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…)

Spinning and softening the skins

I am still mostly spinning. I should finish spinning of wool in the  weekend or beginning of the next week and then begin to spin hemp. Hopefully I’m done before Christmas Holiday.

I experimented dyeing with heather and noticed that also the third afterbath is still too yellow, or almost brownish-greenish-yellow. That’s not a colour I really want to my dress! I have to make another try with smaller amount of heather. That will probably happen just before or after the holiday.

I scraped my shoe cow hide today and added more bark. My teacher suggests that we’ll take the hide up from the bath before Christmas that she doesn’t have to come to school during the holiday because of stirring my bark bath… It’s hopefully done then. Softening will happen on January.

Textile course was in the tanning room 3 weeks felting and dyeing, and I couldn’t  soften any skins during that time. Tomorrow I’ll do two goat skins ready for sewing. Probably on Thursday I’ll begin to soften the big deer skin and put at last two sheep skin to the lime bath. Another one will be the front side of my frock, another one the leather apron, if everything goes fine. I’m planning totake all skins with me to Finland and sew the frock during the holiday.

I ‘m beginning to understand how late I actually am (I should do some Christmas presents and relax too) and how much I should work before the holiday period.  Especially the hemp spinning will take it’s time. Trallala, I say.

Lots of wool needed

I counted a bit. I’m carding about 30 grams of wool in 2 hours (includes raw and fine carding). Combing with wool combs (“viking combs”) takes probably about the same amount of time (I’ll count on the next time). I haven’t counted yet, how long does it take to spin 30 grams with a spinning wheel and with a spindle, but I assume that when doubling the yarn it takes with the spinning wheel something like 2 hours. With the spindle (without doubling) I guess it will be about 4-5 hours. I’ll count it better later, but it’s interesting to guess, how long this process will probably take. I need something like 700-1000 gram yarn for my dress, maybe a bit more. You do the math. :]

Rejoice! I can spin with a spindle while I’m ircing (or actually while I’m waiting that someone says something somewhere, not actively typing). Great – a possibility to be social at the same time when really doing something.

For you, who are interested in spinning: Spinn-Off -magazine has very good broschyres about carding and spinning (in English), check those out.

I ordered Else Ostergards Woven into the Earth from Amazon and picked it up from the post office today. My bible! Oh joy! We have that book here in the schools library too, but only in Danish – it’s anyway easier for me to read it in English… And now it’s my own.

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.