We All Have To ‘DYE’ sometime…

I LOVE to dye with natural dyestuffs that I gather on walks, and last weekend was a beautiful, sunny day to go for a walk in the woods of West Georgia. My favorite natural dye to use is from lichens. They usually produce a lovely clear golden color. The liquid can also be fermented with ammonia to produce a bright purple/pink color.

The dye produced by lichens is very colorfast, and the yarn dyed with lichens has the most wonderful smell. To learn more about these amazing mutualistic organisms see link at the bottom of the post.

It’s fun to experiment dyeing with different plants. You can try leaves, bark, nutshells, flowers, roots, etc… Even foods in your kitchen like herbs and onion skins can make great dyes. You’ll be amazed at all the different dyeing material you can discover in your yard and neighborhood if you just look. (Word of caution: always use stainless steel or enamel pans and once used for dyeing, don’t use them again for food).

Once upon a time, I was a member of a garden club! One year I came up with an idea for a fundraiser for the club. I gave each member a long list of dye plants and asked each one to bring something on the list to the next meeting. I then took all that stuff home and made individual dye pots. I dyed skeins of natural wool and then wove them into a shawl for which we sold raffle tickets. The shawl really turned out nice, our club made a lot of money, and my best friend won the raffle!!! Everyone thought it was rigged, but honestly it was on the up and up.

I believe that the MOST wonderful thing about natural dyes is that no matter how many colors you use, they all look beautiful together. So now – turn off your computer, get a big basket and walk around your neighborhood and gather some gorgeous dye stuffs.

http://www.backyardnature.net/lichens.htm

Does Angora come from a goat or a bunny? And what is a Yak???

Today I want to write about various animal fibers. I'll write about plant fibers another day.

Alpaca fiber comes from the animal of the same name. It is a small camelid that is indigenous to South America. It is related to the llama and looks very similar, though much smaller than a llama. The natural colors of the fiber can range from white to tans to many shades of brown to grays to black. The fiber is luxuriously soft and light and warm.


Angora comes from the Angora rabbit, which originally came from Turkey. The fibers are obtained by combing the rabbit. The wool is amazingly soft and fine, and is usually combined with other soft wools to make it easier to spin.


Cashmere comes from the Cashmere goat, which has a coarse outer coat and a very fine undercoat. The undercoat is shed or can be combed. If the animal is sheared, then the not-so-desirable coarse outer hair gets mixed in with the soft luxurious inner coat.


Mohair comes from the fiber of the Angora goat. This makes it confusing because of the Angora rabbit. The fiber is warm and fuzzy and a bit 'hairy'.


Qiviut is wool from the musk-ox, which lives in VERY cold places like Siberia and Greenland and Alaska. You might have correctly guessed that their wool is extremely warm. No other hoofed animal lives in such cold climates. They live in herds of from 10-20 animals. They've been around while (used to hang out with woolly mammoths!) The qiviut wool (the undercoat) is unbelievably light- weight and soft. I have knitted with qiviut yarn before, and it is truly luxurious.


Yaks are long-haired animals that live in the Himalayans of Central Asia. They have a very soft undercoat that can be removed by combing. They get up to about 1200 pounds, so I’ll let someone else comb them.

Do you feel warped yet?

For those of you who might have an interest in learning to weave, but don’t know much about it, I thought I would write about some of the basics of the loom and throw in some weaving ‘lingo’ you can add to your vocabulary.

In simplest terms, weaving is manipulating threads/fibers to make a web. It can be a shelter of woven branches or a fine linen handkerchief. At its most basic, one thread (the weft) alternates going over and under a group of threads that run perpendicular to the weft (the warp). When this is a simple over one, under one, over one, under one, etc..., this is called ‘plain weave’ or ‘tabby’.

In my last post, I mentioned several different types of looms (jack, counter-marche, etc…), so let me explain what those terms mean. First of all, floor looms (looms that sit on the floor) have harnesses that are manipulated by the weaver to control the pattern. On a jack loom, the selected harnesses raise up to make the shed (or opening) for the yarn to pass through. On a counter-balance loom, the harnesses work in tandem and must be ‘balanced’. When half of them go up, the other half go down. On a counter-marche loom, some harnesses go up, and some go down, but all independently of each other. This type loom is best for weaving linen (which has no elasticity). It puts less stress on the thread, plus it makes a nice large shed through which to pass the thread-filled shuttle.

There are many other types of looms that folk snobbily call ‘primitive’, used (of course) by people we ethnocentrically also refer to as ‘primitive’. I will happily discuss them and the amazing NON-primitive fabrics woven on them/by them in an upcoming post.

So, You're Thinking About Learning to Weave...

I started weaving back in 1985, and I’ve never stopped. I love the creativity that it affords me. Each project can be completely different, and as simple or complex as I want it to be. I can use any fiber, from a very fine linen or silk to a bulky wool. I can add texture, patterns, and colors. I am limited only by my imagination.

I have several looms now. I started off with a Schacht Baby Wolf. I still have one, but I also have a 36” Harrisville jack loom and a 48” Cranbrook/Schacht countermarche loom. I also have a couple of really old looms that are waiting patiently to be restored.

If you’re just beginning to weave or are thinking about taking a class, I know that the prices of looms and other equipment you would need seem very daunting. If you get ‘bitten’ by the weaving bug, there are several options that need not drain you financially. I think the best option is to check out the weaving guild(s) in your area. They often have looms and other equipment that they let folk borrow or rent at a really low price. That buys you some time to make sure that weaving is something that you really want to continue. If/when you decide that you MUST have your own loom, those same guilds are also good places to look for used looms and other weaving equipment that members have for sale.

Plants Used as Fibers in Pre-History

My degree in Anthropology/Archaeology and my interest in textiles and fibers go hand-in-hand. Fibers and textiles are rarely preserved, but there have been enough remains found to show us that people were using plants for fiber as far back as the Upper Paleolithic. People used branches and large plant materials to weave shelters. Later, plant fibers were twisted and plied to make cordage and rope. This progressed to knotting which produced fishing nets, nets for catching birds and other small prey, clothing, and bags for carrying things.

One of the most important plant fibers was linen. It comes from the flax plant, Linum usitatissimum. The wild flax plant was Linum bienne. Its use can be corroborated back to the Upper Paleolithic – a plied rope from Lascaux Cave in France is dated to 15,000 BP.

Textiles can be preserved by desiccation, freezing, bogs, mud, charring, and impressions. A famous Venus figurine from Lespugue, France and dated to 20,000 years ago depicts a woman wearing a string skirt.

Other important fibers in prehistory were cotton and hemp. The earliest evidence for the Old World cotton comes from the Harappan sites in India around 2000 BCE. In the New World archaeological evidence indicates that cotton was domesticated in South America and Mexico. Remains of cotton have been found at a site in South America and dated to 2500 BCE. It is believed that cotton was domesticated in Mexico ca. 3500 BCE.

Welcome!

I am a weaver, spinner, knitter, musician, gardener, pet lover, and anthropologist! I'm new to the 'blogosphere', so this will be a learning experience. I am excited about having my own space to write about my crafts and other interests and to be able to share and interact with others about same.

Jenny