Dandy sweater

 I posted the following to my Facebook account a few days ago.

"I spent yesterday applying my new (and refreshed) knowledge from attending Charlene Shafer's workshop on  Design-a-Knit 9 in Peru Indiana Tuesday and Wednesday.  

Last year, I had started a project on hand knitting needles and transferred it to the machine, but wasn't happy with the difference in stitch gauge. (Photo 1) Plus I had some difficulty with the arithmetic converting the instructions around the armholes.  I finally took it off the machine when I needed to use the machine for another project, and there it has languished.

The pattern was Dandy by Sarah Hatton and called for Kaffe Fassette's Colorscapes yarn. (Photo 2) I'm using Encore Chunky Colorspun and Jojoland Fugue from my stash.  Although both these yarns are "chunky" there is a slight difference in weight, so I'm plying in a very thin strand of commercially-spun angora with the Fugue.

Using my old and new DAK skills I created a garment design, then converted the hand-knitting pattern using the provided  schematic and the measuring tools in DAK to ensure the right number of stitches would be cast on, and the armhole started at the correct row.  (Photo 3). I converted the pattern for my actual stitch gauge with the substituted yarn, and looked at the interactive knitting instructions and they appear to be reasonable. (Photo 4)

Now all that's left is to rip out all my previous work and begin again.  Heavy sigh."

Custom production Knitting

I've been working on a project recently.  I was asked to make hats, with the group logo,  for a group by a friend.  I decided to do a simple hat knitted as a rectangle, sewn into a tube, and gathered at top and bottom.   Then one end is folded into the other and the brim is folded up.   It's simple and fits most people well.  

Let me explain that I've never done production knitting and rarely take commissions.   I think the market is accustomed to fast-fashion, inexpensively-mamufactured garments that are produced on an industrial scale and priced accordingly.  I don't want to work in a sweatshop!

This hat is made of 2/24 acrylic yarn.  I thought I would have enough of the white to make a dozen hats, but as it turned out, I ran out.  

I knew that new 2/24 acrylic in quantity is available from MacKellar Associates in Rochester Hills, Michigan.  They buy it in quantity for their baby blanket business, The Blanket Lady.    We were travelling to Michigan anyway this week, so we stopped by to pick up two cones of white yarn.   It was only an hour out of our way, and took us up familiar highways from our ten years  living in Michigan.

The lady at the front desk was kind enough to take us back to the blanket-knitting area for a quick tour.   They had four Brother electronic knitting machines, very similar to my own, with motor drives, just like mine.   Two women were each monitoring two of the machines, while a third woman in each trio ran the steamer to flatten the curling edges to prepare the fronts and backs of the blankets for seaming together on the Merrow industrial seamer.   

Our tour guide mentioned they have hundreds of orders.   The blankets feature the baby's name and birthday.   She mentioned, as I already knew, that the machines were manufactured in the 1970's and they are looking at getting new machines.   I was curious, and she said they may get one from Barcelona.  I wondered if it was the Kniterate.  That retails for about $16, 000. I shamelessly begged to come back to see it.   

Ironweed as a Dye Plant

You may have seen tall purple flowers waving in the breeze along the highway.  It is a plant called Giant Ironweed (Vernonia Gigantea). 

For natural dyeing purpose, there is a large range of colors available from this plant with various mordants and modifiers. 

I was surprised by the results.  

The first time I dyed with this plant, I used alum mordant and added an iron modifier.  After the first skein resulted in a deep charcoal color, I removed the skein, and saw that there was a great deal of pigment left in the dyepot.  So I dyed three additional skeins, each resulting in a lighter variation of grey.  I used rhubarb leaves (oxalic acid)  as a mordant for a couple of skeins. 

The second time I dyed with this plant, I used an alum mordant.  I cut the flowers off the stems and prepared two dye baths, one with only the purple flowers, and one with the deep green leaves and reddish stems. 

Flower dyepot

The purple flowers resulted in a reddish liquid. 

But the yarn did not take the red dye (stain?).  It looked like spaghetti, with a yellowish cast.  I didn't particularly like the color.   But I left the yarn in to simmer for an hour.  

After an hour, the yarn had taken on a rich, grey-green color.                 

I wanted to know what would happen with an acidic or basic modifier, so I split the exhaut pot into two and added baking soda to one and vinegar to the other. 

The acidic modifier did push the color towards mauve, but on drying it was more of a taupe.  

When I added the baking soda to the exhaust liquid, the dyebath foamed up and almost overflowed the small pot I had it in.  It was a bright green.  But the result ended up being a light yellow. 

Polygonum persicarium as a dye plant

 

The tomatoes in the bottom of the screen will draw your eye, but the plant I am asking you to look at is in front of the tomatoes.  I'm showing you the whole photo so that you can see the scale of the whole plant. 

It is Polygonum persicarium, also known as Lady's Finger or Lady's Thumb - or Redshank, or Smartweed. 

Here's a zoom into the flower.

,

And here's a zoom into the leaf and stem nodes.  You can see why it is called "Redshank." 

If you live anywhere near the Midwestern US, I am sure you have seen this plant as a weed in your garden. 

It is actually edible, as long as you use it moderately.  It has oxalic acid in the leaves, which can be a problem for those with kidney stones.   I hadn't seen it recommended for use as a dye plant, but I was curious. 

It is in the buckwheat family.  Smartweeds and knotweeds belong to this family.  I was interested in its use as a dye plant, because I have ordered and received seeds for another buckwheat family member, Japanese Indigo (Persicaria tinctorium, previously Polygonum tinctorium).  It's the wrong time of year to plant them, but I have every intention of planting them next spring.  The plant photos I have seen look fairly similar to smartweed, but smartweed is an annual and Japanese indigo is a biennial, with a rosette of leaves in the first year and flowers in the second.  Japanese indigo is also known as Dyer's Knotweed.   Indigo dye can be extracted from the leaves of Dyer's knotweed.  

There is also another non-native, invasive plant in the same family, which has a similar name.  That would be Japanese Knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum or Renoutria japonica).  It is a major threat in areas along waterways.  In my Master Gardener class earlier this year, my group did a presentation on control of Japanese Knotweed.  It is not easy, as the plant spreads by rhizomes, by stem cuttings, and prolific seeds.  It crowds out other native plants and destroys habitat.  Maybe another day I will try it out as a dye plant.  I noticed a stand out by the Malabar Farm horse camp. 

In the meantime, I have plenty of smartweed in my tomato garden that is not supposed to be there.  So the other day I gathered a bunch of it and put it in a dyepot.  I experimented with the technique of mordanting the fiber at the same time as dyeing it.  In other words, after cooking the plant for an hour, I strained out the leaves and stems and added the iron mordant to the dye pot before adding the dry fiber. (I was in a time crunch, I had lots of stuff to do before leaving to attend the dye class up in Northfield.) 

I brought the pot back to a simmer for about an hour, then turned it off and left the fiber in the dyepot overnight.  The next morning, I did not have time to deal with it, so left it again until I returned home on Thursday night.  I pulled out the fibers and rinsed them, then left them to dry. 

 

The color appears greenish-grey.  Iron mordant will "sadden" any color, so it is contributing the grey color.   It appears different under different lighting conditions. 

You will notice the twistiness of the fibers.  I'm not sure if I shocked the wool by raising the temperature too fast.   The yarn is from Made In America yarns. It's a single-ply and did not have these twisties before I simmered the yarn.   I bought "Big Superwash Wool" which is 3 or more pounds of  80% merino and 20% nylon.  It arrived in two cones.  The two cones seem to be somewhat different - this one is a single ply and the other appears to be a multiple-ply yarn, although they are both sock weight.  Or maybe I mislabeled them and this is the alpaca I ordered in the same batch?  

This is a question that needs resolution.   Guess I have some work cut out for me.  In the meantime, there is still a lot of pigment that was not exhausted in the first dye bath, so I will be doing a second skein to exhaust the color or any remaining mordant.  I'll take the opportunity to look at the fiber again. 

In the meantime, I just stumbled across a web page from Brandeis University  that does mention smartweed as a dye plant.  However, it does not distinguish between the several different species of smartweed and knotweed.   The "Wild Colors" website does discuss Japanese Indigo cultivation and use as a dye plant,

Fiberarts Guild at Malabar Farm Dye Workshop with alk&me

Kris Jenkins was the instructor for a great full-day workshop at her studio, alk&me, in Northfield Ohio on August 31. 

We had six participants scheduled, but unfortunately, two of them cancelled at the very last minute.  So we went ahead and dyed their yarn for them.  

This was an acid-dye workshop.  The skeins we dyed were all sock yarn, 75% wool and 25% nylon from the Knomad yarn company.  They only sell wholesale, so you may not have seen their label at your local yarn store, but you may have seen their yarn with labels from indie dyers. 

 

Shelly asked for blues, greys and pinks. 

Kris kept us enthralled for six hours.  She also got wet and kept us laughing.  We had a great time. 

Kailey asked for shades of blue. 

Some of our yarn just out of the spinner.  Subtle differences between Independence Red, Chinese Red, and Poppy Red. 

Kris had three pets that were quite at home in the studio.  

Some of Kris' other skeins drying in the sunshine.

Vic, me, the other Shelly, and Deb.

Vic, Shelly, and Deb. 

Ready to Dye

I volunteered to do a presentation on Natural Dyeing for the Master Gardener Volunteers in Richland County, Ohio on September 11. 

I have been spending a lot of time preparing for it.  In addition to creating a PowerPoint presentation with lots of photos of dye plants, I have been re-reading all my books on the topic of Natural Dyeing. Of course I have to demonstrate my experience as well (no one is as authoritative as someone who has actually done the thing.)  And I have been scouting my neighborhood fields and parks for dye plants. 

So I have been actually doing the natural dyeing as well.  

From left to right:

Crabpple bark, false indigo, Ironweed, Ironweed, Ironweed, Ironweed, and Horseweed.  The Ironweed dye bath had so much pigment that I was able to use it four times, getting a different result each time with different mordants and modifiers.  

I am in love with the color of the crabapple bark.  

I have gotten out some naturally-dyed yarn I have dyed in the past.  Clockwise from top left - Dandelion root,  goldenrod, dandelion root again,  black walnut, and pokeweed. 

I have previously blogged about these dye experiences, so I was able to retrieve the dates and processes used.  

I decided to start a new journal of my natural dyeing experiences.  I had an empty journal from the "Good Vibes Yarn Tour" that I hadn't used yet, so I dedicated it to the purpose.   By using a paper punch to punch holes in the page, I can tie a small sample of the yarn showing the color produced. 

I did one more dyepost today from the sumac fruits and leaves I had collected at the farm.  It yielded the taupe color at the bottom of the photo, not the reddish brown I was expecting.  I am struck by how well all these colors from nature complement each other.  

I've currently got a white linen top bathing in the sumac dyebath exhaust,  and I am cooking some Lady's thumb (Polygonum persicarium) weeds from my garden.  It is a member of the buckwheat family, related to both Japanese knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum), an especially invasive shrub, and Japanese indigo Persicaria tinctoria .  None of my books about natural dyeing mention that this weed would yield a successful dye.   But I am hopeful! 

Michigan Fiber Festival

 Last week was the Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan, Michigan.  I have attended this for several years as a volunteer, demonstrating my circular sock knitting machine.  This year, I only signed up for Sunday.   

We got to the farm on Thursday night.  I drove to the festival Friday, and stopped by and chatted with Clara at the Heritage Spinning and Weaving booth.  She pointed out the Knit Michigan booth in the next building.  Knit Michigan is a charity to offer comfort items like quilts to persons who are fighting cancer.  They had a bunch of bins of donated yarn, and they were giving it away to those who made a donation to Knit Michigan.  I found some Paton's Classic Wool in a brown color, as well as a cone of turquoise acrylic.  I stopped and took a photo of these lovely black-eyed Susans.  Are they Rudbeckia, or some other yellow flower?   

I stopped by to chat with my fellow MICHIGAN GEARS friends.  They are makers of Georgeous, Easy Amazing Rapid Socks, with their circular sock machines.

   On the way, I stopped by Carol Leigh's booth.  She had a display of naturally dyed sock looper kits.  The sock loopers are the loops that children use to weave potholders on small looms.  I was awestruck by the way she included colors showing the different hues attained by one dye bath, but by using different mordants and modifiers to vary the colors.  It wasn't really in my budget, so I passed it by, although I relented on Saturday and purchased a few kits anyway. 

  I did find some bargain yarn to purchase, in the Dances with Wool co-op's booth.  Skeins of handspun, including alpaca and mohair blends, for only $5 each!  Since I got home I am knitting a shawl with my purchases. 

The yarns range from worsted to bulky and I am using a size 9 circular needle.  I've had to change needles twice, as the shawl gets larger.  I'm currently using my old  Boye interchangeable needle set with all the cords linked together.  

On Sunday, I joined the GEARS demonstrators with my Home Profit Master Machine. 

I learned a couple of new things.  I have been hearing Jamie Mayfield talk about the faux Russian join several times, so Nancy was good enough to demonstrate it for me.  Also, she had a child's hat hanging from her stand, it was made on a 72 cylinder by knitting at half-pitch (leaving all the cylinder needles plus the ribber needles in work), then dropping every other cylinder needle stitch to get a much larger stitch size. The adjacent stitches take up the slack when the extra stitches are dropped.  I was able to do a ribbed edge, then change to half pitch and knit a cylinder.  

All-in-all, a very good trip.  

While we were at the farm, I rode my Gator around the trails and filled up some bushel baskets with sumac bracts and goldenrod, which was surprisingly blooming earlier in Michigan than in Ohio.  The flower heads had not yet started to open when we left for Michigan, although I am seeing some now on our return.  I hope to do some natural dyeing when back in Ohio.