Things Are Cooking in My Kitchen Again

It's been ages since I did any dyeing. Yesterday I decided to change that and to try something I haven't done before: acid dyeing wool with fibre-reactive dye. I have a knitted scarf with matching wrist warmers that I made several years ago from some lovely hand painted 100 % merino wool from Uruguay. You can see the original post I wrote about the wool and the scarf here.

The scarf

However, after the yarn had been knitted, the overall impression was a bit more orange and speckled than what I had expected and this has bothered me ever since. Well, I'm a dyer, so why should I let something like that bother me? So I got out my pot and dye and got started.

Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble...

I normally prefer cold-water and low-water dyeing techniques to hot water and immersion dyeing, but I enjoyed trying something else for a change. I haven't had much experience in dyeing wool and using an acid dye bath instead of an alkaline one, so I was curious to see the result. Wool takes a bit of patience as you can't rush the process unless you want your yarn or knitted garment felted in the process. Many of us have indeed personal experience of what happens when you throw a woolen garment in hot water and agitate it. I managed to make a trivet out of my favourite beret many years ago.

The result was perhaps not as saturated as I expected, but I love the way the original colours  (violet, orange and pink) still shine through even though the overall colour has been modified. The scarf is much nicer now that the lighter areas have been replaced with red.

Just enough red to even out the colour, but preserve some of the original colours.

I'm pretty sure this will be a renaissance for this scarf. In fact, I've even used it indoors today because it's so soft and cosy.

Thanks for visiting my blog! I hope I've inspired you to give overdyeing a go if you have some item of clothing in the back of your wardrobe that just needs a bit of colour adjustment. Just remember that synthetic fibres do not accept dye like natural fibres, so make sure you check the fibre contents first, and read the dye manufacturer's instructions carefully before you start! Have fun!

'Twelve Days of Christmas' Socks

Many of us are World Champions when it comes to starting new projects, but find it a little more difficult to finish these projects, as there are so many other fun projects to start! I'm a prime example! I have a book which is jam-packed with beautiful sock patterns (Around the World in Knitted Socks), and I want to knit most of them. Well, at least make a start on them... It seems it will take me two years to finish each pair, so the 26 different models will keep me busy for the rest of my life.

Two years ago I finished my first pair from the book (link), and I have been using them this Christmas as my official Christmas socks. As soon as I finished the first pair, however, I started on another pair, which I finished today. Yay! I think they will replace the first pair as my official Christmas socks, or perhaps they could be my Twelve Days of Christmas socks. They have the right two turtle doves theme to be appropritate.

Thanks for visiting my blog! Grab a UFO (UnFinished Object) and finish it! Big or small doesn't matter, it will be most satisfying no matter what!

'Tis the Season to Be Jolly (And to Stay Warm)

As soon as the autumn term reached its end and I no longer needed to focus on teaching, I had a craving for wool. Within a week I had started three different wool projects: one knitted, one crocheted and one felted. Last night I finished the knitted one, and I call it my Christmas elf hat. It's long, tapering and fun, and from the book Sticka mera småvarmt by Johanna Wallin. The author suggests the hat would be excellent for a garden gnome. I can see her point.

I put it on for the first time today for our Christmas stroll with Fia the Terri(fi)er, and felt like a regular Christmas elf-gnome.

Merry Christmas!

God jul!

Hyvää joulua!

- Annika

On the First Day of Christmas...

Happy holidays everyone! I’m sorry that I’ve been a stranger to this blog all autumn. I’ve been working hard, and I guess sometimes you just have to give yourself a break and accept that you don’t always have time and energy for everything. I’ve neglected a lot of the things I normally love to do, but now I feel it’s time to reclaim those things. I guess it’s all about planning: I need to consciously make time for art again, as well as blogging. I’m starting with a short update on what I’ve been up to so far during my Christmas break.

I’ve been working on two new Pretty Purses:

Purse 1, quilted (in progress)

Purse 2, quilted (in progress)

and with added hand embroidery (in progress)

I’m also working on a mini quilt with the same poppy motif I used last summer.

Surface designed fabric ready to be quilted

Quilted, and with some hand embroidery (in progress)

And, joy of joys, I did some work in my sketchbook, inspired by patterns I found on a gift wrap and a flower pot:

And of course I have a Christmas knitting project…

for when I want to relax in the sofa with Fia the Terri(fi)er. (Mum’s busy hands can be seen knitting in the background.)

I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season! Thanks for dropping by! - Annika

From Cuffs to Colour

After my second intense dyecation it's been rather quiet in the dyeing department. True, today I did some dyeing, but it was just overdyeing a pair of sun-bleached cargo shorts. Nothing much to blog about there. Last Sunday was Mother's Day, so I spent the weekend with my folks up north. On the train journey there and back I knitted and crocheted a pair of cuffs. I bought a kit with patterns and materials for a scarf, cuffs and a brooch from a local craft shop, Taito shop Helsky. Everything apart from the brooch is finished and ready to wear:

 

This is what the scarf looked like when I started. It didn't look very promising at that stage, but it turned out fine.

A couple of days ago artist Melanie Testa's new book Dreaming from the Journal Page. Transforming the sketchbook to art lay on my doorstep when I got home from work.

It's been a long and impatient wait, and now I'm eager to immerse myself in her wisdom. I started today by jumping straight into a couple of the colour exercises in the book.

First I did a colour chart of the watercolours in my palette. I use Royal Talens's van Gogh watercolours, for no other reason than that they suited my budget at the time I wanted to invest in watercolours.

The other exercise I did was to grab a pile of magazines and select a colour. I then flicked through the magazines and cut out swatches of that colour in different values and leanings. I didn't analyse too much, just cut out colours that suited my mood and that I felt were related. I was quite surprised by how much colour I found in these magazines. It wasn't difficult at all to fill a page, but perhaps it was because I chose pink. Pink is pretty hot this spring, it seems. We'll see what happens when I do the next colour.

Next, I glued the swatches onto a sketchbook page in an arrangement that was pleasing to me, and then I studied the different values and leanings and tried to mix them with my watercolours. This will be a really useful reference in the future, and I wonder why on earth I haven't done this before. I guess I needed someone to point it out to me.

For a good reason Melanie calls herself 'agent provocateur' on her webpage. She's very generous with her knowledge, and through her blog and video challenges on YouTube she has done much to help me along on my own creative journey. Anyone who wants to learn some really cool things to do with their sketchbook or visual journal, and who wants to learn how to use what they have in their sketchbook as a starting point for textile work should check out Melanie's new book, as well as her first book Inspired to Quilt, which I have mentioned many times before on this blog.

Thanks for visiting, and stay tuned for more of my explorations into colour and cloth. - Annika

Happy Easter

My plans for the Easter vacation were very simple: to sleep, take long walks, finish a couple of projects and hang around with my folks and Fia the Terri(fi)er. So far, things have gone according to plan. I finshed a tank top with an Alabama Chanin-inspired motif on the back (you will recognise the peony from the market bag I finished recently)...

... as well as the slipover I started knitting in February.

 (See the bed cover? I finished that in 1998! Phew, that was a long runner. 

I don't think I'll do another one in a while.)

And here I hang around with the sweet Terri(fi)er.

Enjoy the holiday! - Annika

Fun and Games Coming This Way

It feels like it's been ages since I engaged in any creative activities. I've been working, struggling with a number of everyday annoyances, tired, and also away from home. Last week I enjoyed an extended weekend with my folks in Ostrobothnia. I did some knitting there, and that sums up my creative activities for the last 10 days or so. Mind you, I had to be pretty creative with that knitting of mine, because I didn't check the gauge (I normally do!), and I discovered too late that the slipover was threatening to become too small. Yes, there's a reason why the instructions always ask us to check the gauge..

Slipover, back piece blocked

But now fun and games are coming this way: I'm off work for a week, and I'm planning to experiment with fabric dyeing. I have two different brands of fibre reactive dyes lined up: Procion MX dye and EMO Tuotanto dye (a Finnish brand). More about this soon. Right now I'm in the process of gathering my tools. I've bought a whole bagful of plastic bottles of different sizes and raided my cupboards for old plastic ice cream tubs. A friend is helping me out with the ice cream tubs. She got out her own and asked around for more, and has even generously offered to buy and eat ice cream during the weekend so that I'll get even more tubs. A friend in need is a friend indeed.

Procion MX dyes awaiting their turn

Notice the clever bowl/plate: I got that from another friend, after I had been plant-sitting for her while she was away on a trip. It's made out of a flat piece of wood that opens up like a cross between a bowl and a plate when you lift it up.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more to come soon! - Annika