Twist Fibre Festival 2013 Workshops with Natural Dyer Jackie Ottino Day 2

Day one was such a blast, I couldn't wait until the next day for the Indigo dyeing class.  I kept my still damp ring of coloured skeins in the mini van.  As friendly as the hotel staff were, I didn't want to chance dripping dye on their floors.  I had a really hard time getting to sleep, I was so keyed up about the day.  At the end of the class, many of us were debating what we were going to do with our pretty mini skeins.  Each is only 25 yards, so not a whole lot to make anything large.  I thought about making some stripey fingerless gloves.  I'm still thinking about it, but I do love the look of the ring on my studio space wall.  To knit or not to knit, that is the big question!  LOL

Day two I was up early and heading out the door.  Had a little mishap with my iPhone gps; she wasn't talking to me.  Which meant I had to go by memory from Montebello to St-André-Avellin.  Good thing I had an early start, because by the time I got there, there was a huge line up waiting to get into the festival.  Nothing like showing up late for a class to start the day off wrong.  But, thankfully the festival people were super quick getting people through the doors and I made it right on time.  :D

Here was one of the sights they had set up outside to entertain.  A sheep merry-go-round!  I'm not sure how merry the sheep were to be inside that pen, slowing spinning with a guy playing an accordion in the center on a stool, but it was quite the sight.

A shot of my desk spot.  By the end of the class, these sheets were covered in splotches of blue!  We all had a small canning jar so we could make a bit of an indigo dye vat to take home.  Haven't cracked into mine yet, but let me tell you, it is very pretty.

This was Jackie's work space at the front of the class.  She told us she had spent at least three months learning all she could about indigo for her job at Swan's Island Company.  Testing and retesting to get the perfect percentage formula for the indigo extract that they buy.  (What a fabulous job!)  She shared with us the percentage that works best, and made a "master vat" in the large plastic container for us to use in the workshop.

 

Here is more of the beautiful merino wool that Swan's Island donated to us for the Indigo workshop.  We had to soak it first in water, even though Jackie had soaked them earlier.  It was so warm, they were getting dry spots on them.  The stainless steel rings the hanks are on are called "funny eyes."  They are what lobster fishermen use when weaving their lobster traps.  Excellent dyeing tools, these funny eyes!

 

We were encouraged to bring in some wool or fabric that we wanted to dye with indigo.  This is my extra large pickle jar, holding about 2000 yards of my sock wool I soaked.  As you can see, most of it was pre-dyed.  I had attempted to dye with black beans in February 2013, but my results were very icky in colour.  I was hoping that the indigo would salvage these skeins. 

Again, our trusty propane burner!  Indigo dye vats are tempermental ph and heat wise.  Since there was so many of us in the class, and so many of us brought a lot of our own stuff to dye, we had to have two vats going at once.  Sadly, only one burner.  We made do by shuffling pots from the burner and constantly checking the temperature.  

I had brought my enamel pot and my little electric burner I got from a second hand store, but the burner would only heat a pot to a max temperature of 155 degrees F.  Grrrrr!  180 degrees F is the magic number for most natural dyes.  Good thing I did bring my pot.  That's it on the burner in the photo.  It turned into the second production vat for this class!  Ah, the temptation of turning something blue.  We workshop students went a little overboard.  LOL! 

After a while, and a ton of items going through the vat, Jackie would "revive" the vat with a top up from the master vat solution she made in the classroom.  Ph was taken again, colour of water was checked, and onto the burner it went to get it up to temperature to activate it.  Jackie could tell by the green shade of the vat if there was enough of a "glug" from the master solution to produce the optimal shade of indigo blue.  They don't call this woman a master dyer for nothing!  It was like watching magic.  In fact, the whole process of dyeing with indigo is like magic.  Watching the skeins go from a green to a rich blue when you pull them out of the vat was... incredible!  If you ever get a chance to do an indigo workshop with Jackie, do it!  

Funny thing, as we ladies were all laughing and talking excitedly around our fire and pots, stirring and pulling fiber out of them and exclaiming as they were turning blue in front of our eye, we had a lot of people walking past us laughing and asking if it was Halloween.  I think this is something Jackie gets quite often, LOL.  Didn't phase her a bit, she waved and laughed with them.  One french fellow came up to watch and decided that our "brew" needed more onions.  :D

It really was a shame that the festival could only give Jackie four hours for indigo, but I did learn so much and am very thankful for that.  We had to reserve a chunk of time for rinsing the fiber because indigo is takes a lot of time to get it to a point where the color will not rub or bleed off (it's called crocking) onto your hands.  I took all my yarn home and washed it at least five times.  Guess what?  The run off water is still as dark as the day in the workshop.  I'm letting it "cure" for a few weeks before I attempt to rinse it again.  That's another little tip Jackie taught us.  And, you must be super careful not to agitate or your beautiful indigo yarn will felt. Remember:

"From cold to hot, worry not, but from hot to cold, cannot be sold!"

 It is a balancing act, but when done right, indigo vat dyeing is so worth it!

Twist Fibre Festival 2013 Workshops with Natural Dyer Jackie Ottino

 I attended my first fiber festival ever!  Yay!  
Gram didn't want to go, hubby and kids did not want to go, so I drove 8 hours and 45 minutes all by my lonesome to
St-André-Avellin, QC, Canada.  And man, was it totally worth it!

Did I get bored driving it all in one day?  Nope!  My tweenie music obsessed and iphone obsessed little girl has 2 playlists she created on my phone.  I learned how to attach my phone to the "aux" outlet on my van stereo and cranked the tunes!  I even had Google gps thingy working so the voice would come through the stereo.  So cool and VERY helpful.  Had to laugh at some of the pronunciation of the female voice.  

Driving from my Provence, New Brunswick to our neighbour Provence, Quebec was a very, um, different experience.  I don't know if it was election year in their Provence, but I've NEVER seen so much road construction in my life.   It was literally everywhere!   Someone obviously didn't tell Google gps about all the traffic re-routes, 'cos my electronic guide was getting very frustrated with me.  At one point in Montreal, she commanded me to do an immediate U-Turn on a diverted 4 lane highway.  In rush hour traffic, no less.  Command ignored.  And I got lost, but only temperately.  I'm sure gps-s can gloat.  Hmph.

Quebec drivers were a pleasure to share the road with.  No tail gating, no blocking the passing lanes, and very understanding about a mini van missing it's turn off, immediately swerving to the side of the road, backing up and driving over the pretty grass and flowers to make the turn.  (Yeah, that happened a couple of times.)  Thanks Quebec!

For my first fiber festival, I had decided to go all out and spend 3 nights in a motel.  Originally, I had considered sleeping in the minivan, ('cos I'm so cheap, as my Tressa says) to save money to buy glorious memento fibre, but man, was I EVER glad I splurged for the motel.  8 hours and 45 minutes of soreness was very glad to have a proper bed to sprawl on.   I chose the "Bel-Eau Inn" in Montebello, a 15 minute drive away from St-André-Avellin because it was super cute and, well, cheap price-wise, in comparison to other hotels/motels in the area.  I'm happy to say my room was cute, very clean and the staff were super friendly.  I would and will stay there again.  It is on the main road and has tons of sweet little bistros, cafes, and restaurants within walking distance.  Which I ignored.  Ah, maybe next year!

Day One:  8am wake up, clean up and a distress call up to the main desk due to being LOCKED UP in my room.  Yup, me, the overly safe girl, had thrown the deadbolt the night before and it was stuck.  Talk about panicking!  I needed to get to class and hadn't made the drive yet so I wanted to be nice and early to find parking and get my bearings.  So, that's when I discovered metal fingernail files are excellent impromptu tools for sticky deadbolts.  Off to the festival!

 Again, it was another no make-up day.  Hot, glorious weather over steaming pots?  I wanted to get down and dirty with dyes, not be wiping dripping mascara.   So yes, I was "hobo stylin'" as my sister likes to call it.  Faded, ripped clothes and all!  LOL

Here is a dark shot of us ladies waiting to get in.  I'm loving the yarn bombing on the posts!  Some was even crochet and weavings.  Very cool touch.  Parking was easy and off to registration I went.

 The lady in the grey and white sweater with the peach scarf was the one who organized the event.  Sorry, I can't remember her name right now, but she was so sweet!  She even let me sneak into an overfull class with the fabulous V.  The lovely basket on the table was full of little Euculan gifts, which I LOVED.  So nice!  And once registered, off to the class I went.

Here is a shot of Jackie Ottino (she's the one with the black shirt) and her table of mysterious dyestuff and tools.  Jackie is one of the two master dyers at Swan's Island Company in Maine, USA.  She, by her own words, is a "detailed" dyer.  Formulas and precise notes are her constant companions.  Don't get me wrong, she is very into experimenting, but she likes to capture the details so it can be done again.  That, I think, is fabulous.  I'd go nuts if I found the perfect shade and had no clue how I did it. 

Here is a sample ring of the colours Jackie created for Swan's Island.  Gorgeous, huh?

 

And look at that fleece!  Delicious.

 And my favourite table... the sales table!!!!  I really made a dent into my wallet here.  In fact, this is where I blew my festival budget!  Did I regret it?  Heck no!  I wish I had budgeted more to buy more dye extracts.  :)

 Here we used orange osage to dye some of the beautiful merino wool that Swan's Island donated to us for the class. 

 Look at that colour brewing!

One of the students wanted to experiment with a premixed indigo solution as an over dye on the orange osage yellow wool.  Cool!

Due to the lack of burner space, Jackie fired up the propane burners outside the classroom in the parking lot.  We got a lot of strange looks, but for the most part, people were really curious and impressed by our work.

 Look at the amazing coloured skeins we created!  Jackie is checking out the wool.  One problem with excellent merino wool is its tendancy to felt.  Coming out of the hot pots and hanging in the cool air was causing a little pinch of felting.  Jackie gave us a really cool saying to help us when we are dyeing: 
"Cold to hot, worry not.
Hot to cold, cannot be sold."
Now that will come in handy!
And so we finished the day with a ring of coloured skeins for each of us.  If you ever get a chance to take a natural dyeing class with Jackie, DO IT!!!  The woman is a wonderful teacher.

Up next, day 2 at the Twist Fibre Festival!  

Natural Dyeing Class and such...

Oh my!  Has it really been more than a month since we chatted?!  Yikes!  Sorry!

This past month has been very busy, but in a pleasant sort of way.  I'm taking an online Tech Editing course from Joeli, of "Joeli's Kitchen," to learn what's involved in being a knitting pattern technical editor.  Lots of math!  Lucky for me, I adore math.  Sick, I know.

Tressa returned from Edmonton, and declared flying as "boring" in typical Tweenie fashion.  She had a blast with her cousins and at one point, she wanted me to see about letting her stay until Christmas so she could go to school with her cousin, Angelina.  They are both the same age and as thick as thieves.  I, of course said no, with a HUGE lump in my throat.  My baby, wanting to stay longer away from me?  Inconceivable for me to imagine.  Tressa, the master negotiator that she is, reminded me that Harry Potter went away to school when he was 10, and besides, she will be going to travel Europe after high school with Angie and their best friends, so it would be great practice for me.  Hmmmm.  I smelt a pot of mullarkey, and after talking to my sister, it seems it was a plan cooked up by my little Tressa and Angie. 

And speaking of cooking, I took a natural dyeing course at my local Craft School.  So much fun!  It was from 9am to 4pm but honestly, the day flew by.  I finally got to try my hand at dyeing with cochineal, which are the bodies of female insects of the species Dactylopius.  I managed to get one skein in the pot.  It turned out a delicious colour!  I bit the bullet and ordered some for my home studio.  It's expensive, but worth it.

Here are the pots simmering on the stove.  The back is madder and the front, marigolds!  The marigolds were the only "raw" dyeing supplies we used due to time constraints.  You wouldn't believe the rich yellow we got from them!  Lovely!  All the other colours were produced by dye extracts from Maiwa, a natural dye supplier in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.  (As soon as I got home, I placed an order with them.  Soooo much cheaper to purchase Alum and Cream of Tartar through a dyeing house than at the local grocer.)

Here, one of the students is adding the cochineal to the dye pot.  I was very surprised at the method we used to dye.  We mordanted the fabric/yarn/paper in the pot with the dye at the same time!  From my previous readings, I knew this was possible, but in practice, I've always mordanted my skeins separatly and added them to a thoroughly mixed dye pot.  I was sure my skein would end up with splotches of darker shades, but it did not.  Huh.  Who knew?  Obviously, the instructor!  LOL

It was freaking hot and raining very hard outside.  Add in the heat of 4 burners running from 9am to 4pm in a small fiber studio, and you've got a group of very warm dyeing students!  This is me, glowing with the simmering pots in the background.  Totally not a make-up day!

And because I love the pots...

Here is my samples laying out.  It was really neat to see how different fabrics and yarns would grab the dye.  Wool and silk fabric and yarn are my favourite.  

These are a few of the books the instructor brought with her that I don't own yet.  :)  I really liked these ones the best.

And now I find out why we mordanted the materials in the same pot as the dye.  I gotta tell ya, my heart sank as I watched all that dye go down the drain.  But the dye would not keep for long with the mordant in it.  Dye can actually bond with the mordant, making the solution weak and give you less than vibrant colours.

 

Some samples drying on the racks...

It was a really fun class.  In fact, I signed up for another natural dyeing class but this next one is dyeing with mushrooms and lichens.  NOW that will be exciting!!!  I also discovered another way to dye through fermentation.  I'm researching that on the internet now.  It might be a while before I give it a go.

So what is next for my home dye pots?  Rudbeckia hirta, a.k.a., Black-eyed Susans!  I've read that you can get some very pretty greens from them.  That's a colour I've not reach yet.  I'm gathering a huge amount of them and storing them plastic grocery bags in the freezer while I wait for my alum and powder iron mordant to arrive in the mail from Miawa.  These are the two species I've been gathering.

I know this sounds shameful, but I've been sneaking into gardens and snipping a bloom or two.  Now in my defense, it's only the ones that look like they've seen better days.  You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find these suckers in the wild!  Most of what I've found are growing is small clusters by the roadside here in Keswick.   I did find a humungous amount that the city of Fredericton planted to dress up a patch of land besides an off ramp.  So I tip-toed through the Rudbeckia hirta, snipping the fading blooms here and there. 

I really need a dyer's garden.  Sigh.

The sewing bug bit me and I'm designing/sewing knitting project bags.  I'm selling them our Etsy shop, Keswick Arts & Crafts.  Mom is an amazing sewer, but she loathes it.  She will not even cut out the fabric pieces, she hates it so much, but she is able to give me her opinion/advice as I whip up the bags.  Needless to say, I have a couple of bags for my own personal use due to them not being "shop worthy," as per Mom. 

And as for knitting and designing, "Roses for Margaery" socks are still on the needles and being charted.  I'm knitting the size large for my feet in a pretty shade of green.  I feel these are taking a little too long to complete, but I'm resisting the urge to rush.  Oh, remember the "second sock syndrome" I experienced while knitting the mediums?  I took an idea from Joeli and I am knitting both socks at the same time but on two separate sets of needles.  I'll knit so far on one and chart as I go.  Then I'll stop, and knit from my new chart on the other sock, and make corrections as needed. 

It's okay that I'm going slow with this design because I'm also reading a really great book to help me with my photography skills. 

 

This book is truly fabulous!  It inspired me to purchase a "new-to-me" lens off ebay for my old Olympus E-500 digital camera.   An Olympus OM Zuiko MC Auto-S 50mm f/1.8 prime lens and an adapter ring.  It will give me that lovely look the pears in the photo above are sporting... subject in focus while the background is artistically blurred.  Yay!  I can't wait for the adapter ring to arrive! :)

What have you been up to lately?

Natural Dyeing With Lupines

I've loved lupines forever.  Here in New Brunswick Canada they grow in a wide verity of colours.  So guess what I did!  You got it, I picked some for my dye pot!
Ever try to find information online about how to dye wool with lupines?  Very scarce.  I did find some info about dyeing with them in Iceland, but no recipes.  Grrr. Very frustrating as a new natural dyer.  I have about four natural dyeing books and no mention of them in there.  Rats!  So, I decided to wing it.

I picked a HUGE amount of lupines, as in an "oh my gosh, I'm dropping some" armful.  They literally covered the backseat.  My husband's car never smelt so good!  Once home, I went into the utility room and started "shucking" the blossoms off the stalks.  A whole 1400g of blossoms!  The dyepot was almost to bursting!  Notice the colour that transferred to my skin.

Next time, gloves might be part of the process.  (I kept the stalks; I've heard they make a lovely yellow colour.)  Just as I was about to put the water in, I remembered to test the ph level of the water!  New house and all, not sure about our well water.  Lucky for me, it's a 7, which is pretty much neutral.  Yay!

So, with just enough water to cover the blossoms, I let them come to a gentle boil then reduced to simmer for a couple of hours.  I let them cool overnight in the water, hoping to get the maximum amount of colour out of them.  Not sure if that was what to do, but hey, couldn't hurt, could it?  Then I used a stainless steel sieve to scoop out the veggie matter because the pot was simply too heavy to pick up!  The colour of the water was a pretty red colour.  Fingers crossed that it transfers to the wool!

Today, I mordanted 568g of sock wool, which is 75% superwash and 25% nylon.  I used 8% alum and 7% cream of tartar.  After the bath cooled down and was done, I rinsed the yarn thoroughly and put it in my cool lupine dye.  What did I see?  Red wool?  Nope.  (Grrr)  This kind of blueish green.  As per one of my dye books, I brought it to an almost boil and let it simmer for a couple of hours, stirring very carefully every once in a while.  The plan is to let it sit in the cooling dye bath overnight and see what happens...

While that is going on, I'm going to make a dye bath with the stalks.  And I'm going to see if I can mordant some more sock skeins.  And I think I'm kinda procrastinating on the "Roses for Margaery" socks.  Second sock syndrome?  While designing?  Killer.  Blah.

ETA:  Here is the lupine blossom skeins...  What do you think?  I kinda like them, but they are not very exciting.  Sort of a dove blue/grey. 

I did make a huge mash of the lupine stalks and let them sit for about 2 days after simmering them.  Yeesh, I was a bit hesitant to lift the lid, figuring it would smell to the high heavens, but nope, it actually smelt kinda good!  Weird, I know.  After scooping out all the veggie matter with my stainless steel sieve, I put the 3 extra mortanted skeins into the cool dyepot and let it simmer for about 1 hour.  It sat overnight to cool.  I wasn't crazy about the intensity of the colour, so I simmered it for another 1hour.  Later, I added a couple of "glugs" of white vinegar to a gallon glass jar of water, and draped half of the skein in it for 30 minutes. 

I did 2 this way.  I rinsed, washed with ph neutral dish soap (Dawn), rinsed some more, then spun in the washer.  Not a whole lot of colour rinsed out of the skein.  That was surprising.  Anyway, they are now drying.  The vinegar made the yellow softer.  I'm liking the look of them!