the scafolding tower and started with the chain saw! 
Not only did it have to come down - but of course we had to clear up as well so the chain saw had lots of work for  several days - we now have a good stack of firewood drying for the winter and had the compulsory conflagration to get rid of all the small bits.

Whilst doing all the clearing up John managed to create a stunning sculpture for us, I hope you all think it's as good as I do - maybe we should get it entered in the Tate Modern?!

He's called it Bramble!

Autumn Giveaway

Organic Merino Aran

Goodness the summer has vanished - and it feels like it too from the drop in temperature and amount of rain that is falling (well here in Northern France at least!).

a closer view - isn't it soft and squidgy looking?

We started the giveaway in June with the Summer Organic Cotton Boucle (colour still to be chosen - Sarah!). For the Autumn we though we'd offer something warm and comforting! Our choice this time is 3 x 100g hanks of Organic Merino Aran weight yarn. The Merino is not a British yarn, but is pure Merino and beautifully soft and warm. Organically certified and processed the dyer still refuses to go through the hoops!!! We are offereing 300g of the yarn which should be plenty for a hat and scarf to keep the Autumn winds at bay - try looking at Woolly Wormhead's site for some fab hat patterns, I have a scarf pattern that I will include with the yarn! The recommended needle size for the yarn is 4mm and the approximate hank length is 150m.

We have decided that as not everyone wants to join facebook we will also include followers of this blog, if you do NOT wish to be included in the draw please drop me an email and I will miss your name out!

Hope you like our choice of colour - it is Logwood and Lac, the yarn is handpainted and there is our usual guarrantee that if you find any problem with the dye in terms of rub off whilst knitting up then you are entitled to a replacement yarn.

Good luck to all!