Warp Strings 3 : Mottled Blue, Plum and Leaf Green

Here are the 3 Amigos : The 3 colors that will be the wool warp for the next round of rugs on the floor loom: Plum, Blue and leaf Green.  All hand-dyed.

I LOVE how this turned out.  I started aith a hank of camel-colored carpet warp (wool).  It took the color beautifully!  1-1/2 tsp Wilton's Royal Blue in the crock pot with 1/4 cup of white vinegar.  I let the pot warm up with the yarn pre-soaking as it warmed.  Then I removed the yarn and added the  vinegar and dissolved Wilton's.  Mixed it up, then threw in the yarn.

I love how it soaked up the color at different rates with some parts a darker blue than others.  Where the ties acted as a resist, it's more light blue.  This will make a beautiful warp.  Need to make a few more, to have enough for a loom full of rugs!  This is only 660 yard, if I've done my calculations correctly.

I used the crock pot instead of the stove top.  The only difference is that it takes a little longer.

I also did a batch of deep purple/plum  (mixed Wilton's drops) and leaf green (old Procion dye) in separate pots on the stove.  I got some nice mottling / breaking on the plum where the colors broke a little.     The Procion is a slightly different method than the Wilton's. 

That's a Wilton's Kelly Green int he top half of this pic.  That's the first green I'd dyed for the warp trio, but I finally decided that it was too bright for the blue and plum.  I needed something a bit more muted.  Enter the Leaf Green Procion color you see in the bottom half of the photo.  Much better!

I use a slightly different method to dye wool with Procion dye.  You have to be careful with the soda ash required in fiber reactive dye, as it is not good for the wool.  In short, if you want to use Procion dye on wool, you replace the soda ashwith vinegar, salt and heat to make the dye bind.  So far, it's been working very well!

This photo is actually truer to the colors than the top one.
Still a very nice color combo.

Sneak Peak at the Morningstar Applique Blocks

I am beginning to echo stitch around the appliques on the Morningstar quilt.  It's not hard, just take a little time and some maneuvering the bulk of the quilt.   I have more corner block to go.  Then I have to figure out how I will fill in the rest of the "empty" space on those black and applique blocks.

I'm thinking maybe 1 more echo and then onto swirls and whatever I can fit into the spaces ...  That is something I should practice on the iPad, first ...

I am using a variegated blue thread to do the outlining.  I shows up nicely on the black, but doesn't detract from the bright applique flowers and vines. 

I finished up the quilting on the giant center star a few weeks ago.  It's hard to photograph, or you'd see it here ...  After that, I stitched the edges of the black border squares to hold them in place while I did the free-motion quilting around the applique flowers and vines. 

Next step was to decide what color threads to use on that black background.  Maroon?  Blue?  Something completely different?

Photos in Context : Skye Water Pitcher

Skye Water Pitcher

I worked it up in Topaz Impression to give it a painterly still-life Old Masters feel.  The light was just right!

Here's the original. The light was just right ...

I don't think I've posted this one before ...  A few years ago (2016?) on one of the trips to Scotland, we stopped at Ella's Cafe in Uig on the Isle of Skye for lunch.  They were playing a wonderful soundtrack of old American jazz--absolutely something I would not have expected in Scotland!  John Kraniak WORT Entertainment-style music.  Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday ...  I loved it!  The guy who ran it had been in IT, a programmer maybe, but what he really loved was that genre of music.  I think he was surprised that  a "youngster like me"  knew those songs, or would even ask about it. 

I remember, I had soup for lunch with a hardy side of warm bread, and a delicious cuppa tea which is always fortifying in from the Scottish rain and weather.   Earlier in the day, we'd been up to see the magnificent Quariang -- moody and magnificent, as ever in the weather. 

In the restroom at Ella's, I spied this pitcher and basic set.  And I could not resist snapping a picture.

Outside was this classic old car. 

Inside, half the shop was a strange mix of consignment, craft, antique and and thrift store.  You didn't know what you'd find down the next aisle.

I would love to go back and see what's new!

Quilted Comforter for my Spring & Fall Blue Grotto Reading Nook

I picked up this quilted coverlet at Goodwill this week.  Even though this was likely mass-produced and done with a computer-driven machine, I do appreciate the quilting on the end-product.  And it's so nice and puckered -- like a well-washed antique quilt.

It reminds me of the moving blankets we'd sleep under at Grappa and Gramma's house when I was a kid.  Grappa did quite a side-hustle through the years moving furniture for people.  He had a truck and the moving blankets.  They were thick and heavy, and had a certain musty smell to them, but they were warm, too.  Best used to cushion furniture and appliances on the moving truck, back in the day.    When they got older (Grappa and Gramma, and the moving blankets), they saw new use for keeping the grand kids warm during a sleepover.

Of course this has a much nicer quilted pattern to it, than those old moving blankets.

It was perfect for covering the little couch in my Blue Grotto reading nook on the porch.  It's nice and thick, and will protect the couch from sun / UV damage. And it was inexpensive enough that I won't feel too bad when it falls apart or fades for that same reason.

My reading nook is only usable in Spring and Fall.  Summer is too hot, and winter is too cold.  Lovely quiet and cozy place to read a book during a rain storm, or just a nice day ...

Breaking Wilton's Delphinium on Pendleton's Wooly Worms

Same idea as yesterday -- dyeing 1-1/2 pounds of Pendleton's Woolly Worms on the stove top in a huge pot.  Only this time, I'm using Wilton's Delphinium Blue.  Though similar to the Violet,  Delp Blue has a slightly more tropical / Mediterranean greenish blue to it than the Violet.  

Again, I used almost a whole jar of the Wilton's Delphinium Blue icing gel, melted in some hot water before adding to the simmering dye pot about 2/3 full of water and 1-1/2 cup vinegar. 

Once that was mixed, I started adding the pre-soaked wooly worms -- not all at once.  I put some in dip-dye style, but waited until the color changed to add more -- from purple to blue to greenish blue at the end.  And of course the darker worms that were over-dyed became w hole new color altogether.  

And this is how the colors broke.  I'm so pleased with this! 

 

 Here are the woolly worms laid out on the drying racks.

Very nice color range from the 1 pot of dye!

I am looking forward to sewing the strips end-to-end.  I can randomly pull worms from the batch and sew, and I think it will all come together as a nice rug someday!

Here is a side-by-side comparison of Delphinium Blue (left) with the Violet batch (right).

Breaking Wilton's Violet on Pendleton's Woolly Worms

I wanted to try larger batches (1-2 pounds) of the Pendleton Strips (selvedges or woolly worms).  I was curious to know how much dye was required to sufficiently color a pound (or two) of wool fiber in this form.

Rebecca at Chem Knits typically uses 1/2 tsp per 100 grams of wool yarn
          with 3 Tablespoons White Vinegar.

So I did some math conversions and came up with the following :

1 pound = 454 grams

2-1/4 tsp dye per 1 pound of wool fiber
3/4 cup  + 1-1/2 tsp Vinegar

I had to use the stove stop and a big pot as 1-pound of fiber is too much to fit into the slow cooker pot. Though it works great for smaller batches, and the yarn.

I wound up using 1 entire jar (1 oz) of Wilton's Violet for this big pot / batch.
I dissolved the gel in a mason jar of hot water.  (Wear gloves, or your hands will get pink!)

I pre-soaked the woolly worms in a separate bucket with warm water.
I had a big pot on the stove about 1/2 full of water set to simmer with the vinegar.

Once the water was hot enough, I turned down the heat, added the dye concentrate, and started to add the fiber -- NOT all at once, but in big handfuls. Then I'd wait for the color to change before adding the next chunk -- very similar to the dip dye process.  I was counting on the colors breaking so that I'd have some nice variation with the overall batch.    That way, I can pull worms out of the bag at random and know that all the colors will work together in a given rug.

It appears to be working beautifully!   I got a lovely variety of "broken" violet colors in this batch.

Here's what I started with -- 1-1/2 pounds of cream and gray woolly worm strips.

This is the light and dark mix of woolly worms I started with -- knowing that different shades would take the dye differently and leave me with a nice mix that would all go together.
This will make a lovely rug someday!

Here's  a direct comparison of the Pendleton Woolly Worms dyed 

with Delphinium Blue (left) and Violet (right).

Painting a Sock Blank for Blue & Rust Yarn

Somewhere on Pinterest, I was seeing the idea of painting a sock blank -- essentially fabric -- and then unraveling it -- deconstructing that knitted format to recover the yarn for some other project.  The yarn was knitted into formation as a blank slate, and then colored applied.

There are so many possibilities for this technique surface design-wise to get different textures. Then there's the colors ...

Here is the inspiration color and surface design I started with.  This is from a quilted bag that I commissioned from Pat Schneider here in town.  I LOVE these colors together : Blue and Rust!

First, I used the larger knitting mill to make a sock blank.  This time, I used the suction cup feet stuck to a chunk of marble.  This worked well.  I set the mill for a flat panel.  I had to watch a video about how to do this, as it's a little tricky when you stop and turn to go the other direction.  Turns out all you need to do is hold the tension when you change direction.  2 balls of Marly Bird Chic Sheep 100% merino wool yarn (Lace) for a 200 gram blank. 

I let the blank soak in the crock pot while it warmed up.  I was thinking of trying a low-water immersion technique in the crock pot, with the blank / fabric all scrunched up to give it some regular texture. 

Then I started mixing colors.    I found a helpful color mixing tool on the Wilton's website to support their Color-Rite system.   I chose a summer teal color (6 drops Blue + 1 drop yellow), mixed with about 1 cup hot water.

Summer Teal - Color Mixing Recipe
6 drops blue
1 drop yellow

I pulled the Blank out of the crock pot, squeezed out excess water and set it aside temporarily.
Then I added 2 T white vinegar and stirred that around.
Then I put the blank back in, and tried to arrange it nicely for interesting textures.
Then I dumped on the teal dye, and let it sit on high for about 30 minutes.

But things were just a little too bright, a little too green, not enough blue.  It didn't quite match my reference photo, or what I was after for this project.

So at the 30 minute mark, I added 1/4 tsp  Wilton's Blue gel (from the little jars), and whatever was on the cap.  Since it was a new jar, I let whatever dye was on the foil lid melt off into the mixing jar with 1 cup hot water.  After that, I added an additional 1/4 tsp of the Blue gel.    After it had dissolved I dumped that into the crock pot.  My first thought was not to stir it much, just let it fall where it may serendipity style, but then I couldn't help myself, and I stirred things up for more uniform color though out the blank as a whole.   By this time, I already had too much water in the pot to stick with a lower-immersion technique.

At some point, I added an additional 2-3 T white vinegar.
Then you just let it sit in the hot bath, and soak up the dye.

When the water runs clear (or nearly clear), you can turn off the heat, and let it cool before you rinse it out.

The next step (after a few more weekends went by) was to use some guar gum as a dye thickener, so that I could then stamp circles onto the blue blank.  Credit for this idea goes to Rebecca at Dye Pot Weekly / Chem Knits recently use guar gum to thicken some dye to use with a stencil on a sock blank.  My idea was to use it with stamping tools like jar lids, paper roll tubes, or other items from the recycling bin ...

Once the stamping surface design is done, the new layer of dye needs to be heat-treated.  Because I want the copper dye to stay where I put it, and not bleed and blend to the rest of the fabric, I rolled it up in plastic wrap and set it in the steamer pot for 30 minutes.  Spa treatment!

When it cools down, it can be rinsed and washed to remove excess dye and the guar gum.  The guar gum made the rise water cloudy, but not rusty -- which meant the dye stayed with the fabric.

Here, the rust doesn't show up as well as it does in person and in brighter light.  While it was drying, the rust circles looked very dark, and I thought, "Oh no!  I didn't account for the layering of the dye colors."  I thought what I had was rust on top of blue to make a much darker navy color instead of rust.  That I would have somehow needed to mask the original so it stayed white and could be later dyed copper (as you see in the inspiration fabric).

I had 2 shades of copper, but they both seemed to print dark.  I know inspiration fabric has a  some darker blue circles on it.  I fI could see what colors I was printing, I might have added some of those too.  It's not too late -- I can always go back and add more.

 

Here it in a different light, where the copper / rut shows up better. 

After thoughts : The other thing I didn't account for was the knit fabric structure acting as a resist to the blue layer.  On this photo you can see a string beginning to unravel on the right side, where it reveals white flecks.  Although I consciously printed the copper circles on both the knit and purl side of the fabric, it did not seep all the way through.  And neither did the blue.  To get that, I'd probably have to really malax the fabric while dyeing the blue layer to get those in-between bits.  Or, I could dye the blue in successive sessions--Or I could have dyed the blue as a skein / loop instead of knit fabric to avoid the white bits.  Then knit it into a solid blue blank, and then added the copper circles.

Me-thinks there is more experimentation to be done with this method! 

Speckled Sock Seeks Mate

I finally finished that sock on the CinDwood 56-peg 1/4 guage round knitting loom.

I followed Hypnotic Hysteria's instructions on this video:

It was much easier than I thought it would be.  The heel is made by exactly the same process as the toe.  And this time, I even figured out how to do the super-stretchy bind off.

I made the length of the foot about 1 inch too long.  It's really hard to tell what is the right length when it's on the loom, because it's a little stretched out and distorted.

 

 Detail of the heel and cuff.

I also changed the cuff to be K2 P2 instead of the K1 P1 that Hypnotic Hysteria recommends.  This gives it a nice stretch that you want in a cuff.

Detail of the toe box.

It's actually more even than it appears.  This was probably after I had tried it on for size.

Now to get started on the second one ...  I've already set up the Kitchener caston, and secured it with a round of knit stitches.  Now I'm beginning the toe box ...

There's a method of avoiding 2nd sock syndrome where you purchase 2 sets of needles (or in my case, a second knitting loom), so that you can work through each stage simultaneously.  That way, you don't have to start over from the beginning to make the 2nd sock.  You can just go back to the last stage.

Though -- since this one was a prototype, and I was just learning the process, it's probably ok NOT to make the second sock.  But I'm gonna do it anyway.  Maybe I'll make this one the right size for my own foot?

Still Life with Garlic

Still Life with Garlic (V2)

Oil Glaze

Here is the original photo, looking down into our garlic bowl.

Lots of detail that makes it look harsh.

The bowl is pottery from west Africa with a black finish / glaze to it.  

It makes for a wonderful background in this image.

I was looking for a softer artistic impression, and I got it with Topaz above.

Just relaxing on a Sunday morning. ;-)

How about a Little Cow?

Charolet Cow in France

And now for something completely different.  I haven't done much with PhotoShop Elements lately, but this morning I thought I'd play a little -- just to see if I still knew how to do it.

Here's the original photo that I took in France several years ago.  These Charolet cows are from the Roanne area where Christian's Gramma lived.  Just like French wines tie back to the land where they came from, so does the cheese and beef.  Terroir - Taste of the Land.

 

Very Simple Photo Processing

1) Original Photo with basic touch-ups 

2) Pull it into Topaz Impression and try out the artsy filters

I settled on Cezanne I

3) Back to Elements

4) Crop out the2nd cow

Delphineum Blue

Delphinium Blue Gradient

I finally tracked down some of Wilton's Delphinium Blue.   It seems to be one of the colors in short supply and hard to come by.  We ordered it directly from Wilton's website after I couldn't find it locally at Joann's, or even through Amazon.

 I wanted to try breaking the colors out of this one in a dye experiment, so I did a little dip-dyeing to see what I'd get ...    hoping for less of the fuchsia that comes out in Wilton's Violet.  

Very happy with the results!  And the purple is nice, too.

This is how it compares to the Violet from last week. 

Both of them are very nice!

Yummy Purple Rain Gradient - Hand-Dyed Yarn

I was so enamored of the purple and blue rain speckled rain gradients from the last post that I decided to knit up a large sock blank (200 grams (2 balls) of Marly Bird Chic Sheep yarn) and roll it into an extra large doughnut/apple, using the same amount of dye and colors as the two separate doughnuts from the other day.  Same amount of yarn, just configured a differently.    All of it is loosely knitted into the blank this time, but I was still expecting a little more lavender blue towards the middle.

Deep Purple Color Mixing Recipe - using Wilton's Color Right Sytem
39 drops blue
6 drops pink
12 drops red
1 drop black

As it turned out, there is some lavender, but I'm perfectly happy with the way this turned out.

Time to start making socks on the little knitting looms!  I have a couple trips coming up for work, and those projects will keep me occupied while in transit.

 The extra large sock blank rolled into an extra large doughnut / apple.

Fresh out of the dye pot.

Unrolled, and still wet.  Nice variation in colors.

 Here it is on the Purl side.

If you'd like to follow the whole process, check out my previous post about it. 

Last week, I celebrated my 20th year at the same Library.  They let me pick something out of the anniversary catalog -- mostly it was exercise equipment and power tools.  But I did find a nice Waterford crystal yarn bowl!