The Hollyhock Blog

The saga of indigo continues.  Here is the yarn in the vat.  I kept steaming up my camera lens, so it was hard to get a good shot.  The jar is sitting on lids in the pot of water – double boiler style.

Yes, the yarn did look chartreuse.  I did 2 skeins.  When I took the first out – 4 oz of 80% alpaca, 20% silk lace weight – the magic happened so fast, I didn’t even think of trying to take a picture.  So this is the second skein – 4 oz of 100% alpaca sport weight –  after it is out of the vat in a bucket. 

Again, the steam caused some problems, so I didn’t get a good shot.  The yarn turned from chartreuse to denim blue so fast it was amazing.   The second skein didn’t get quite as dark and I didn’t stir it as much, so it is more variegated.   Then I stuffed 8 oz of 100% alpaca sport weight already dyed gray in the vat.  It was too tight to stir – this caused lots of color variation and it felted a bit.  The yarn is still usable, but I will keep it to knit with – maybe a hat and mitten set - later this fall or winter.  Here they are in the beautiful sunshine yesterday.

The indigo skeins still required a vinegar rinse.   This shows them after them dried after the vinegar rinse.   First is the marigold, then the indigo skeins in order of dunking!

Here are the indigo skeins dried after the vinegar rinse – I didn’t see much color change.  And 2 more 4 oz skeins of 100% alpaca sport weight that went into the left over marigold bath from yesterday. 

Mother Nature isn’t cooperating today – it is raining so I had to take the picture inside.  The colors don’t look like they do in sunshine, but are still pretty darn awesome.

I have some yarn in Kool-Aid on the stove at this moment - dyeing some 100% alpaca bulky weight to make a shawl that I will be demonstrating during Farm Tour.   That is the last of my last-minute projects.   The rain is supposed to stop by afternoon, so I’m planning to make it to the last Farmer’s Market day today.  

On Saturday, I wanted to natural dye – no, not die naturally! – but dye with some things from nature. 

For starters, I went foraging and found this pile of (very buggy) goldenrod flowers in the road ditches and on the edge of our yard.

I’m not sure if the bugs affected the dye bath, but I am sure there were quite a variety of bugs and spiders cooked up with the flowers.   After simmering the flowers, I put the pot outside for the night.

I also cooked up a pot of black walnut husks.   The foraging for these was pretty easy as my nephews gathered a bunch for me last fall and helped me hammer the husks off the nuts.   There was a nice big paper bag full in my fiber room.  After a while of cooking, this pot went on the deck for the night, too.

On Sunday, I was getting serious about this dyeing process. 

First, I had to prepare my yarn.  I used a mordant of alum and cream of tartar and simmered 6 skeins (4 oz each) of sport weight yarn, 2 at a time. 

Two skeins went into the goldenrod bath after I strained out the flowers.  After straining out the husks, I put 4 cups of walnut juice in a pot with a bunch more water and added one skein that I had put in the alum mordant, and one skein that was only soaked in water and a little dish soap.  I had read that the alum would give a more golden brown color than with no mordant.  Walnut husks need no mordant.  And one skein went into the remaining full-strength walnut bath.  Everyone got simmered about an hour.  Soon the skeins were rinsed, washed, rinsed again and hanging to dry.  Here they are after they are completely dry:  2 goldenrod, full strength black walnut, alum mordant in diluted black walnut, no mordant in diluted black walnut.

I can see a slight golden color to the alum / walnut skein.  They look much more brown in real life, and less gray.

After all that, I went foraging in the freezer where I found a bag of marigold blossoms my mom had collected and saved for me last fall.  I put those in water to soak overnight.

Yesterday (Monday), I boiled up my marigolds and set the pot outside to cool.  I also went to town to purchase a few things for my next project — a candy thermometer, rit dye remover and ammonia.

Today I simmered one of my mordant-ed skeins in the marigold bath.  It is hanging to dry.

Then I went to the garden and harvested some of my indigo plants.  I pulled the leaves from the stalks and put them in a big glass jar.

The leaves smashed down into about 1/3 of the jar.  They are currently getting warmed up in the jar in a big pot of water. 

Stay tuned – the marigold yarn is looking good.   I’ve never done anything like indigo before so I have no idea what to expect.  I got my seeds from this site.  You can go there to see the instructions I’m following. 

Between the farmer’s market and the festivals I went to as a vendor, I got a couple custom orders.   I like custom orders because there is no way I can have everything ready-made in every color and every size.   And it is always nice to make ‘just what I wanted!’ for someone.   But I always worry about getting custom orders done on time and whether it meet the customer’s expectation. 

Here is a hat requested by Kelly:

The pattern is from my Pattern-a-Day calendar, March 25, 2005, Twist and Sprout Hat.  Modified for 100% alpaca yarn, natural white.   She will be picking it up at Farm Tour. 

 And Dr. Rita wanted these hats for gifts for her kids (I hope the kids don’t read blogs!  They are only 3 and 4 – guess they are probably not reading much of anything!)

The pattern is also from my Pattern-a-Day calendar, November 1, 2007, Toddler’s Angora Hat.  I added the ear flaps and ties. Yarn is 80% alpaca 20%acrylic.  She plans to pick them up at the Farmer’s Market tomorrow. 

These are for Paula, who wants one pair of felted mittens.

I’ll felt them tomorrow morning before the Market.  They’ll still be a little wet so we can custom fit them and she can choose the color she prefers.  They are 100% alpaca yarn, from my generic mitten pattern.

The ‘field test’ reports are just in for my newest offering:

Any ideas?  Here’s a hint:  Field-testing was done by the house-cats of Sawtooth Star Alpacas!  Yes, they are toys for the pampered kitty.   Felted alpaca fiber, stuffed with catnip and sewn up with extra long yarn to give your kitty something to chase! 

I’ve also finished a few more pair of fingerless gloves / wrist warmers.  

They are big sellers.  I’m going to make some with the fuzzy yarn (like the baby hats).   Keeping busy is good! 

All the alpacas here are doing good.   We now have 3 spitting girls – Embrace, Spotsie and Chestina.  (When a female alpaca spits at a male alpaca who has love on his mind, it is a pretty good indication that the female is pregnant.)  Chestina has only spit twice – so we have a while longer to wait before we can have blood drawn and sent in to the lab for a progesterone test – which will verify pregnancy. 

The purpose of this blog was to share life on an alpaca farm.   And while there have always been unpleasant aspects, this last week has been the worst ever.   We lost our precious Rosita to liver failure.   I’m re-reading the blog entries about her:  training her for the Alpaca Expo, the results from the Expo and the trip home, and the trip to take Rosita to be bred in Iowa.   Last Wednesday, I got a call from the farm where she was staying.  They were taking her to the University because she was not well.  She was started on IV antibiotics when the vets determined her liver was the problem.  But the antibiotics didn’t help, she never regained an appetite, continued to loose weight and Monday evening the vet called to say that Rosita was having seizures and they felt it best to put her down.   And so we gave our okay.   And she is gone, she will not come home, she will not have a baby next year.  She wasn’t even 3 years old.  I miss her. 

The Alpacas of Minnesota Farm Tour 2008 is quickly approaching.  SO FAST!!!  Way too fast. 

See what Darryl made:

Okay – he made the display – a nifty birch log with holes for pencils and little legs to keep it upright.  And on the pencils are little finger puppets.   They are hand-made in Ecuador.   I’m selling them as a fund raiser for friends doing missionary work.  They are about as cute as can be and now will have a proper place to be seen during Farm Tour.  

Yesterday I got into the Kool-Aid and look what happened.

All but the green are 6 oz skeins.   That is the perfect size for a scarf.   I’ve only one of the scarves left from the last batch of dyeing.   The plan is to have at least a couple more scarves knit by Farm Tour.  The green was the end of the cone of yarn and is about 9 oz.  The green and any of the others NOT knit into scarves will be available at Farm Tour. 

There is spinning to do, more dyeing, knitting……..