Sarcodon Mushroom

Grey blue and greens from Sarcodon mushrooms!

I'm so happy with the results. I collected some mushrooms and made sure to do a bit of identification and yes! I was correct. I had a good handful of them but was sat that I had missed a few rotten ones. After looking on this lovely woman's blog, I ran back and picked all the rotted ones I could find. From what I have read, the rotted (or naturally fermented ones) have more blue to them. The other non typical way of getting this color - you have to boil the mushrooms with the yarn in the pot. It's the heat that transfers the color? PH was around 7. In turn you then have to have some wool yarn that can handle being boiled. These samples are gala yarn from dharma trading and was mordanted with alum and cream of tartar. The dye bath is a muddy red color and I had the yarn in the pot about 15 minutes? Smooshing it while boiling with the mushrooms to get it really mixed in.

From left to right - all with alum and cream of tartar mordant.

First dip 15 minutes boiled.  Second dip added a pinch of washing soda 20 min boiled.  third dip boiled 15 min. Last dip I added a bit of iron (not much at all) boiled for 15 min.

I was loosing the blue's by the 4th dip but surprised of how much color was left in the pot.  I wonder how blue it would have been if I added washing soda from the start.  Rinsing it took some of the red tones away and letting the blues shine through.

Summers color for the end of winter

Beautiful Dyer's Coreopsis that I have had in the freezer since last summer.  What a glorious pot of dye it is!

First photo has a higher Ph level than the Yellow that is in the right hand photo.  You really can get many different colors with just a Ph level change.  I didn't have any after baths to play with (iron) but I bet there are more colors hiding in there somewhere.

It really is this vibrant!

This is Madder on grey wool and a bit of white wool (left side).   I have so many shades of this on the grey wool - but forgot photos - Ill put them up tomorrow when I have natural light.  All are mordant with Alum and CoT. 

Madder with a color change using different Ph levels

Some indigo and Black Walnut yarn I spun up the other day.  Love the combination of brown & blue.

Week of Short Travels (part one)

The boys had off school all last week so my husband and I took off on a bunch of day trips and played tourists to our local cities.  First we went to Syracuse to see:

A Boat show at the State Fair Grounds (I dropped off the boys and I went to ...) - A Fiber Mill!  

Salt City Fiber Works

 

 Here they are receiving fiber to wash -

                                                                                        - here it is dried and clean.

Grey alpaca and wool mix going thru the roving maker.  Scrumptious color.

Pink Roving and Yellow Yarn

Such wonderful people and so willing to show me their studio & where the magic happens.

Then it was off to "The"Art Store to buy sketchpads and look at pastels and paper.  I love paper - water color, pastel, drawing.  Explained to my 13 year old the differences, it was fun.

finishing off this day tour at The Erie Canal Museum.  That was just Saturday...

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Got a call that night to then go to the worlds best sledding hill in Ithaca - Rice Hill - it's so big you have to be driven back to the top.  Lots of fun and it was cold and the snow was packed down from the kids the day before so sledding was great.

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Then it was off to a day at Corning Glass Museum

Chihuly Glass right in the front entrance.

Then we had a day - or morning - of ice skating at an indoor skating rink.  Youngest favorite sport at the moment.

That takes us to Thursday and we then we drove down to Doylestown PA... (next post)

Winter Plant Dyeing - Peach to Yellows

Finn and Shetland wools

 Here is a lovely Finn sheep from my friend Erika's family farm - oneearthpermaculture.

The top (unrolled) wool is from these lovely finn sheep.  I treasure Finn wool - its perfect for needle felting,  It had a beautiful loft and is always soft.  The other is wool (white and grey) are from shetland sheep that I got from Roc Day this year.

The Finn wool roving goes into a mixed yellow dye, made from my gardens dried flowers from my garden this past summer.  

Marigold, coreopsis and cosmos (on the right)

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Avocado

Avocado skins that were saved for 2,3 years?  You have to de-skin the avocado and then rinse the skins under water to get all that green flesh away before drying them.  They were easy to crunch up in your hand, into littler pieces, so more dye is able to be released.  

The color turned a lovely shade of peach - lower right is the finn wool - its just beautiful and just what the Dr. ordered for this cold part of wintertime.

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Coreopsis

This was dyed with Dyers Coreopsis and Madder root.  Left is white finn roving and Right is the grey Shetland.  I so hope to get some madder plants going this year for my garden.  I still have some left over dried roots from a farm up in Maine that I went to this summer.

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Osage Orange

This is the difference between yellows from Osage Orange, dip one in a weak bath of ammonia water (top), brings out a warmer yellow.  Below is the Osage Orange on white and then grey shetland wool - When you use yellow dye on grey wool - you usually get green shades.

--- Just some more shots of the warm colors --- 

Unveiling of Sun Jars

 This is what the jars looked like after sitting all night.  

 I guess I could have waited another day to unwrap it, but the weather was not cooperating and was supposed to be rainy for a few days.  Plus I couldn't wait!

The string does act as a resist - when you wrap the items as dry cloth/wool.  I think I might wrap with thicker string and more of it next time.

The darker spots are black walnut chunks, the orange comes from the direct contact of the fresh coreopsis flowers - as well as the yellow from goldenrod.

 I plan on sewing the long edges 1/3 together on both sides (a space unsown in the middle of the "tube") to make shawl/bolero type cover.