Cotton

Progress and Finishes, Sort Of

by CZeitler

I did finish the first beaded kumihimo bracelet I tried, however I did not string enough beads on and the end is just kumihimo so I am not even going to add a photo here. Another bracelet, this one with embroidery thread, and smaller beads, has been started. There are 30 beads on each strand, I will add more if this is not enough for an 8″ bracelet. I may make it slightly smaller and add a chain and lobster clasp so it can be loosened or tightened as needed.

Onto a finish, I did finish weaving the main portion of my bog jacket, small panels were added to each side since I am a very large person and some more width was needed. I do have to re-sew up one of the side seams, which means I am going to re-sew all of them several times over, since the arm hole kept getting caught on a doorknob at work.

The front end has a simple tied fringe while the back adds in some braids to the fringe. It was all woven at 7.5 epi. with Knit Picks Dishie in whites and grays. When trying to bring my warps back together after the neck hole I had extreme difficulty. I wound up tightly tying 4 of the warp threads, two on either side of the hole, together so that the warp would rejoin after a few picks into a solid piece of cloth again. Even after finishing and washing the piece there were weft threads strung out through this rejoining of the warp. I first tried to crochet a lovely chain around the neck line to create stability, however this eliminated the stretch needed to actually get the piece over my head. To this end I wound up folding the neckline down toward the ‘wrong’ side of my piece and felling it down with what amounts to a rolled hem. I love how this looks. Admittedly the back is much longer than I thought it would be, and I am planning to use the rest of the warp I already have cut and chained to weave up pieces that I may use as sleeves. Since this is a 100% cotton piece it is not too warm, and if I were to make another piece I will likely use a slightly tighter epi to give this a bit more body to the entire piece. I do have some yarn that I believe is wool in black and rainbow that I may try to use as another version. I do also have a peach version of Dishie in a large quantity that I might use to make another version of this jacket, it was so much fun once I really got started.

There are a couple more projects I was going to mention but I think that this post is long enough already. I will mention an accidental project that I think is so funny. Friday when I was taking my braid out, this is the same day I modeled my new bog jacket, I ended up with a huge snarl at the end braided very tightly. I did try to get this matt out, however nothing was working. In the end I cut out the snarl, giving myself a small accidental trim. I then took the hair, and a glue stick, to make small pieces of ‘thread’ that I hope to use in some kind of a Victorian hair art.

Until next time Live Life A Little More Abstract!

Dyeing Cotton Yarn

by CZeitler

Cotton yarn mordanted with approximately 10% WOF gallnut for 2 hours. After pouring out the tannin, gallnut, I put in about 15% alum and 15% soda ash, each dissolved, into the dye pot with the fiber and plenty of water. The mixture did not foam up as the instructions indicated so I am not certain if my materials are too old.

There are 2 mini skeins of worsted weight yarn and 1 larger hank of sport weight yarn. Each of the mini skeins were immediately submersed in the different dye pots, while the sport weight yarn was left to dry with all mordant materials on it. This allows me to separate the skein into two or three smaller hanks to dye in different baths.

Cochineal is boiled in water for about 90 minutes. Log Wood is soaked in cold water for about an hour then simmered for another half-hour while the Cochineal cools. Both are deep rich colors, I pulled out the logwood, in reusable tea bags, to dry off so that I can try to reuse them again likely for wool and or silk in the near future. I am going to leave the cochineal in the pot throughout the dyeing process, hopefully getting slight variations in the finished product.

After soaking for about 20 minutes I checked on the Logwood dyed yarn and it looks intensely dark purple. They will soak overnight and I will check on the color in the morning, hopefully putting up photos then.

While working on my dye baths I decided to paint the fabric medium on my watercolor raven…and it did just what I was afraid it would. The colors started to run a bit on the edges of the feathers. To avoid that continuing I chose to just paint the medium on the large solid parts and try to carefully go around the inside of some of the feathers. I plan on letting that dry for a couple of days before I work on stitching it. I believe that this will end up a display piece so I am not too worried about how washable this will be. In the future I intend to experiment with different fabric mediums and inktense dry watercolor sticks to create unique pieces.

As you can tell, this post took a couple of days for me to type up. This is how all of the dye experiments turned out:

The Logwood turned such a dark purple it almost looks black. The second try turned brown, so I suspect that the mordant interacted with the dye. I used some acid dyes and country classics to create a lighter purple that I can use. The cochineal created such beautiful pinks. I tried to use the leftover dye on silk, the results were very underwhelming so I added in some acid dye powders and steamed them to set the dye. I had so much fun with this experiment. It reminded me that when I have the materials on hand (and specific dye pots so I do not contaminate the rest of my food stuffs) I am able to create dyed cloth with very little disturbance to my day to day life. This is going to make dyeing and attempting cloth creation more reasonable as a casual activity.

Live Life a Little More Abstract!