Sun-day

This week’s craft was silk painting.  Unlike my previous post, this is most definitely not stupid simple, and I can safely say that I learned a great deal including several things in the “what not to do” category.  Still, I think I can be said to have been moderately successful.  This silk painting, unlike what […]

Read more "Sun-day"

Onions!

Several months ago I bought a sample card from Paradise Fibers with a whole bunch of different wool and silk fibers.  I wondered, after Kaleeb’s and my experiments with natural dyes (in which the commercial wool took up the dyes much more intensely than my hand-spun), whether the breed of sheep made a large difference […]

Read more "Onions!"

Dyeing for Color Part II

I had a bit of time sans kids and husband, so I knocked out quite a few colors.  Same procedure as before, one small spoonful of dye powder to 4 cups of water and 1/4 cup of vinegar, 6 yard skeins, pulled every 5 minutes.  The russet, emerald, and turquoise were opaque at the start […]

Read more "Dyeing for Color Part II"

Reinventing the Wheel

Ok, so after struggling with the very small dye powder weights and thinking that I was going to need to get and analytical scale to be able to do small dye lots… I found this wonderful site http://www.gfwsheep.com/rov.inst/rov.inst.html.  There they suggest making up concentrated batches in gallon containers and diluting from there… Duh!  Only one […]

Read more "Reinventing the Wheel"

Dyeing for Color Part 1: Purple and Gold

It’s spring and nature is spreading color all over the place (mostly green pollen all over my car).  Since Spring Break is here, and a little bit of extra time with it, I thought I’d do my part to help.  Last week I prepped ahead and ordered 10 Jacquard Acid Dyes from Sheepish Creations at […]

Read more "Dyeing for Color Part 1: Purple and Gold"