The Roots of the Madder

Well, I finally got my little madder bed dug up a few days ago. It’s only about 3 feet wide by 4 feet long or so and I had only planted 5 crowns in it but it took all afternoon to harvest. The plants had died back to straw and it was pretty easy to clear off down to the soil. Then I triple-dug every bit to make sure I had all the precious pieces of root. I ended up with a bucket full:

Madder (Rubia tinctorum) roots are surprisingly easy to distinguish from anything else. When damp they are translucent red-brown, juicy and brittle and with a thin yellow core which turns red on contact with air. The best ones are as thick as a pencil but I picked everything down to the skinniest bits. I didn’t want to waste any of my precious harvest! I saved out most of the crowns and split a few into more than one piece. You can see the old stems and the yellow shoots as well as the lovely thick roots, which I pruned a little before I replanted it:

I wanted to expand the bed more and also to give some away to friends who had requested it. That’s how I got my first few plants about 15 years ago so I always try to pass on the favour. They will grow from seeds but this was the first year I actually had any good black “berries”. Unfortunately they didn’t get harvested because I was away on vacation when they were ripe.

After digging up the patch I smoothed it out and applied some lime. Our soil is quite acid (blueberries and rhododendrons do very well) but madder likes chalky soil best. Then I replanted the big crowns and a few smaller ones and patted them home to grow for another 2 or 3 years. You can see why it would be best to have a whole plot full of madder plants if you wanted to dye with it often! Then you can dig up part of it every year while leaving the rest to grow. I’ll top-dress the bed with compost and manure in early spring because I don’t have any ready at the moment. They won’t mind waiting over winter. Madder is very hardy and relatively undemanding as long as it gets a reasonable amount of food and water.

Meanwhile back at the bucket of roots, I rinsed everything a number of times under the water tap:

This doesn’t just get off the dirt but some of the yellow and brown dyes in the roots that will prevent you from getting good reds. I even rinsed them again after chopping them up:

You can see how much of the undesirable colour is still there. I didn’t go too crazy though since I actually like oranges and browns! I recommend chopping the roots right away while they are still juicy and brittle. They are very tough when dried. (Ask me how I know!) I use a number of tools including pruning shears, garden snips, a mini food chopper (saved for craft use, not food) and my new secret weapon:

An Alaskan ulu, the Eskimo women’s knife. My mother-in-law brought it back from one of her travels and I’ve found it very useful for mincing garlic and herbs as well as doing a great job on the madder root – at least as good as the food chopper did and more quickly too. The ulu is very sharp! Now the chopped roots are drying before I package them for storage:

I stir them around as often as I remember and watch carefully. It’s been rainy and damp so I can’t dry it outside. Might have to break out the dehydrator if it takes too long. Don’t want them to mould! That would be a big waste of several years and a lot of work to grow them. No, I’m not planning to dye with my newly-harvested madder right this minute. Did I mention that I love the smell of freshly chopped madder roots? It’s kind of earthy and quite distinctive.

In other crafty news, I’ve got the white cotton warp for my new bedroom curtains wound and am now threading the reed. 785 ends. Good thing my hands remember what to do. It’s been awhile since I’ve woven anything at all. Yes, I warp front-to-back. For most things it’s easier on this loom. I thread the reed from the front and then put a cushion on the treadles and sit on them inside the loom frame to thread the heddles. Sounds weird but that brings the heddles close to my eye level making it very easy to see what I’m doing. The loom frame has a big “doorway” on each side so it’s not hard to get in there, at least so far. I’m still pretty flexible for a granny. Heh. This is going to take a couple of days to finish warping because I’m taking care to do it right. No point in making mistakes.

Speaking of mistakes, Debbie is still wearing my skirt so it isn’t getting re-hemmed yet. I’m still somewhat ticked off with it. I’ll get over it. Eventually.

I did finish my Black Spruce Shawl and it turned out just the way I envisioned. Pretty neat! However I haven’t been able to get a good photo. It’s been dingy and dark and the shawl is also dark. I need to photograph this outside and it keeps raining. So it’ll have to wait awhile. I’m also nearly done T-Man’s green socks. None too soon either! He’s showing me some very thin spots on several of his older pairs. If it was just a hole, I would mend it. But it’s not really worth mending socks where the sole has the wool pretty much worn off leaving only the nylon content to hold them together.

I need to discover what my next knitting project is going to be. Apart from yet another pair of socks that is.

Yay! It’s Raining!

Why am I happy that it’s raining after all the complaining that I’ve done over the last few months about the same thing? Because I would have to water my garden if it didn’t get some today. And it’s also a good excuse not to have to work out there again today. I need a break. It’s been fun and productive, but the inside of the house is suffering from neglect. The dust buffaloes are starting to herd the humans around. Not good. However, before I go round them up I have a few things to show off. (Avoiding the vacuuming is one of my finer talents!)

On Friday, Milady Daughter and I took Rosebud to her appointment at Children’s Hospital. They were quite pleased with her foot’s progress and graduated her to running shoes for a few short periods every day. So she was fitted for a pair of cute little pink runners and also went up a boot size for her boots and bar system. Next appointment isn’t for another 3 months so there was a distinct possibility that she would have grown out of her boots before then. Rosebud was very good and very patient even though we had to wait around for a very long time for our turn with the specialists. Although she did manage to spit up all over me after I fed her a bottle. I’m blessed. I know.

Of course we got a chance to try some other things on too:

The Rosebunting fits – but it’s none too large! Her boots are only about 4” from the bottom. It will definitely serve it’s purpose though to keep her warm on our upcoming camping trip. BTW, that’s much closer to the real colour of the fabric than the last photos. She’s being amused there by her grandpa. The tongue is out so you know she’s happy!

Then there’s this Finished Object:

Watermelon Eyelet Cardi

For: Rosebud (such chubby cheeks!)

Begun: May 2, 2011

Completed: June 9, 2011

Yarn: Sandnes Garn Smart, 100% superwash wool, colour 4356 (watermelon pink), dyelot 0714916, 108 yds = 50g. 3 balls.

Needles: Denise interchangeables, 4mm and 3.75mm.

Pattern: Eyelet Yoke Baby Cardigan, free pattern by Carol Barenys. (Ravelry link, pattern link)

Comments: After several attempts with a different yarn (sock yarn, too thin) I used this DK weight and the smaller pattern size but larger needles. The pattern started out well but became a little vague toward the end. I made the body about 10.5” long (from neck) before working the bottom row of eyelets. I changed to smaller needles before working the garter stitch hems and cuffs. I also only had 4 vintage buttons in the stash instead of 5 so made 3 buttonholes because that looked better.

This cardi is somewhat similar to the two that I made for Rosebud’s cousin Super-Princess though they are from different designers. Obviously I like the eyelet design! I was hoping that this would be somewhat larger on the little beastie but she’s a big girl! The sleeves are still a little long though so maybe there’s some wear left in the sweater for next fall.

Yes, that tongue again!

What else? Oh yeah. Yesterday I rinsed out the Merino-X wool fleece that had been marinating in the remains of the madder pot since last Thursday:

Not sure how accurate that colour is for you. It was still wet when I took the picture. It dried to an orange-sherbet colour with a more yellow-orange on the outside of the clump and a pinker shade in the centre. It teases up easier than it looks though there are some nepps and second cuts. I began with 250g and lost about 30% of the weight in the scouring process. I may lose a little more in the teasing and picking. Next I plan to run it through the fur drum on my Pat Green Deb’s Deluxe carder before spinning it up probably as a lace or fingering weight. I have no idea what it will become yet! We’ll find out eventually.

So I assumed that the madder was finally spent and dumped the remains in the compost box. It dyed quite a lot of fibre in total though I’m not sure whether I like the much more finely powdered root. Some of it escaped the bag and the nylon stocking that it was contained in the dyepot. A lot of it washed out in the rinsing but the remains are shedding out on me as I tease the wool. Larger pieces are much easier to remove. When I use my home-grown madder there is no way I can grind it really fine anyhow. More like chunks.

In knitting news, I was unfortunately correct about the difficulty of fixing a mistake in the Black Rock Shawl’s edging! I accidentally dropped a stitch while tinking back to fix something that wasn’t right and ended up throwing the whole thing down in disgust. Which is where it stayed until this morning when I took it upstairs to the magnifier light and continued tinking carefully back until I could see that everything was back where it should be. Only two little rows but I’m reminded not to take this pattern for granted again and To Be More Mindful! 16 out of 71 repeats completed. A long way to go.

In sewing news, I need to start another sewing project now that the Rosebunting is done. The hard part is settling on which one – there’s so many that I want to make! FYI, the Leko website still has their 168-100-82-106 size (equivalent to Burda size 44) women’s patterns available to download free. They state a limited time but so far it still works. Of course I took advantage and grabbed a few more! I can’t help myself. Some of the designs are quite attractive and more varied than BurdaStyle magazine. I also made myself a catalogue of sorts (even though they have a complete one available) by pasting the pictures of the ones I have into a Word document along with the pattern numbers. Then I put the printed pages in the same binder with my scanned copies of the BurdaStyle magazines line drawings. Then there’s my Big Four collection too. See what I mean? Too many choices; so little sewing time.

Best get a move on. The day is moving on faster than I am and I have a lot of things I want to accomplish yet. Laundry, vacuuming, dishes…bleh. At least I don’t have to water the garden. I’m sure I’ll have plenty more opportunities to do so in the next few months however.

Squirreling Away

I finally got around to harvesting the rest of the woad crop. I didn’t really have anything I wanted to dye right away so I took it to the extraction stage and got a lovely dark blue. There wasn’t much colour in the froth on the top but there was sure a lot of frothy foam! I left it to settle out for an hour or so and it was still sitting there undiminished so I took a spoon and scooped it out into a small pail. Now that it was clear I poured the rest into three 2-quart canning jars plus a 1-quart jar. It didn’t quite reach the top of the smaller jar so I just topped it up with a little plain water. I even remembered to label the jars!

No idea what the pH is or whether this will keep very long but so far so good! To use it all I have to do is dump it in the dyepot add a wee bit more soda ash (to counteract any fermentation), warm it up to 50C and reduce it with thiox. This is the first time I’ve tried to save the woad for later use so we’ll see how it goes. It would have just been composted anyhow so nothing ventured nothing gained.

While I was waiting for the woad leaves to cool I used the time to snip up the meagre handful of 2-year-old madder roots I managed to get from my big galvanised pots. It’s easiest to cut when it’s still fresh – later on it’s like sawing lumber. I decided that since I have more garden space now dedicated to dye plants it can go in the actual ground. Besides it hasn’t done very well over the last couple of years so I thought it could use a change of soil. I added some lime and bone meal to help perk it up and it will get compost in the spring with the rest of the garden. So now there are 6 hopefully healthy roots in the corner where they can go as crazy as they like. And a weensy pile of madder root drying in my basement, maybe enough for a small skein or two:

I love the smell of madder root. It’s kind of earthy and quite distinct. Better than woad anyhow! Smells even better when it’s cooking but I’ll save that for another time.

Today is a lovely and mostly-sunny fall day but I’ve got a nasty migraine. The light is too bright! I’m knitting on Princess Pink’s Not-Pink Cardi instead. Nearly done but don’t know if it will be blocked in time to give it to her tomorrow afternoon.

Looking Backwards & Forwards

Today I’m in a reflective mood. Must be the dark and dreary weather: dumping rain with a dash of sleet mixed in. Or maybe it’s just the end of the current year and anticipating the beginning of the new one. I’m looking back in my Accomplishments book (which is very fat this year) to see what I actually did. It all becomes a blur over time which is why I keep records. There’s a big fat section where I documented the many tunics and other costume accessories that I made for my Milady Daughter’s wedding in April. There are 20 pairs of socks (including my Purple Elephant slipper socks and the OYT Socks for T-Man that I just finished) — a new record I think. There are two lace shawls (including one in handspun), 2 simpler shawls and a couple of scarves. And lots more. So obviously I didn’t sit around twiddling my thumbs!

So what’s up for next year? I’d like to work from the stash(es) more and buy less. We’ll see how long I can hold to that. As with most knitters, sock yarn doesn’t count! My sock yarn stash is actually quite small if you don’t count the leftover bits, which I plan to find a way to use up. And there are lots of folks on my Sock-Gifting List so I will for sure need more yarn for them. Also I plan to continue the sorting and inventorying that I started this year. I still have to go through my yarns, both knitting and weaving, and get them in some sort of list on Excel. My fibres and books, magazines & notebooks are already done and it’s easy to keep them up-to-date now. I also need to update my hook & needles list which I started a long time ago but haven’t kept up. I never use straight needles any more, only dpns and circs, so I’m wondering whether or not I should hold onto them. Though it’s not like they’re taking up much space or anything. They live in a big wooden box on a bookshelf. Quite awhile ago I started an inventory of my equipment (with photos) which I never completed so I’d like to get that done. Yes, I know I have an awful lot of stuff! But it’s not like I got it all at once. It took decades of dedicated accumulating and amassing and stockpiling.

Further to Monday’s post, I’ve done a bit more research on “green” textiles and the best advice seems to be to buy less and use it for as long as possible. To do that you have to purchase good quality that will last and to not care about following the latest fashions which change constantly. Either go with classic styles or develop your own style that is somewhat outside of fashion trends. Mine is “comfort-casual” with the consistent addition of something handmade, be that socks or a sweater, a shawl or fingerless mitts. (Or these days, all of the above plus thermal underwear.) Luckily I rarely have a need to dress up and no need at all for business attire. (Shudder!) That makes it easy to wear the same piece until it wears out. Then I have a little funeral for it as I consign it to the garbage bin. Ashes to ashes; dust to dust. Or something like that.

Did you know that a lot of clothing these days is only made to last One Season? That’s 3 months max! It looks shabby after being washed only once or twice. Shrinks and pills and seams pop. Holey crap. Manufacturers (in China, Sri Lanka or some other quickly-getting-more-polluted third-world country) don’t care. They just want you to buy it. So don’t. Insist on better quality and don’t be afraid to pay more for it (up to a certain point at least). Do the math. If it lasts a long time then it’s worth the extra money. Oops! How did that soapbox get under my feet again? I’ll jump off now.

So I was busy with the grandkids yesterday while their parents went to the dentist for a teeth cleaning. We had fun! KiKi played with Play-Doh and the Fun Factory extruder making worms and “cheese please”. Stargazer and I played with the Duplo Lego and little Fisher-Price people left over from when his daddy was small. He’s just learned to clap his hands and it’s so adorable! Yeah, I know — doting granny. I really do enjoy my time with them. They won’t be small for long.

I’d show you the finished socks but they’re currently drying after their warm soapy bath. I did like knitting with the On Your Toes wool but couldn’t really tell if the added aloe vera did anything useful. It’s not as splitty as my usual Sisu anyway so that’s a plus. I’m looking forward to trying the KnitPicks Bare yarn that I got but that’s not going to be until I knit a few more pairs of socks that are already in the queue. Speaking of math, I figure I’d have a lot more sweaters if I stopped knitting so many socks. There’s almost the same amount of knitting in a large pair of socks as there is in a small sweater. But then my family members who are the happy recipients of most of my pairs would pout. Can’t have that, can we? That’s gifting on my terms as opposed to the marketplace’s anyway. My story and I’m sticking to it.

For some eyecandy I thought I’d show off the 4 skeins of madder-dyed wool handspun:



That’s 325 g and 845 yards approximately of 2-ply yarn. The photo is really close to true colour, on my monitor at least. Bet you can see the difference in shade between the rose-coloured wool to the left and the more orange wool to the right. My own fault entirely and I’ll be doing some tricky maneuvering to deal with the difference. On to some marigold-dyed wool next, just for a change of scene.

Windy Windy

The first “windy” of the title is the weather. It’s gusting up to 90 kilometres an hour out there and is beginning to remind me of some of the stormy weather we had last winter. At least we aren’t losing any trees around town like we did then. Only lots of leaves that hadn’t fallen off yet. My bamboo keeps knocking on the kitchen window and making me jump. I think it wants to come in out of the inclement weather! It did stop raining and is brightening up but I’m sure that’s just between systems.

The second “windy” has a long “i” because I’m winding my newly madder-tinted moorit handspun yarn into cakes. Note that I rather naturally used to call the yarn packets that came off my ball-winder “balls” but some of my spinning students refer to that shape as a “cake” and I kind of like it. Before I starting winding I took a photo for you:

I put my Icelandic Lace Shawl underneath so you can see what the yarn used to look like before it got its madder blush. I think the new colour is really pretty. I’m very fond of dyeing over natural colours to see what interesting tones I can get. In the photo below, the bit of wool on the bottom is the actual colour of the madder bath that the moorit wool was dyed in:


I put a wee bit of white wool in just to see what I was getting. And the wisp on the top is the leftover colour from that bath with a smidge (1 g) of iron mordant added. You can still see some of the madder bits in it that escaped my seive. Of course I couldn’t throw out the almost-spent bath! I managed to dye another 1/4 lb of wool (mordant: alum & tartaric acid) that warm beige and if I don’t need so much of it, I’ll use it to overdye later. Exhaust colours are fun and make a nice contrast with brighter shades plus I love subtle layered colours that you can get with overdyeing. And that’s the last of my home-grown madder root for this harvest! The spent chips went into the compost. Now I have a lot of dyed wool but I need more colours. Marigolds and walnut hulls are next. I’ve had them both in the freezer for ages so it will be nice to use them up. I seem to collect but not make use of natural dye materials for some reason. I’m trying to turn over a new leaf. Heh.

I had a good time at my Ravelry group’s meet-up yesterday afternoon at the local coffee shop The Grind. This one has been around so long that my kids used to hang out there as teenagers. There is lots of room to set up and we could even bring spinning wheels if we wanted. I don’t know if we’ll keep meeting here or try some different venues for awhile until we discover the perfect one. Though for me The Grind is ideal: walking distance from my house and halfway between my two LYS’s. What could be better?

There were 7 Ravelers again this time — though Norma couldn’t make it we gained Beth, another of my former spinning students, who heard about it from Erin. I was first on the scene and while I was waiting I saw this sign on the side of the Internet kiosk that completely cracked me up:

Sock Trading! Yes of course. I knew folks traded socks on the Internet. I don’t know why someone wrote in a “t” making it “stocks”. What’s that all about?


While at the meet-up, I started working on my decoration for the guild’s Christmas Exchange for the December meeting. I decided to go for the Wooly Pears that were on the cover of last year’s Interweave Knits Holiday issue. The pattern is by Nicky Epstein and I used the same handspun yarn that I was making the fulled leaves and acorns out of before. At least I know it fulls well. I managed to get one Wooly Pear done and started another but wasn’t happy with it so I frogged it and started again when I got home. I finished it this morning but haven’t fulled either of them yet:


They’re kind of cute the way they are actually. I’m currently knitting another pear from some really ancient fat singles handspun. It’s not pleasant to knit with, being sticky and dense, but I’m hoping the fulling will improve the texture plus wash out the 30+ years of dust. If I like the results, I have enough of that yarn for 2 more. I figure you need either one single or three, not two, for a complete bowl full. They’re pretty quick to make anyway. I’m using one size smaller needles than Nicky Epstein’s pattern (from Interweave Knits Holiday 2006) because my handspun looks too thready and doesn’t full up as much as the Lamb’s Pride Worsted. They’ll be a bit smaller but no matter. I’m also stuffing with coarse grey wool instead of polyester fiberfill. The colour doesn’t show so much and it fulls somewhat along with the outer knitting instead of bearding through it.

Of course after we left The Grind most of us walked up to Three Bags Full. It’s a teensy shop and it was totally crowded when we got there. What does one do when one needs a wool fix on a holiday? Hit the only store that’s open of course! There were 3 or 4 staff and at least 15 customers crammed in. Because it was Remembrance Day a lot of stores along Main Street were closed including the other wool shop, Birkeland Bros. I decided that since I was there I would stop resisting the sweet siren call of the Louet Gems super fine merino fingering wool and bought 2 skeins in white so I can dye them.


I think I will make another pair of gloves but not until after I make the black handspun ones. I certainly don’t want to make socks with this soft stuff. They would last about one trip to the magazine shop before they wore a hole. I need superwash wool with a hefty nylon content to survive in my boots. Although I’m not really that hard on my socks, I walk a whole lot more than the average person. And I wear handknit socks every day.

A Madder Addendum

I decided that I was saving the remains of the madder in the freezer for no good reason since it’s pretty much played out so I decided to thaw it out and use what colour was left to tint the rest of my moorit wool handspun (the part I didn’t use in the Icelandic Lace Shawl). There’s 150 g (about 800 or so yards), which should be enough for another lace shawl. Maybe the Flower Basket Shawl by Evelyn Clark from Interweave Knits Fall 2004. This one can be easily expanded or contracted depending on how much yarn I have by adding or subtracting repeats of the main lace pattern. The edging is an extension of that so it automatically fits properly. As long as I leave enough yarn to complete it. I love Evelyn’s smallish shawls. They are just complex enough to keep me interested but once you’re done, you’re done. No extra picked up or knitted on edgings. Just work in the ends and block. My friend (hi, Silk!) is planning to knit this pattern soon too so maybe I’ll join her. But not until I’ve done the Hepburn Cardi first! Help me resist starting something new before I finish my sweater! Socks, wristwarmers, mitts and gloves don’t count. Really.

Today I went to our Spectrum Study Group meeting where again we had a lively show-and-tell, some heavy discussion and a wonderful lunch but we never got any actual work done. Again. Oh well. Nobody is marking us on our projects. However I was going to start knitting my ornament for the December guild meeting/Christmas party. I’ll begin that tomorrow morning before I head over to one of the local coffee shops for another get-together with our Ravelry group, the Terminal City Yarn Wranglers.

I was hoping to have time to show the latest pair of Baby Socks that I finished. These ones turned out ok. I’ll get a chance to put them on Stargazer on Tuesday when we go over to their new house for the first time. Unfortunately I have to go feed T-Man some supper. I’m still full from lunch!

Well Of Course

Yes, I found a few more errors (with T-Man’s help) in that darn membership booklet. Sigh. You can never see all your own mistakes. I’ll fix them before I take the thing to the printer tomorrow. Then it’s out of my hands and any remaining mistakes are permanent until next year. I used to do the guild’s newsletter — 13 years worth of working on it in fact. So why did I get myself involved again? Because they asked. And I know how. I also volunteered to help with the library for the first time this year. Plus I have already had their spinning equipment for rental at my house for lotsa years. I’ve been a member of this guild since 1985 or so and they know me too well! I’d rather do this type of thing than be president or something anyway. Executive positions are out of my league entirely.

So what’s on the menu for today? Here’s the photo of the second batch of madder-dyed fibre that I didn’t show you yesterday. The weather is crappy (rain, rain, and more rain) so the colour may be a bit off. I’m still not getting red by any stretch but it’s pretty, no?


I’m kind of taking a day semi-off today after my marathon computer day yesterday. I’ve almost finished the first of the Baby Socks 3. I couldn’t do both alternately like usual because I used the other set of needles for the OXO Cuffs which I’m also doing one-at-a-time. The cuffs are much slower because I have to actually see what I’m doing. I need to go back to the Hepburn Cardi too. So many projects — so little time.

Meanwhile I just heard the postman at the door and I got my next book order! These ones are my birthday prezzies to me. I know, what were all the other ones? This is the third bunch I’ve ordered in the last few months not to mention the pocketbooks and magazines that I’ve bought in the actual store. It’s all so darn tempting but it’s getting a bit out of hand. I’m now on a bit of a book diet methinks. So what did I get you ask? I finally broke down and got a copy of Alden Amos’ Big Book of Handspinning. I’ve heard so many mixed reviews of this book — you either love Alden or you hate him because he’s just so darn opinionated. I’ve taken the book out from my guild library and quickly perused it but there is so much technical information that I wasn’t able to process it quickly. There are no pretty pictures, just black & white illustrations by Alden’s wife Stephenie Gaustad. These guys are the real deal. I’m looking forward to reading the book and trying to absorb some of the info. If my eyes don't glaze over first.

I also got The Art of Fair Isle Knitting by Ann Feitlson on the recommendation of David Reidy of the Sticks & String podcast. This is a very good book with lots of colour photos. More than half the book is dedicated to the history and an in-depth discussion of design for this style of 2-colour knitting. There are some nice patterns too though a few are a bit dated (this book was originally published in 1996) and includes gloves and hats as well as the usual sweaters and vests. I already have a couple of books on this subject but this one is much nicer. I like that Ann virtually expects you to change things up and create your own garments and that her focus is on knitting techniques and colour considerations rather than just a bunch of charts for OXO and peerie patterns that I already have plenty of in the other books I own. I have trouble knitting 2-colour patterns without drawing in the fabric and twisting up the floats. I’m hoping the information in here will help me with that problem because I’ve been avoiding this type of knitting for awhile now. And I absolutely love it! Dumb huh?

Well I’d better get the last few errors fixed in my booklet so I can check that off my list. I’ve been avoiding it so far today and suddenly it’s later than I thought.

Adventures

Well, yesterday’s lunch was an adventure for sure. The restaurant that Darling Daughter picked is right at the very edge of the hole where the Canada Line rapid transit so far doesn’t exist. See?


To the left are the steps into the Toyo Restaurant and to the right is a huge drop into space. The remains of the sidewalk ends right there and the whole block behind is fenced all the way along. Nobody walks down there if they aren’t going to eat sushi! How do these poor people make a living when they are trying to run a business right next to this mess? How does their building continue to be suspended in space? Are we very tired of this whole HOLE thing yet?

Lunch was yummy anyway and the company was of course great. I was kind of not in the mood for sushi (I know, too weird) so I had miso soup and prawn and sweet potato tempura instead. I now feel completely spoiled for this year’s birthday! Moving right along…

As far as the second batch of madder went, the first lot of sliver was in the bath for 3 days total and it’s even more orange and lighter in value than my first batch. I think I extracted more of the yellow dye than the red with my quick extraction method. I bet there’s a lot more dye remaining in the roots which are now in the freezer. I put the rest of the half-pound of mordanted Borderdale in the remaining dye after removing the first wool and it’s a much more rosy-pink. I only left it in for an hour or so on the heat and it’s not as matted as the stuff that was in the bath for days. All in all, I got some interesting colours and they are all slightly different! No wonder industry doesn’t show much interest in plant dyes. They are incredibly unpredictable.


Here’s the OXO Cuffs that I’ve been working on in fine cashmerino 2-ply wool left over from my Swallowtail Shawl. Can you see the X’s? Haven’t gotten to the O’s yet. It was dyed with acid dyes in my Bryce Canyon colourway but it looks surprisingly like some of my madder experiments! Maybe a bit more dusty-peachy. The yarn is somewhat finer than the fingering the pattern calls for and I’m using 2 mm needles instead of 2.5 mm but they will fit me just fine. Perhaps the twisted stitch pattern doesn’t show up as well as the original. But it’s very soft and warm so that’s good enough for me. I would have maybe doubled the yarn but I don’t think I have enough. But then I probably have more than I think since this stuff just goes on for miles! Out of one 225 g skein, so far I’ve made 2 shawls and a scarf. The shawls are admittedly on the small side and the scarf is skinny (though very long) but I’m definitely getting a lot of knitting bang for my buck. My LYS has many skeins of this in natural undyed and a few that were dyed (and slightly felted) by the Handmaiden by special order. And I have one more undyed skein in my stash.


And here’s the beginning of the third installment in my Baby Socks saga. I figured if 40 stitches is just right and 48 stitches is too big, then 44 stitches should give a little wiggle room but not be too big to wear now. These are so fast and easy that I can afford to keep experimenting and using up a bunch of sock yarn leftovers at the same time. Stargazer (and his mom) are enjoying my efforts anyhow.

I want to thank everyone with suggestions on how to de-pee my magazines. So far nothing I’ve tried is working and wet cures are out because it just makes the pages wrinkle and stick together even more. The catbox odour seems to be getting worse instead of better. I’m now debating on how badly I want the worst-hit magazine and whether I can get away with trying to keep the two that are not so bad. The one that was on top has got to go but I don’t know if I’ll replace it yet or not. The jury is still out.

So I worked on it all day today and I just finished the guild’s membership booklet with some time to spare. I’m already getting questions on the contents but that’s just too bad. I just work with the information that was handed to me. It’s hard enough to proofread your own work without having to double-check every address and phone number as well. If I’ve introduced a new error myself then that’s another story.

Orange Madder

Yeah, it’s supposed to be ROSE madder but no matter what I do, I get orange. Luckily orange is my favourite colour it’s a lovely slightly muted shade, not neon at all. I got 4 different values:


The second darkest wool (second from the left) is a bit more red and less orange. It weighed about 1/4 pound. I dyed it with the first soaking water from un-heated roots right after I chopped and hammered them. I brought it slowly up to about 150 degrees F. and kept for an hour and then cooled slightly before rinsing. Here it is in the pot. It looks a lot darker when wet.


The lightest one (far right in the first photo) was dyed with the second soaking water and was never heated at all. It only spent about an hour or so in the room-temp dye and then was rinsed. The second-lightest one (second from right) was the same as the lightest only heated for an hour. The darkest colour was from the actual heat-extraction of the roots. I covered them in water and heated them, poured off the dye, re-covered with water, heated again, etc. several times. By that time I had enough liquid in the dyebath for my half-pound of fibre so I scooped some out and re-covered the roots, heated and poured the extraction back in several more times. The wool was brought to just under a simmer, kept there for an hour and then left overnight in the pot to cool. I was trying to get as much colour out of my roots as possible and there was still colour in the water, but by this time I’d had enough! I had lots of cleaning up to do. See the lovely permanent stain in the bottom of my extraction pot?


It used to be yellow from marigolds. Heh! I really think the problem is that I need to use much more dyestuff to the weight of the fibre to get closer to red. Remember I started with about 1 pound of wet fresh roots to a total of 1 pound of wool (even though it all wasn’t dyed to the same depth of shade). And even though I used lots of ingredients that are supposed to help keep it on the red side (soda ash, calcium supplements, baking powder) it didn’t have much effect. I even tried a small amount of the deepest colour in an ammonia afterbath (a glug of extra-strength ammonia in 2 cups of water). That did shift it slightly more towards rose but I decided not to treat the rest of the wool. Ammonia is stinky and fairly hard on the wool. The most red I got was on some little cellulose samples that I threw in which were leftover from dye experiments from several years ago. (They were mordanted with aluminum acetate and tannin.) However I’m absolutely pleased with how much colour I got out of my little pile of home-grown roots. And there are more still! I’m just really tired of processing them right now. Even the used roots are still giving colour so I put them in a freezer bag, labeled it and stuck it in the big freezer in case I ever get enthused enough to try again. I think the rest of the fresh root is going to go there too after I chop it up. I think freezing is safer than drying since there’s quite a good chance of it moulding before it’s dry.

I’m really happy with the feel of the dyed wool. The sliver held up quite well to all the manipulating, even though I was as careful as possible with it, and it didn’t felt up at all. It’s going to make some pretty yarn. If I can decide what to make out of it! Maybe a vest? I definitely need a vest.

In other news I’m almost finished the second pair of Baby Socks. These are coming out much closer to the right size. Hopefully if I get them finished by Sunday I can put them on my grandson and see for sure if they fit. We’re babysitting while they start the move to their new house. I’d rather lug grandkids than furniture.

What else? Have you seen Nora Gaughan’s new sweater in the Holiday issue of Vogue Knitting?


A cutaway coat made of hexagons and partial hexagons. Totally worth the price of the magazine for this pattern alone. It’s gorgeous and I want one. In handspun. But not until I finish the Hepburn Cardi — and probably the Madder Vest too. (Not that I know what exactly I’m making yet.) Oh, the Samhain issue of AntiCraft went up on the appropriate day. A little late really but we’ll be ready for next year! I love all the spider stuff. And there’s stuff that was left out of their forthcoming book. Link in my sidebar. Well I’d best get some more work done around here. After all, it’s my birthday today!

Happy Halloween!

The Toad Witch is welcoming you at the front door into my House of Horrors. She once was a real witch but she had a slight accident whilst trying to turn someone into a toad and it backfired upon herself. Instant karma? Accompanying her are her two pumpkin buddies, Jackie and O’Lantern. Meanwhile the spiders are hard at work all around them. Unfortunately we aren’t quite ready for the evening’s frivolities and frights because we don’t have our pumpkin or our goodies to hand out yet. Running a little behind I’d say.

My hands are a suitably weird shade of orange because I spent the morning mordanting wool and smashing my madder roots with a hammer. There are bits of root everywhere even though I tried to contain the mess. I finally got wise too late and put on my vinyl gloves but not before my nails turned quite a lovely shade of red-orange especially around the cuticles. I first tried to use my mini food processor on the roots but chunks would get stuck on the blades and all it was doing was whizzing them around without affecting the size of the bits. So I started chopping them as fine as possible with the pruning shears and then hammering the pieces on a board. That worked much better.


I managed to process about a pound of soaking wet roots (maybe a couple of cups worth) before my patience and my body gave out. I still have at least the same again or maybe even a bit more yet to do. Later.


After I pooped out on the chopping and hammering, I added warm water, a generous pinch of soda ash and a couple of crushed calcium supplement tablets to the small bucket. Our water is very soft and madder likes it hard so I was trying to compensate. There is a lot of good colour coming out so I plan to soak it at least overnight before doing anything else.


Meanwhile I put half a pound of crossbred wool sliver in alum mordant (20 g) and brought it up to a simmer, left it for an hour or so, and then removed it from the bath into a bucket to cool. I added another 10 g of alum to the pot and repeated the procedure with another half-pound of the same wool. I was only going to do one batch but decided that I’d better do two because I know there will be lots of colour left in the bath after the first batch. If I get orange-pinks I can always overdye some of it for more colours. Yes, we have options! I’d probably have thrown in a 3rd batch to mordant but I ran out of this particular sliver. I could get more, but I’d rather use what I have for now. I have lots more sliver but I think it’s Borderdale, Corriedale and maybe some Perendale. All the “dales.” Heh. The reason I chose the Crossbred is that it’s very clean and not too soft so it doesn’t felt very easily. If I’m going to be messing around stirring and rinsing, I want something that won’t either fall apart or turn into Rasta locks on me. I do actually want to spin this stuff eventually.

Mad & Madder

The “mad” part first: my baby socks are way too big for the baby! I don’t know what got into me but a sock on 48 sts is just honking huge for a one-year-old’s foot. I was seduced by the narrow ribbing into thinking they were smaller than they really are. Now that I’m past the gussets though I’m thinking if I continue they will be toddler socks instead. Unless I run out of yarn too soon, in which case I’ll frog them and start again on a more reasonable number of stitches, say 36. Stargazer needs more than one pair of socks anyway and he will grow into them eventually no matter what size they are. Then I’ll start on another pair that hopefully will fit him now rather than a year from now. At least little socks go quickly!

Next the “madder” part of today’s post. Not "more mad" but the dye plant, Rubia tinctorum. I got my original roots years ago from a friend since it doesn’t seem to start very easily by seed. As I mentioned in my last post, I decided that it was time to harvest them again after several years of ignoring them in their galvanized buckets. In case you were wondering, I never planted them in the garden because these things can get away from you, like mint. And they are really ugly and scratchy and sprawly plants. Not decorative or even scented, which at least mint is. In addition, I can get quite a nasty rash if I brush against madder with exposed tender skin. So they reside in big buckets with a wire cage over each to prevent them from drooping all over the ground (where they will root if I’m not careful). This is what one bucketful looked like after removing the cage and trimming all the dead branches off:


Then we tipped it out onto a tarp:


Right away there were some telltale signs of orange and some surprisingly big roots showing. T-Man helped me break up the root balls and we set aside some individual plantlets to put back in later:


The rest of the roots went into a bucket to be soaked and washed. The outer brown area scrapes off with a fingernail to show the beautiful deep orange beneath but it’s tedious in the extreme to do that to each root piece. They snap into smaller pieces quite easily while they are still fresh so now is the time to clean and grind them up rather than wait until they are hard. I haven’t finished that part yet though. Here are some that have the dirt washed off but not scrubbed really well or soaked yet:


And these ones are almost ready to be ground up. See the bright colour the residual water is already showing?


I’m hoping to get some wool dyed with this very soon before it all goes mouldy or something. I’m not sure how much I actually have but I thought it was quite a useful amount from my two buckets. Guess it thrives on neglect! With some research I found some very helpful information here and here on growing and harvesting madder plus a delightful story from the prologue to Brian Murphy’s book “The Root of Wild Madder.” For more botanical dyeing information, I just discovered that the Turkey Red Journal that I used to get by subscription has a new online (and free!) version. Only two issues there so far but more will come. Please respect their copyrights on text and images. Enjoy.