#natural dye
T shirt for my best friend, dyed with beets, turmeric, and India ink
涼しくなって参りましたし、ちょっとカンも戻って来て、週末50じゃなくて70cmのノルマを…と思ったり、いやあかん、できひんかったら萎えるしあかんと思ったり。
しかし思うのは腕の力が無くなっているということ。使ってない間に弱まったのか、やっぱり頸から来てるのかは不明ですが、二の腕に力がないので疲れます。私の場合元々左が強くて、織の打ち込みも左でしっかりという感じだったので、しばらく織っていると腕が辛いという。ま、続けてたらある程度復活するでしょ、と楽観的に。
今月中に片身頃上がりそう…前は本気でやったら二日あったら上がってんけどな。ちょっと悲しいな。
Are you looking for a really great book on natural dyeing? This is it. 10/10 highly recommend. Lots of photos and information. It contains lots of plants that can be sourced right here in the Eastern US, which is great!
Little side experiment I’m trying, I’ve read you can use marigolds to dye fabric, so I’ve been drying the petals over the summer and bagging them. There doesn’t seem to much information on how much dried petal you need per pound of fabric to get descent color, so this will take guess work.
Furrow Cowl: When I did my indigo dye day, I over-dyed some yarn that was leftover from a sweater that I knit last year. After knitting a whole sweater with it, I was pretty tired of looking at the same colour (that pale green in the first photo). I dyed it and was really happy with the colour that it turned out.
I decided to use the indigo-dyed yarn to knit up a Furrow Cowl (pattern in the book “Woolens” by Jared FloodforBrooklyn Tweed). The dyed yarn wasn’t quite the same as in the pattern (was a smaller DK weight rather than worsted), and I didn’t have too much of the yarn, so I figured I’d make a slightly smaller version of the cowl.
I am super pleased with how it came out. After blocking and washing it, it’s very soft and comfy. I’ve been wearing it regularly already, and it makes me really happy to wear something that I both dyed and knit myself!