Stashcavation

My yarn stash is a common blog topic for me. I boast about, rant about, wonder at and despair over my stash at regular intervals. The "my stash is so big I have too more yarn than I can knit before I die" lament is a subject many fiber fiends talk about. We discuss it amongst ourselves at gatherings on a regular basis; if you were a non-knitting fly on the wall at any knitting group, you would hear this for yourself. Now, I use the word "lament" earlier with a very large grain of salt. I (and most knitters) may lament about stash, but we are also proud of our cache of fiber. If you have been stashing long enough, there are yarn gems in there that make other knitters drool. I have several.

When eBay was more a big garage sale than a retail outlet, I went through a Noro phase and acquired several bags of various gorgeous Noro yarns that are now unavailable. I also have the original Alice Starmore yarns to knit up several older designs that would make Starmore aficionados swoon. I have a stash of Berroco Europa colors that I scoped for for cheap prices, a mound of Annabel Fox cotton chenille, loads of angora yarn (mostly ACA supreme and Anny Blatt) and various other goodies too numerous to mention. I glaze over at the thought...

...then I trip over another falling bag of yarn leaping out of a closet and curse a blue streak.

Thus I have coined a new fiber word: "STASHCAVATION", aka stash-excavation. It means what it sounds like; you peel away layers of your stash as they surface. There are things in my stash I KNOW I want to knit and soon, but I can't find them. I have the pattern, but can't knid the yarn or needles. I have all but a couple balls of yarn, but no budget at the moment to buy more. I have yarn and needles, but no pattern. On and on--you get my drift. I have turned my attention with some real seriousness to the various UFO's and those projects that I have all the parts for. I have made to-do lists in the past, which I now consider useless because I can't find parts to go forward with the various projects on them.

I have finished a shawl that now needs blocking (and I can't find my blocking boards). Another shawl is almost done. I have started a purse, because I have all the parts. I Actually finished the back for the Jiada sweater I have posted about here in the past. Even with that, I now think I need another couple of balls of main color yarn, that I need to mail order. Still, I am making forward progress. Finished pieces that need to be blocked sewn or felted are going on another pile separate from virgin stash.

Then again, my dyed stash is growing, too...

UFO's and a Long Awaited Post

Well, maybe not such a long awaited post. My tiny handful of followers has likely given up on me. I have spent a goodly chunk of blogging time on Facebook, of late, rather than collecting myself to post here, which takes more thought and more work. Lazy lazy lazy.

I have not been idle, either. Last weekend, P and I accompanied a colleague to the newly dubbed "secret spot" to hunt for abalone. Actually J dove and P and I tidepooled, beach combed and shouted encouragement. J got a big'un--9.75 inches and split it with us. We also gathered mussels and that Sunday, ate a feast of mussel chowder and lightly cooked abalone, which was simply pounded, sliced thin and cooked in puro olive oil for about 30 seconds a side. It was perfect!

I have also been dyeing: saffron, mustard flowers, camellia blossoms, walnut husks and pieris flowers, all to interesting effect. I have full intentions of posting pictures, but I fall so far behind that catching up becomes too cumbersome to contemplate. I have accumulated dyestuffs, but have lost some things as well because I didn't get to them in time. I am mordanting yarn as I type this to make ready for the onions skins, dock root, red alder bark, avocado skins and eucalyptus leaves that are waiting. There are more things, as well, but they have slipped my mind.

Then there is the knitting: I have been excavating my stash and trying to finish projects since work has been slow to utter tedium. (make hay, etc. We can get busy in a heartbeat there.) This year so far, I have finished 2 pairs of socks (my first), done most of a scarf and most of a shawl. I have also started pulling out UFO's, with despair. Many require presence of mind to get going and large uninterrupted chunks of time have been few lately. I have things I WANT to work on, but I can't find some major component or other, so I am doing what I can with what I have. It's a bit of an unsatisfying way to craft, but I keep hoping I will find things as I go along and catch up.

This is a sad little post, in a way--rather as fragmented as my activities right now--fitting things here and there--but it's whaat I can handle as I peel away the layers, so to speak.

Alum water is boiling...off to mordant!

It's About Time!!

OK. I have not posted since October. Shame on me!! It's not like I haven't had things to post about--September trip to Washington and Oregon, yet more dyeing, knitting, Christmas, growing my first mushroom kit, another trip to Oregon (can we all say "Voodoo Doughnut"?)--the list goes on.

Why the silence? Sheepishly, I have to admit the main culprit (since I am feeling like passing the buck) is Facebook. Yep, I am hooked. Farmville, Mafia Wars and best of all reconnecting with friends and family. Still, it has taken much time away from other things, such as this sad, lonely little blog.

I hope to post some more in the near future. I should have some indoor time since outdoors, things are supposed to look like this for the next two weeks:

















We are already making up for rainfall, weather wise, and are above seasonal normal. This should keep me more house bound and therefore in a line for posting. Also, Mafia Wars is finally starting to get a bit boring...

Some dye pics to post soon include lichen, marigolds, eucalyptus leaves, and YUMMY chocolate brown from walnut hulls, so stay tuned!

Raspberries!

Well, I have come to the end of this round of dyeing with one last fling. A fruit fling, no less. I decided that my Big Bin o' Natural Dye Yarn needed some pink, so after poking through my books, I decided to try raspberries.

Now, I know that there are other tried-and-true methods of getting pink: cochineal and brazilwood. I worked with cochineal this Summer and it does give pink, but what I got was a more mauve-y/lavender-y pink. Brazilwood apparently gives a truer pink, but it has become very hard to get. As much as I'd like to try it, I am a bit nervous at the thought of using it and contributing to the loss of trees. I don't know if it has been overharvested or if it has become collateral damage from rainforest deforestation, but without more research into ecological correctness the matter, I am hanging back. Dharma Trading Company has none for sale and I count that as a dubious sign.

One of my dyeing books, however, has an easy recipe for dyeing with blackberries. That got me thinking about using other berries, such as raspberries. I had one skein of Lamb's Pride left from last weekend that was ready to dye (I mordanted it with alum), so I figured why not try raspberries?

I bought two packages of frozen berries from Safeway. I got the organic kind mostly because the berries were frozen without sugar or any other additives. I dumped both packages in warm water and mushed them up with my hands as they thawed out to crush them. I then simmered for a hour or so, and steeped for an additional hour. I strained and crushed the remains. I added the yarn and simmered for about an hour and a half. I then let it sit another hour. When I checked, it seemed the right shade, so I took it out--no overnight this time. This is what resulted:

Raspberry yarn:



















This skein was rinsed until the water was clear. I added a little soap in the first rinse to make sure it was really clear. PINK!

The raspberries were a bit spendy, so I got a skein of Cascade Eco Wool and with exhaust dye it this weekend and try and really get my money's worth from the dyepot. I also like that pink color, so that last rationalization is my story and I am sticking to it!

This experiment has got me thinking about next season. My mom has two plum trees--a Satsuma and a Santa Rosa--and both give very red juice. She usually has more plums than she knows what to do with, so I will likely try plums as a dyestuff, if I can time a trip right.

This will likely be my last dye batch for a couple weeks at least. I am starting to think up projects for this yarn and I need to get my dyebook started to keep track of what I've done before I forget any more than I already have. The weather is turning here, and now the season for cozy fires, good books, fun movies and handwork projects is almost here. Time to knit what was dyed!

Looks Like Lavender, Smells Like Cabbage

Dye-jinks, part Infinity. I am plowing through the yarn I bought last Saturday. I alum mordanted all the skeins at once and have them wetted and ready to dye. Last night, I decided to try red cabbage.

I used two heads of red cabbage, that I grated in my cusinart. I added water to cover and boiled an hour or so.Then I steeped off heat, strained and proceeded to dye both skeins. The skeins were cooked at a simmer about 1.5 hours and then left overnight to cool and steep. The dye pot was BRIGHT purple and I was hoping the color might stay. Rinsing the first skein, though mean most of the bright color came out. Still, the resulting yarn is a lovely, dusty lavender--not an unexpected this time, but still I am very pleased. The second skein got rinsed a bit and then a quick bath with a glug of clear ammonia, then rinsed thoroughly. It turned a nifty dusty teal green, again not so unexpected. All in all, a pretty good outcome!

Ammonia created teal on the left, untreated on the right:

Double Double, Toil and Trouble

Well, really, no trouble, but certainly a boiling cauldron!

Our story so far:

Rabbit has a problem; she can't quit dyeing yarn. She clips backyard plants and boils them up and steeps yarn and weird things happen...

As I posted earlier, my latest dyeing experiment was made using Abutilon blossoms. That's 'flowering maple' to those out there who don't live and breathe by their 'Sunset Western Garden Book' or some similar plant geek reference guide. As the child of an extended family of truly certifiable plant geeks, we tend to bandy Latin genus and species names with reckless abandon. But I digress.

My flowering maple shrubs (there are two) are pale orange and very pretty. Fortunately for me, they are still blooming profusely in this late October--pretty much the only flowering plant with any oomph left this year. (Even the white clematis has mostly pooped out, unlike last year)Abutilon blooms are very graceful, frilly bell-like blossoms:

Flowering maple blossoms:



















Much as I like seeing a shrub full of blooms, the potential for a dyeing experiment is too tempting, so I took all the open blooms. There are also quite a few buds, so there should be a new crop of blossoms in a few days. My harvest yielded about 1/3 of a potful:

Pot of blossoms:














I filled the pot to about 2/3 full with tap water and brought to a boil. I then simmered the blooms about an hour and let them steep another full hour. The final blooms yielded a pale peachy colored tea and looked drained of pigment. As a note to others, they also became somewhat unpleasantly slimy, so I didn't really squeeze them out much.

Anemic abutilon post-steeping:














I was, frankly, expecting a pale tan-yellow, so imaging my surprise when I dropped my alum mordanted skein of yarn in and got this:















Purple? Yes, VERY purple. The yarn is good old Lamb's Pride--a full 4 oz. skein. I simmered and hour and kept checking. The yarn was taking color, but not purple...green. A bright, light artichoke green. I let the skein sit in the dyepot overnight and today, I rinsed it and got what you see in the picture. Well, much like the previous Mexican marigold dyepot, this didn't turn out as I expected, but I like it!

A very un-brown green!



















As usual, you can't tell what you'll get from the dyepot until the fiber is done. Stayed tuned for more dye-jinks!!

Dyeing for Fiber

Well, it's Saturday. I am resting post-cold, and woke up with a migraine today, no less. Lovely. Still, I am pilled and mostly pain free now, thankfully and almost have a speaking voice back. Really I should be resting, and maybe doing some much needed light housework. However, my naughty dyeing self is working up to a run to Fortuna and the much-loved Generations yarn store (and beauty shop--let's not forget that!) They carry TONS of meat-and-potatoes yarn, including my preferred Lamb's Pride.

The bulk of my dyeing has been done using Lamb's Pride by Brown Sheep Wool company. It is 85% wool/15% mohair lopi style single ply, and somehow it just seems to take the dye better than anything else I have worked with. I have a binful already, but I can't stop playing.

I do have a couple of solid knitting projects in mind, and have now got the yarn for both, but more colors is better in my mind and I want to get a bit more dyeing in before the weather turns crappy for real. I do have my covered breezeway and solarium to work in, but when it gets too cold, it will be uncomfortable and I anticipate the damp will make it difficult to dry the resulting yarn. Dyeing season is really coming to a close.

Still, I have things in the works. My friend Q in Corvallis has access to elderberries that she says she'll freeze for me, and lives on a large ot with access to madrona trees; the bark is supposed to work well. I plan also to tap my aunt and uncle for some walnut hulls, since they have an english walnut orchard and I am sure would be happy to save some for me.

In m own yard, there is the abutilon flowering I mentioned earlier--my first goal. There is also an apple tree covered with lichen. I have no plans to move, or anything, in the near future, but somehow, I feel a sense of urgency about seeing some of these things through. Nervous, I guess.

So, I am making hay, so to speak. Strike while the iron is hot!