Repairing a Riparian Farm

Archive for December, 2011

Golly, it has finally arrived, Old Man Winter, that is. I have the wood furnace running, the wood cook stove running, and watching PBS.  For the past 2+ weeks I have been playing with dyes, natural & acid, and fleeces from sheep, goats, rabbits and some silk.  I have several lots of fleece to go to the mill I use for my roving and yarn.  Hope to get it all out in the next couple of days.

And today I pulled some wool and silk noils out of the dye pot that have been ‘steeping’ for about a week.  I started out with mature Blackberry canes cut into 2-4″ sections. I took these and soaked them for a day and then put them on the back of the stove to gently boil for a couple of days.  I added to the pot an old piece of cast iron for mordant.  Once this had cooked for 2-3 days, I poured off the liquid into another pot and added bunches of hot water to get enough room for the fleece and silk noils that I wanted to add. I then put the fiber in and let it simmer and steep for the next 2 days.  I wasn’t completely satisfied with the color I was getting so added some Black Walnut and Tobacco juices that I’ve had sitting around here (used for sheep wormer this past summer.) I let that sit on the back of the stove for the next 4 days.  This morning I pulled it out and washed it in the washing machine with soap, then rinsed it and laid it out to dry.  The color is AMAZING!!

The fleece turned out a pinkish color with a hint of gray in the background.  The silk noils came out completely gray. Both of these were white to start with.  It is just the most beautiful colors and I’m really thrilled with it.

Pink with hints of Gray, Icelandic fleece