Shortly about dyeing and weaving

Actually, there isn’t so much to say about dyeing project. I mordanted both spinning wheel- and spindle-spun yarn in alum bath and dyed  warp yarns in the first bath and then weft yarns in the afterbath. This was a small loss – I should have thought before dyeing that of course more loose-spun weft will absorb more colour, which meant that the difference between colours of the warp and the weft is very slight.

Because I didn’t had an iron pot for dyeing I used iron vithrill, which I had about 1,1g/100g yarn. I was afraid that the colour would become too dark and was quite cautious with the amount of iron – too cautious, I can now say. The colour is much lighter than I planned. I’m still considering about dyeing the whole cloth after weaving in an another iron bath, but it could be a bit risky.

I have set up the warp (the sett is about 6-7 threads/cm) and should begin to do the tie-up. I tried to begin it a while ago, but I had to admit that without teacher’s intructions I’m probably doing it wrong from the beginning, so it’s better to wait that someone straightens out couple of things to me.

Finished dyeing

Done. You can find more pictures from here. I try to write something more about the whole process a bit later. The colour is much lighter than I really wanted, but quite nice anyway.

We visited today Överhogdal, which is a village here in Härjedalen. Almost 100 years ago they found pieces of a tapestry from the village church. The tapestry was later dated to the Viking Age and is one of the very few very old tapestry finds in Europe which have never been under the soil. The original tapestry is now in Jämtlands county museum, but our teacher, Ellinor Sydberg, made an exact copy of it on ’80’s working with spinning, dyeing and weaving linen and wool. The whole work took several years.

I took also a bunch of photos about the tapestry reconstruction and a “museum” made around it. It was a very fine place; if you ever visit Härjedalen, I can recommend it warmly.

Dyeing, part 2

Some pics about dyeing are now here in Flickr. I got a very beautiful olive green colour from the heather, which was cooked in an iron cauldron (about 3,5 hours cooking, yarn was in the heather bath only one hour).

I counted my yarn yesterday and figured out that I got more than I actually should need. Because of that I begun to dye those yarns on this morning. I have done mordanting, now the heather is cooking and I’m trying to relax a bit before beginning to dye the loom.

Because the school doesn’t have a big iron cauldron, I have to use iron vithrill for getting the green iron colour out from the heather. This is actually probably almost authentic – in the literature it’s often mentioned they have used file dust or small pieces of iron in baths made for dyeing yarn or colouring leather.

I’m dyeing the loom in the first heather bath and the weft in the afterbath. The big cauldron is made of stainless steel. I’ll dye both dyes and then add iron vithrill and put both the weft and the loom together to the iron bath. I hope the colour will be a nice one.

Now I’ll begin with my hand-spun yarns…

Experimental dyeing

We planned the dyeing a bit with my teacher Ellinor. I want to make an experiment with  only a small amount of yarn because of the uncertainty of the end result.

So, this is my plan:

120g yarn = 100g “industrial” white woollen yarn (3 fibres) and 20g tightly hand-spunned (spinning wheel) yarn (2 fibres)

This amount is divided to two small skeins (2 x 50g + 10g).

Other skein is washed with water and a small amount of ammonia and the other with mixture of water and urine. The purpose is to wash away the lanolin fat before mordanting with alum. The point in using urine is to experiment again: it has been a very popular way to wash yarn, but the amounts which were used are a bit uncertain. Another thing is that I didn’t remember to begin to pee in a bucket before this morning, so the urine I’ll use is quite fresh, which means I probably need more than it has been traditional (which is a bit nicer for me, because some weeks or months old urine just smells like hell…) We’ll see if it works or not.

These skeins are divided once again to two different cauldrons. The other one is made of stainless steel, the other one of casted iron.

So, both cauldrons will have 120 grams of heather and:
- 25g ammonia-washed industial yarn
- 25g urine-washed industrial yarn
- 5g ammonia-washed hand-spunned yarn
- 5g urine-washed hand-spunned yarn

I’ll cook heather 4 hours before the dyeing. An old dyeing book (Hulda Kontturi: Luonnonväreillä värjäämisestä, http://coloriasto.blogspot.com/2007/12/hulda-kontturi-luonnonvreill-vrjmisest.html) tells that an iron cauldron will give olive green colour to the yarn dyed by heather. I’ll check if this is true. If I’ll get a nice green colour, I’ll experiment with stainless cauldron and a very small amount of iron vithrill (no idea about the correct name in English). It’s possible that in prehistory they have been dyeing in clay pots, but a bit more probable is that they have been using iron cauldrons (thought not casted iron, but I don’t have any other options now), which loose a bit of iron to the water. But we’ll see what happens, this is very exciting!

(Writing in English becomes more and more difficult. All terms are in Swedish n my head, and sometimes it’s difficult to find words even in Finnish. Sorry about terrible grammar in my later posts, but if I begin to think what I’m writing, I will not write anything…)

It happens something soon

I begin to be a bit tired of spinning and combing and spinning and combing. My need is about 1600m warp and 1300m weft, and this is soon done. I should be done after couple of days. Then I’ll dye my yarn – you’ll get pictures, I promise – and set up the warp-weighted loom.

Muddy stems

My hemp samples proved actually to be ready, so I took them up an hour ago. As I guessed before, it wasn’t very pleasant and I got almost completely drenched. Hemp stems were muddy and smelled a bit rotten, which should be a good sign anyway. Bunches are now drying a bit on the shore. I’ll try to cart them to Garveriet tomorrow and set them dry in front of a heater.

I was muddy, wet and miserable after wading in the river picking and throwing the stones away from the bottom of the frame, so I went straight to the shower after coming in. I’m feeling myself a bit sick and having some fever, so I try to spend this evening in my room spinning with a spinning wheel.

Hemp was in the river exactly 2 weeks. Very short time, I think, Jan’s and Katerina’s hemp at last September were there according their report 3 weeks.

Hemp, wool and spinning

Hemp is still laying in the running water. After couple of days I have to wade to the river and pick some samples and dry those, so I’ll see how long they have to lay there. I’m not waiting for it very enthusiatically, because the water temperature has sunken to 9 Celsius. Brrr.

Åland sheep wool is quite soft and nice to handle. I have researched a bit about Finnish textile finds and decided that skirt fabric will have about 6-7 yarns /cm in the loom and about the same in the weft. The loom is S-doubled Z-yarn, weft undoubled Z like in most grave finds in Finland. Interesting enough is that in Sweden they have spunned with a different spindle type, so the yarn is mostly undoubled S both in the loom and the weft. I’m spinning, as it was planned, the loom by the spinning wheel (it’s the matter of time, I’m having about 4 months active working time) and the weft by the spindle.

I love spinning with a spinning wheel! It’s _way_ faster than spinning with a spindle (although I like a spindle too). It takes lots of time anyway to spin so much yarn I will need, so I should be more active with working. Tanning the skins just takes so much of my energy that it’s too easy to forget spinning when I come in and just sit down in front of my laptop…

There’s not much more to say about spinning. It’s repetative work and brushing wool with wool combs or scribbling takes much more time than the spinning itself. I’m listening to music and podcasts and thinking my own things when working.

Soaking the hemp

I’m uploading photos to Flickr – check more pictures from my Bäckedals collection page.

Hemp stems are now in Ljusnan (the pics are here). I tied hemp stems to a frame and carried them in the river. Standing and moving in cold water when trying to sink hemps by big stones which I picked up from the bottom of river wasn’t – well, nice at all.

It’s blowing very hard and I hope that my knots will keep their hold and hemp don’t float down the river. Water temperature is now about 14 C. Hopefully the temperature will remain the same (or at least over 10 C) next three weeks. Then I’ll pick them up and dry them.

I almost guessed that writing in English will cause pauses to this blog. It’s too easy to just put back updating.

Beginning with the hemp fibres

I’m beginning to get a faint picture about what I’ll be doing during this autumn. I have spoken with both Aja and Ellinor. It seems that I really have to work quite hard, which I will absolutely do – the only problem is that I should not only remember, but also _do_ something to my university studies while being here…

Yesterday I started to work with hemp. My another apron will be made of hemp, another of leather. I have been mostly taking the leaves off from hemp, which is a very, very dusty job. That means that I’ve been sitting with a scarf on my nose and mouth on a small bench drawing hemp through iron spikes (rohkiminen). Dull and dirty job, but podcasts help me to amuse myself while working. I have couple of buckets left, but I should be ready quite soon. Then I can put those hemps to Ljusnan-rivers water for soaking (liotus/rötning). Books about linen and hemp tell that running water should work badly with soaking the fibres, but my teachers say that there has never been problems here with that.

I also set yesterday a half of a salted cow (only the hide, not the whole thing…) to a water bucket. I have to change the water every day, but it may lay there to next Monday, when the salt has melted and I can begin to scrape the skin. After scraping I’ll put it to lime water for getting cows hair off. The skin will be very, very thick. I’ll be using it for the shoe soles.

Soon I should begin to take the hair off from 6 another hides too. Those will be my frock (alusmekko), which I will tan with fat.