Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Post # 1981: Birthday week
Posted on February 16, 2015 by Megan
Two weekends ago I turned forty-two and recorded the better part of an album in two days on the Sunshine Coast. I then took all of last week off work. Since then I have finished sewing a blouse, finished crocheting a sweater, cleaned my house, went to Vancouver island for two nights, lead a meditation class, had a long visit with my mom, attended a dharma talk and ritual commemorating the Buddha’s life, and attended a concert at the Chan Centre. After all that, I have to admit that I had a really hard time caring at work today.
Category: Me
Birdsong workshop on Instagram
The search for red continues.... so hard to tell what colours will look like when dry. I'm betting this madder is a bit orange but will try overdyeing with a small amount of cochineal later this weekend if that is so... #summerofmaking2021 #naturaldyeing #textilestudio
Brazilwood again with different water pH. I dyed this before I went on holiday. Still not getting the reds I want... pinks and oranges abound though. I've been meditating on what exactly I think about when I say red and trying to figure out how to get that colour I see in my mind .... I arrived home this evening so I'll be back in the studio with more dyeing and weaving in the next few days. #summerofmaking2021 #textilestudio #naturaldyeing
Simple vacation #knitting: one of my favorite kitchen items is hot pads knitted in wool (I double worsted weight for the right thickness). I use my sets daily, and they go in the housewarming packages I make for friends. Wool is antibacterial, antimicrobial, and it doesn't catch fire easily. Perfect for kitchen use! #handmadelife #textilestudio #summerofmaking2021
I brought a bunch of small balls of yarn along on my #cortesisland vacation so I could wind them for yarn dyeing. Here is the niddy-noddy with a skein, and the view from our suite. #summerofmaking2021 #textilestudio #naturaldyeing #makersgonnamake
Weaving terminology lesson for the non-weavers interested in the process! Before I left on holiday I threaded all the heddles on my loom and started to sley the reed. The first picture shows the heddles (first picture, white cord which has an eye in the middle) with cotton thread passed through. Each warp thread is passed through a heddle as part of what determines the fabric pattern. Each warp thread is also passed through a reed (second picture) sometimes more than one thread per dent (slot). The reed is one of the factors that sets the density of the fabric. Reeds come in different dents per inch, 10 dents per inch means there are 10 slots per inch. If I sett my fabric at 20, that means 2 threads per slot. My current project is 18 ends per inch, which I am sleying into a 12 dent reed. To get 18 epi I sley 2 threads in a dent and then 1 thread in the next dent. And repeat! #summerofmaking2021 #textilestudio #weaversofinstagram #weaverfever #handweaving
Visiting #cortesisland this week. The gardens @hollyhocklife are incredible right now and I'm already designing a weaving inspired by these colours! #summerofmaking2021 #textilestudio #naturaldyeing
#janestaffordonlineguild Season 2, Project 1. With a single warp there are many options. The first piece is for my sample book, the rest are towels for use in the house. All plainweave. Not perfect weaving by any stretch, but learned a lot going through Jane's steps. My favourite is the one on the end which was re-sett at 12 ends per inch and woven with boucle I had leftover from something else. That towel is now in our upstairs bathroom.
I'm dyeing 100-yard skeins this summer in order to test the greatest range of colours, overdyes, and mordants without making too much of any one colour. In order to do that, I scour and then mordant a large skein, dry it, and then wind it off the yarn swift and through a yardage counter. After that, I re-skein it on a small niddy-noddy and tie it with dyer's knots. It's quite a bit of work before anything hits the dye pot! #summerofmaking2021 #textilestudio #naturaldyeing #makersgonnamake
Today's #summerofmaking2021 post is entirely unrelated to textile arts. Behold instead the refrigerator pickles made with the cucumbers I got from @watercliffpermaculturefarm on Tuesday! I've never done fridge pickles like this before but wow, did these ever turn out nicely. We polished off nearly a quart of them last night at dinner! #pickling #makersgonnamake #handmadelife
Logwood produces violets, greys and blacks. Also know as Campeche wood, it originates in Central America. The first photo shows logwood dye on yarn mordanted with alum (top) and oxalic acid (bottom) in a first dye flush from the logwood chips. The subsequent photos are dyed from a second flush. I note that the colilour on the fabric is somewhat patchy, especially with the second flush (though I love how the vintage napkin turned out). I will do some overdyeing with indigo later this summer. #summerofmaking2021 #textilestudio #naturaldyeing #makersgonnamake #schoolofsweetgeorgia
One of the more challenging warps I've put on in my #weavinglife - so much so that I switched warping strategies halfway through (hence the painter's tape). @janestaffordtextiles #learningisfun #weaversofinstagram #weaverfever #summerofmaking2021
Cochineal is an insect which has been used to produce pink and red dyes for centuries. To make the dyestuff, we grind the dried insect down, and then extract the dye from the powder by heating baths of water and dyestuff on the stove, straining off the concentrate and refilling the water repeatedly. You can see here the result of cochineal applied at 8% weight of fibre. While it's a striking colour it's a bit too pink for my reds weaving project so I am overdyeing it with fustic today to see if I can push it to more of a red. #cochineal #naturaldyeing #textilestudio #makersgonnamake #summerofmaking2021
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