results!

Here’s the results from my first ever attempt at natural dyeing yarn:

yarn!

The yarn I used: Malabrigo kettle dyed pure merino wool. Did I say that already?

Overall, I’m pleased. It was my first time out, and the yarn is a decidedly different color than the original. When I do this again, I don’t know if I’m going to use this yarn, though it is gorgeous yarn (for those keeping score). It kept it’s softness, which I was worried about, and didn’t felt.

It’s going to be a scarf for my mom. The plan is to alternate skeins so that it has texture rather than some crazy look like it’s two shades of bunk yarn.

Drunk craftgin

I mean crafting. I went to the BBQ my community garden had, and drank two teeny cups of sangria. Somehow, when I got home, I realized I was drunk.

My plan had been to work on a secret craft project (to be revealed here later) for Elizabeth. Being totally incapacitated by drinking (somehow sangria is amazing like that) didn’t stop me from traipsing down to the storage space to get the drill and make some holes.

I did wisely shut the door to the office, knowing that Stella would enjoy drill motions. And I’m inherently wearing safety goggles (in the form of hot librarian glasses).

More on this particular craft when it’s been mailed to Elizabeth, hopefully on Friday.

dyeing yarn part 2: SCIENCE!!!!!

Here’s a before:

the before

No after yet… it’s still drying. I did two batches, but the color is somewhat closely the same: a nice, silvery sagey blue. Blue? Yes, that’s right. Remember back to middle school science, when you had litmus paper to test whether or not solutions were an acid or a base? Well, think of a whole head of purple cabbage as a big gigantic piece of litmus paper. If you add vinegar, the result will be a pinker shade of purple; baking soda makes it blue.  So, after the wool took a bath in a severely dark purple liquid:

purple bath

I rinsed it out with warm water and a little bit of baking soda, which turned the water dark blue, and I got this:

resembling seaweed

The first batch took to the dye better, which perhaps means that I need to perfect my mordanting process. The 2nd is a bit lighter, but pretty close to the same color. Of course, it dries a bit lighter, which is a bit disappointing. I’m wondering if there was some kind of agent I could have added to the dye bath to make the color pop a bit more…

The 2nd batch is drying over the sink:

my yarn hangs over the faucet

Next time, I’m definitely going to let the yarn hang out in the alum a bit longer. Also, you may notice that the big blob of yarn was not properly skeined. So perhaps making sure that I remember to do something so that I don’t have to spend a whole night untangling the yarn would be a good idea.

Oh, and I didn’t even realize this, but apparently Annie likes cabbage. I caught her a couple of times while the cabbage was cooking TYING TO TAKE A PIECE OUT OF THE POT!!! Bad lady! Here’s a picture of her on the stove when it was not on:

bad lady!

Up next, Part 3: When all is said and done…

Canning Extravaganza

So, let me start off by saying that I’m grateful today more than ever that I have a reasonably large kitchen for an apartment of this size.  I have no idea how I would have managed this project in my efficiency on Springfield, where I could do this:

Or in my apartment on Hill, where the kitchen was previously a closet:

I went a little crazy at the market, buying about 10# of 2nds tomatoes with the thought of lots of jars of tomatoes to get us through the long winter.  A lovely thought, right?  To begin:

Tomatoes on every surface, and four bodies of boiling water on the stove.

My pressure cooker is big – SO big.  Like, “how big’s the baby?  SO BIG” big.  I tried a variety of strategies to get it on the burner, but eventually had to shove it as far back on the back burner as possible.  Nonetheless, it took forever to get the water boiling.

In the meantime, I washed the tomatoes, cut an X in the end opposite the stem, and popped them in boiling water for 30-45 seconds.  After that, into the ice water bath, where the skins slipped off. Since these were 2nds tomatoes, I checked over each of them, removing any soft spots or other blemishes, then lined them up to wait for the jars.

Each jar was packed with as many tomatoes would fit, leaving about 1″ headspace.  I added 2T lemon juice for extra-safe acidity, then added enough hot water to leave 1/2″ headspace.  I then ran a spatula around the inside of the jar to remove any pockets of air, and carefully wiped off the mouth of the jar to ensure a good seal.

Then, into the water bath, where the jars would process for ~45 minutes with at least 1/2″ of water covering them.  It’s important to leave about 2″ between the jars, so I had to do this in two batches.

And then, oops, I had tomatoes left over.  A LOT of tomatoes. Clearly I didn’t think through the tomatoes-to-jars ratio well.

So, spaghetti sauce!

End result: 8 pints of tomatoes (all the jars I had available) and 3 packets of spaghetti sauce (not pictured) for the freezer.  I’ll have to repeat this exercise at least one more time, but I’m not telling Shane that…yet.

dyeing yarn part 1: boiled wool

So let me just begin by saying this: the teensyest bit of alum in a big pot of water doesn’t smell. What smells is simmering, wet wool. And boiling cabbage? I kind of like that smell. Just for the record.

mordants

I was a little afraid to mordant the wool, after everything I’ve read that made me think I had to have a respirator and a craft barn. But, the vent above my stove, plus a fan on high pointed in the right direction did the trick. Oh, and my living room’s open window probably helped, too.

The book also says to make sure you use gloves. I had them on for about a second. I suppose I’ll put them back on when I’ve got the actual dye bath going.

I strategically placed a can of wet food in my bathroom and promptly shut my bedroom door so that no cats would be harmed in the process of the making of this yarn. And they were probably happier in there, since when I opened the door after it was all done cooking, the temperature of my bedroom was nice and cool. Plus, I think the kinda didn’t care. Or maybe it smelled like wet dog, though I don’t think they really know what wet dog smells like.

The yarn cooked in a ceramic pot (don’t worry– I never use this for cooking!). First, I washed the yarn in a bit of Palmolive (I think  you’re supposed to use regular clothes detergent, but it was there in the sink and it seemed like it would work, so I used it). Then, I made the mixture of the alum and cream of tartar in a measuring cup and poured that into the pot which was filled with warm water. Next, I put the yarn in and set it to simmer on the stove for an hour.

looks like spaghetti!

Now’s where I kinda go off recipe. I realized that since I was dyeing with a foodstuff, I could probably use a pot that I would normally use to cook said foodstuff rather than having to worry about using a whole new pot used only for yarn dyeing. Maybe if I’m ever stupid enough to use something that’s highly toxic, I’ll worry about it then. I cut up one whole red cabbage that I got at the Foggy Bottom Farmer’s Market, put it in a glass pot, covered it with water and let it call cook for an hour. The water got to be a really dark purple. Gotta love those anthocyanins!

eat your heart out, Mimi!

At about this point, with the cabbage and the yarn at a lovely simmer, I realized that The recipe actually only called for 7-9oz of red cabbage, and I had used THE WHOLE FREAKING CABBAGE!! Oops, But, the water turned a vivid and dark purple, and how ugly can that be? It’s a good thing I didn’t use the whole other cabbage I got at the TPSS Co-op!

So the mordanted yarn has to sit for 2-3 hours (or overnight, but honestly… I’m impatient!) and the cabbage for 1. So, at about 9:30 or so (an hour from now), I can remove the yarn from the mordant, drain the cabbage, and simmer the yarn in the dye bath. Then, it sits until it’s the desired color; I figure I’d rather let the yarn sit overnight in the dye bath so it’ll get really good and saturated and so purple Prince might want to write a song about.

Next up: Did this work or did I waste a couple hours and 10 bucks on some really nice wool?

Hello world: Tina

So here’s the backstory:

A few nights ago, I was perusing Ravelry for information on how to dye yarns with natural products. A pretty neat project, I think, but one that, according to the literature, I should avoid doing in my kitchen. Since you have to mordant your yarn in some kind of substance that may or may not emit toxic fumes, and then boil it in a bath of natural ingredients that may be smelly, or, again, toxic. It’s best to do this outside, or in your craft barn, or wherever you might partake in the creative arts.

This presents a bit of a problem, see, if you’re like me and live in a 1BR apartment in the city. I only have one kitchen, which is also my living room (I believe the correct real estate term for that is: open) and a shared back yard. It’s an even tricker situation when you factor into it pets who like to help out (see Annie, above, and Roxy, whose paw graces our masthead).

It becomes intimidating when it seems like everyone else in the craft world who has attempted your project has a ginormous backyard or a craft barn– or both! How’s a girl-in-the-world like me supposed to compete with that?

I have big craft plans. Mostly of the knitting variety. I just learned in November of 2007 after a long-forgotten attempt to make an owl in the 4th grade. My mom has knit since she was in high school, maybe even before that (oh, but that’s another post for another time). Sometimes, I have been known to get my Gocco on. I’ve done some sewing projects, but let’s not talk about those, umkay?