Are you blue?

Last week, I attended an indigo dyeing class at the Textile Center of Minnesota. I've dyed yarn with homegrown indigo before and it never really took. But this time, we experimented with pre-reduced Indigo Crystals that made a much deeper color.

The four small skeins in the back came out of a cold water dye and the darker, larger skein came out of a hot water dye vat. Both yarns are hand spun - I think it might be merino.

I also tried a little merino curls  - carding that up and then spinning it is next on the list! 

The class was full of amazing students - some dyeing fiber and hand spun yarn, some commercial yarns, some even dyeing linens and kimono fabric. 

I can't wait to try this on my own!

Felting for fun

I spent the morning with some first graders at my son's school teaching them to make felt pictures. Since I couldn't take pictures there, I took photographs of my practice felting. Basically, I used the instructions for making flat felt in a plastic bag from “The Art of Feltmaking” by Anne Einset Vickrey.

I brought all kinds of fleece to choose from - colored scraps as well as natural colors.

Here I laid out a fleece picture on a small piece of bubble wrap - kind of like a tray to work on. I cut the bubble wrap to fit inside a ziplock bag. After the picture was ready, I slid it inside the bag. After I added some hot water and a squirt of dish soap, I zipped it up and massaged it until it felted. Here's where the bubble wrap helps with the felting process!

Emptying the cooling water and switching back and forth between cold and hot water made this take longer. I only added hot and cold water twice for the kids - I was trying to keep down the spilling! 

I did let them rub their bags of felt on a wash board to help it felt more quickly. What was funny is that they (mostly) didn't know what a wash board was!

At home, I made three sheets of flat felt as examples.

One I framed as a picture, one I made into a card and one I cut and beaded and turned into a flower pin.

Each child took home a sheet of felt in a bag and the instructions for how to rinse and dry it. It was quite fun - I think you could do this as a craft at a birthday party.  If you do, let me know how it turns out!

Inanimate objects make me feel guilty.

I think one of the reasons I really like the Saturday Seven concept is that unused objects make me guilty. Here I have a stack of perfectly fine school uniform skirts, a school polo, and an outgrown pair of Kermit pajama pants are going unused. I don't have any reason to keep them and they are all too good to throw away. Yet, they've been lounging about my laundry room all summer. They have no purpose any more in my family. Not allowing these objects to have a purpose makes me feel bad. Guilty, even. It shouldn't matter - it's not like they are animate, living beings - but I feel like their purpose is being denied.

In Nina Kiriki Hoffman's great book, "A Red Heart of Memories," Matt (Matilda) Black can speak with inanimate objects. She talks with cars and trash cans and walls - generally everything. Mostly, they tell her that they are happiest when they are doing what they are designed to do. Garbage cans are happy when they have trash in them. Walls like standing up. Cars like running smoothly. Now, I don't really think that these skirts will feel happier being worn by school girls - but that's what they are for and I want them to go on working. Someone needs them and I don't, so - off to the uniform exchange. The pajamas will probably go to the daughters of a friend of mine. They can fight over Kermit.




My trusty Lendrum has been making me feel guilty for another reason altogether. I pulled it out last spring to spin up some pin rovings I dyed. The roving is just too rough, however, so I left it out to use after Shepherd's Harvest in May.

Well, since then, it's been gathering dust. Just something to vacuum around. Friday, however, I found the lovely Riverwinds Farm Cormo roving I bought at Shepherd's Harvest and went searching for fiber. I dug up this gorgeous blue Corridale roving (from last year's SH, I fear) and began some spinning. Late in the day, I had a spare hour and ran over to Creative Fibers in Minneapolis where I picked up this great Oak Lichen greeen cloud roving made by the Matt Shimon's Red Star Yarn Company. It is the nicest prepared fiber. I think I was almost giddy with happiness on the way home. Sometimes, you just need to make some yarn. That roving was calling to me to be made into yarn! I am a bit puzzled about what the yarn will need to become but . . . that can wait. After all, it took amost two years for the blue yarn to "become."