Hop & Cochineal

Dyeing is not meant for busy and restless persons. This week I've been doing plant dyeing. At the same time I've been writing a letter to a dear friend, using the yarn winder to make balls of dyed and dried yarn. Reading is also a good idea when dyeing.

I have quite a lot hop growing in my arctic traditional garden. Every year I use it for different purposes. It has sedative effect but it is also suitable for plant dyeing.

For the 1st time I bought and used cochineal for dyeing process. It is a tiny cactus-dwelling insect that produces a vibrant red pigment.

Here you can see the result compared to original natural shade of AAW yarn. But, this is not the end of dyeing. There are still many kilos left AAW yarn. I am working to get more than the natural shades. 

YarnThing

This week I've been up to yarns. That's why also Liinu had a work to do.

Liinu helped me to create more twist on some yarn.

After that I made the warp for a project. It is one project which needs three different kind of warps.

This week I also set up the winding equipment I bought on the summer 2022 at second hand shop and paid just 15€. It is old proper carpenter work. 

It is simple and reduced but still have beautiful details that prove the artisan work.

It is huge. You can twine smaller but also a lot bigger skeins with it.

I used to borrow my mother-in-law's twining equipment but during covid bought myself one. I need it so often that it is easier to have my own. This KnitPro's twining equipment is smaller than the one I found at second hand so that's why I bought also it. Besides, I can let the students to use both on my craft courses.

KnitPro's twining equipment has needed details with reduced design.

Its screws are plastic so we'll see how they will last in use. 

Anyway, this KnitPro winding equipment is a good quality and I like also it already. It came with a cardboard back so you can use it to store the equipment in a small space when not in use.

 

With the KnitPro winding equipment I bought a bigger yarn winder. Because I now have two full sets, two students can do the same task at the same time on my craft course.

Yarn on Saturday

Traditionally Holy Saturday is called in Finnish as "lankalauantai". It consists of two words: "lanka" and "lauantai". "Lanka" means yarn and "lauantai" means Saturday. Traditionally they have done all the rest of the wool works that has been left from the past winter. In Finland it still is not time to shear the sheep but it is time to sort out, spin and dye the remaining wool.

We did a great job to wind up 25 skeins of different kind of yarns for the further use. Now I have many balls waiting to be knit and crocheted away!

FUN - NO - FUN - NO!

This is 100% Finnsheep wool bought few years ago from a spinnery. It has the natural colour. I was given 1kg of it to do my magic and make it to disappear. I was home alone -not alone- but felt very alone with it all. It was in skeins and I needed to wind it up. Easy to say. But the disaster happened and it all got mixed up. Well, not all, just one 100g skein... But it felt like all...

No, oh no, no, no no. She had nothing to do with it. Or had she? But I found her by following the yarn...

She was not interested about it at all. But it took me for 2 hours to roll it all up to a ball and then wind it up with the yarn winder. She was lurking in the shadows and somehow the yarn changed a place...

Eventually I caught her. 

Or did I? 

Noooo, yep, nooo...