Flax Study Group 2020 –Seed removal Part 1 (from the stocks)

Flax Study Group 2020 –Seed removal Part 1 (from the stocks)

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This is the part I missed last year, so was particularly interested in photographing and participating this year.

When we last left off we had had a very hot dry summer, the flax had matured more quickly than anticipated and we harvested early. We considered a second planting but there were a number of health issues in the group this summer so we decided against it. The flax was picked, bundled and stacked along the fence. Once dry, it would be moved inside to await the decapitation. We decided on a date Aug 29th when most of us could attend.

Well, that was the plan, between harvest and getting dry enough to put in the barn there was a distinct change in the weather. All the rain we would have liked earlier arrived now that we had harvested. Thus, the flax took longer to dry than expected and it looks to have started to do a bit of field retting.

1-2 the dried flax

3 3 Aug 29th, 2020 everything is wet but it’s not raining at the moment.

The day arrived for our torture of the Flax and it was overcast and looked like rain. We gathered in the coverall barn while the cows nibbled the stocks of the picked cornfield.

4 4 the cows were only mildly interested at this point

While I waited for the flax to be moved from one barn to the coverall, I admired the corn protection devices. There were a number of beech balls with eyes bobbing away and a cool black kite that went up and down in the breeze. It was fascinating, I think I need one for my garden if it works on chipmunks I might get a few strawberries!!

 

5-6 garden guards

Gord used his pickup to transport the harvest. Even with the stocks being shorter this year, there is a lot of flax! I had nice white new tarps in the car and we spread them out to place the flax on as we slowly worked our way through the pile.

7 7 flax arrival

There was a bucket of seed heads that had fallen off in the other barn which were also collected and brought to the coverall.

88 floor sweepings from storage

We had a number of experiments with seed extraction devices this year.  Last year the pillowcase and rolling pin method was most effective. This year we had that, a fish thwapper and a blank for a baseball bat to crush the seed pods releasing the seeds. We had a funnel to try a different form of winnowing and  Cole had brought a nasty implement with blades. He also re-tried the double rack used also like a hackle that had been suggested but had not been effective last year. This year the rakes were secured together with elastic and Velcro.

The funnel was interesting, it was used to swirl the crushed seed pods and chaff. We expected the seed to fall to the bottom and the chaff to migrate towards the top. While we could see a bit of this happening, we suspected that the seed this year is not as heavy or large as last year’s, so it is not as effective as we had hoped. This may work out very well next year so we will try it again.

9-12 the funnel separator

1313 this years seed are small and light (not just in colour)

The next implement was the fish thwapper.  Its basically like a rolling pin without the handles for hitting fish with. The unsuspecting flax was stuffed headfirst into the pillowcase (a small amount worked better than a large amount). When the flax was well incased in the pillowcase we brought out our weapons of choice, with either the thwapper, bat blank or rolling pins we rolled or beat the now blinded and unsuspecting flax till it was decapitated.

 14-19 rolling and hitting method

All this violence left us with the decapitated stocks, crushed seed heads and a few very tiny light cloured seeds. Most of us were using this method. You can check out Gord’s roller, which is a blank to make a baseball bat!

 20 21 more rolling

2222 Gord was flax-covid-coordinated with his mask matching his pillowcase!

The tarp at the back of the picture has the flax that has not been decapitated yet. The near tarp with the pile closest to the front of the picture is the fibre we had worked on.

2323 making progress

We are still under halfway there but already had a large number of flax stocks, chaff and hopefully some tiny seeds in amongst the chaff.

24 24 Chaff and seed collection

As I said earlier Cole brought a homemade implement to torture the flax with, it had blades set at an angle and he was drawing the flax through. It was working to separate the seed heads but it was taking some of the stock ends with it. It was also vary sharp and a bit scary (even for me).

25-28 blade implement

Next, he tried the two mettle tine racks Velcroed and elasticed together. This had not been effective last year but I had not been there with my handy elastic and Velcro tie downs!

29 29 This method seemed to be less harmful to both the flax and Cole.

30-32 the two rake method

Seedhead removal was very quick compared to the pillowcase method. There was still some stalk damage but not as much as the blades.  if you had to do a full field of flax this would be appealing.

Partway through the morning, I noticed the clean-up crew that Cathy Louise had on call.  One was working the aria under the wheelbarrow and another pair were covering the area where Gord had backed up to unload his pick-up.

 

 33-36 Barn cleaners

We continued working while keeping an eye on the clean-up crew in case they got over-enthusiastic and went for the flax.

37-38 chaff and seed

You can see bits of seeds in with the chaff. There will be a lot of work for the winnowing basket but with the seed so light and small, it too may disappear in the breeze

39 39 We have about 1/3 -ish left to decapitate.

40 40 The finished pile is growing too!

41-44 rolling thwapping and raking continued

4545 We can see a bit of seed

4646 artsy shot

Through the day, we had herd intermittent rain on the roof but this was getting to be waves of heavy downpours. Looking out the cow end of the coverall we could see the rain pelting down.

4747 More Rain!!!

4848 We finally reached the end of the pile!!

All that was left to do was crush the seed heads Cole had been separating. For that, we used the shovel to add the seed head to the pillowcases. Now back to rolling and thumping

4950 49-50

Just as we started the rolling  Henry returned from his quest. I think we should leave that for next week! you will have to wait to see what a brilliant idea he had!

The Wool is Here!

The Wool is Here!

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I needed to order some wool and Jan need some wool, in the hopes of being able to teach again. And… Well….who doesn’t need more wool.  I order a large amount when I order. I was aiming for 20 kg. The shipping gets cheaper if you order more. I picked out what I wanted and Jan picked out what she wanted. We took several days to do this. And then having reached 20kg I realized I had not added in the 5 kg of Corriedale I wanted. Well, that means I need to get 40kg as I am in the next shipping bracket. Add some wool I had only been thinking about and some more dyed fibre and then ask a few others I know with week will power, that might want several kgs of wool, not little retail amounts, I made it up to 40kg.  Hit the order button and hear my bank account shriek. LOL, my spell checker wants to change shriek to shrink. Now we wait. a few days later it was in Indianapolis Indiana in the USA, then Montreal Quebec, then Ottawa Ontario.  whoops, then Indianapolis again.   That does seem right… It’s not, here it is on my doorstep. Yay, wait a min there is only one box.

Her it is Jan took these on Saturday when she dropped by to pick you her goodie order. She was busy doing flax and wouldn’t make it to the market. You can see it is not a square box.

I kept checking but the FedEx site just kept saying it was in transit in Indianapolis. Then the site tried to tell me I had no packages so I called them and after a bit convinced the automated system that I was stupid and needed to speak to a human. He had a hard time finding it but said it was waiting for customs clearance. Hmm, I wonder if they will open it or x-ray it. It was there for several days. And then, at last, it arrived

Well, that’s odd that isn’t a white World of Wool box. I bet they opened it and couldn’t get it back in the box. LOL on them. I have had this happen before but it came with the top open and lots of customs tape over the top to keep everything from falling out. It was quite funny.

The first to open was the white box.

 

I dug down in the white box and it seems to be the batts and prefelt.

 

 

I dug down into the second box about halfway. I put it all back in. I don’t have room to let it expand right now. I have to keep my table clear for baking tomorrow. My table does double duty. It has to be cleaned to do felt and then cleaned to do tarts. I have a rolling stone but I need the room for the tart trays.

As you can see it is not packed to the top so I do think it was repacked into a larger box at customs.

I am pretty sure the white you can see inside is the Corriedale. and partway down I found the packing slip and the nice thankyou postcard you always get in these orders. They are usually on the top.

It all went back in the FedEx box but not into the WOW box

The FedEx still shows the parcel as pending with no delivery estimate. I think their site is broken but if they want to deliver more wool I will be happy to take it.

Monday is a holiday and we will don our masks and meet on Jan’s lawn to sort out all the wool parcels. She is in about the middle of where we all live.  I am sure Jan will take lots of pictures of the happy wool gathering.

 

 

 

Autumn Nuno Hand Stitch Update

Autumn Nuno Hand Stitch Update

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The last time I updated you on my autumn nuno landscape it looked like this. I have been slowly continuing to add more color into the middle background area with seed stitch. I added a lot of red orange as well as green and even some dark purple.

Here you can see more of the red orange additions and the purple that I used for a shadow color. I decided to use the dark purple instead of brown or black. Black is definitely too stark and I think the cool color in the middle of the red orange gives it more “pop”.

Here is the area where I added more green. You can see on the left that I haven’t finished filling in the green.

And here is the piece as it is at this point. I still need to add some more shadow shapes in the red orange swath and perhaps a bit more definition of the aspen trunks in the distance. Can you see the area that will become the foreground aspen trees? It is finally looking more landscape to me. So I will keep on with my slow stitching and update you on my progress next month.

Third Quarter Challenge – Felt Hat

Third Quarter Challenge – Felt Hat

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hat view 1

I found this delightful free pattern for a reversible wool hat, and with the kind permission of the author, Daniela Gutierrez-Diaz,  here is a LINK to her pattern and a photo of her hat.

original hat

First job was to print the pattern and stick it together to try it for size.  I discovered that I needed to reduce the size by 12% – easily done on the print settings.

pattern

Then I could work out the size of felt fabric I needed to make.  I used 4 layers of mid-green merino wool to make a rectangle then topped it with a pattern of diagonal stripes of open-weave fabric, yarns and nepps.  The dry layout was 100 x 60cms (40″ x 24″).

felt fabric

I got the idea for the pattern by looking down at my skirt!

pattern inspiration

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had to make a few adaptations to the pattern because the felt fabric was thicker than the fabric used in Daniela’s pattern.

Instead of folding the fabric over itself into a tube then flattening it with zig-zag, I cut the straps in half widthways, backed them with thin cotton fabric then zig-zagged around the edges.

straps

The hat was designed to be made from two layers of fabric then ‘bagged out’ but the felt wasn’t suitable for that, so I applied an adhesive web to a piece of thin green cotton fabric then ironed it onto the felt fabric to form the lining.

I cut away the excess cotton fabric…

lining

…then neatened the bottom edge with zig-zag stitch.

The crown of the hat is formed by joining together the points.  I butted the edges of the felt together and sewed them shut with zig-zag stitch.

stitiching top together

first top seam

The first one was easy but it became progressively harder as more felt bunched up under the machine.

stitching top together 1

But here it is finished…

hat view 2

…and the view of the top.

hat view 3

With all the lovely weather we’re having this year, it’s hard to imagine it being cold enough to wear this hat!

 

Flax Harvest 2020

Flax Harvest 2020

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This summer, has been vary different from what I had expected at the beginning of 2020. With covid19’s arrival, we have not been out much, so even weeding the flax patches a month ago seemed wildly exciting, well more so than last year weeding seemed. we are even more excited about being part of the Flax study group for year 2, since we get a chance to see some of our guild friends even if we are a bit farther apart than we normally would be.

Last time i updated you on that fabulous fun of weeding the flax. We had intended to do a second weeding but our plans did not work out.  Instead we had a very Hot Dry spell. You may have noticed the temperature while i was felting outside (in the shade).

On July 12th, Cathy Louise let us know the flax was almost ready for harvest. The blast of heat pushed the seed ripening faster than we had expected.  The flax stalk are not as tall as we hoped but if the seed is ready it’s time to harvest!

1 1 the flax is waiting for us

So, we set a Saturday most of us could attend and  on July 25th we met to harvest this year’s 2 rows of flax.  We had a brief chat and inspection to check the ripeness of the seeds in both rows and realized that much of the flax had ripe seed, so we would harvest all of it now. Last year we did a large harvest and saved a small amount to see if the fully ripe seed would have better germination. (You can see the germination rate from both harvest times produced similar results.) From the pictures, you can see that both rows had very similar success.  We also found that a clump in the west row had been seeded more densely than the rest of the flax and it both helped support the naboughring stocks and had less weed intrusion. If we continue with year 3 we may try to increase from the recommended seed density.

  2-4 ripe and ready to harvest

We took out the support string that had been added to support the flax in case of heavy rain.

 5-6 removing the support strings

We then dispersed ourselves to start the picking on both rows, from both ends.

As we did last year when we harvested the flax, we selected a small amount of flax and pulled it up with the roots. The dirt knocked off and a stock or two is used to tie the bundle together.

 7-9 bundling flax

And repeat!!

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10-26 Flax harvest in progress

As we gathered and tied the flax, we started to line the bundles up along the fence to dry. You can see the line of flax growing behind the flax pickers.

2927-30 drying bundle collect along the fence

  31-32 pile wating to go to the fence

We have about 1/3rd of the rows picked, you can see the weeds that that have been left after the flax is removed.

33-34 flax picked weeds remain

We kept going and soon were finding more weeds than flax were left.

35-40  starting to run out of flax

One of our team was collecting the weeds for his pigs and chickens to enjoy!

41-43 weeding

Can you see the flax bundles along the fence at the back of the patch and continuing to the left along the fence and into the market garden.

 44-46 the flax drying line grows

4748 47-48 the harvest drying

This is the after harvest shot and the weeds are being collected.

4950  49-50 Most of the flax harvesting team

Here is our harvest team at the end of this years harvest (Glenn myself and Cathy Louise are missing from the large group shot)

The flax sat drying along the fence, then it was turned and continued drying.

5451-54 Drying in the heat and sun

Once it was completely dry, (now we got the rain we needed earlier), it was collected and moved to the barn to await the next step. Separate the seed from the stock,  Decapitation, which will be violent and exciting!!!  But more on that next time!

5556

55-56 the unsuspecting dried flax awaiting us

 

 

An Interesting Cowl Experiment, Part One Design

An Interesting Cowl Experiment, Part One Design

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Here is the link to the pattern I used for inspiration. https://catbordhi.com/wp-content/uploads/Rio-Calina-Cowl-1.3.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2sORW3PfXAJ3hP9Rcf_ZGYJM0rMsn5kdSnELmee1ca33VxeaoSSg2HLsw

When I saw it it had been shared form here.  It is a free pattern.   https://www.facebook.com/groups/knitscents/

When knitting this you do it flat and sew it together. I am not a great sewer and it would end up not looking very good. So I want to figure out how to do it over a resist.  It will also take up a lot less room when felting if it is around a resist.

I cut a piece of paper 36 inches by 9 inches.  The pattern is 34 inches long but it was easier for me to measure 3 feet. I have footmarks along the edge of my table. The 9 was a guess.

Next was figuring out the folding. the pattern has the cowl divided into 3 and you join it fold to fold. This is what happens when you try that with paper. You can’t align them properly because the bottom is bigger than the top.

I adjusted the folds until they aligned properly and taped it again. Then I folded it in half along the length.

This is going to be too small. It works with knitting because it has stretch, felt and paper do not. It makes an interesting hat.

I decided to slide it down to my neck. It was just manageable. I turned it over too.

So 3 feet isn’t the right length. I will try 4 feet.

This one worked well. it goes on fairly easy and it is not tight around my neck.  Of course, it won’t be as stiff as the paper.

It won’t be as bulky as the knit one but I think it will still be nice.  I may have it done in time to be another item for the 3rd quarter challenge. https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2020/07/07/2020-third-quarter-challenge/  There is still time for you to join in too. You can share your items on the forum. https://feltandfiberstudio.proboards.com/thread/4185/2020-third-quarter-challenge

 

 

 

 

 

Prefelt and Structure

Prefelt and Structure

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If you have been following my experiments lately, I have been trying felt rope as a base for structure. I had a request to try the same experiment with prefelt to see if there was any difference between the two.

I made  a piece of prefelt and cut it into strips with a rotary cutter. I decided to use two strips to give the same weight as the felt rope in my prior experiment. I also covered the same resist with two layers of wool laid perpendicular to the length of the resist.

I used two strips of prefelt and wrapped around the resist. These were stitched in place with yellow 30 weight machine thread. It was easier to stitch the prefelt than the felt rope.

I then covered this with two more layers of wool over the prefelt strips wrapped in the same direction as the first layer. The photos above show the piece after I removed the resist and the photo on the right is a closer look at one of the prefelt strip areas. It definitely shrank differently than the felt rope. The rope got very wavy under the felt.

And here it is after fulling and shaping. The only different thing that I did this time was to continue to stretch the prefelt areas into circular shapes as I was fulling. I think that helped to smooth out the circles compared to my last try.

And here are the two together. The one on the left is made with felt rope and the one on the right is with prefelt. Essentially the same thing. As you can see, the rope is a bit wavier but that might have been avoided if I have stretched it more during fulling. The thing I like about this experiment is that the prefelt works just as well as the rope and for me, it’s much easier to make. So I think my experiments with felt rope are over. 😉

‘Seeing’ – Nature

‘Seeing’ – Nature

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In a previous post (A yarn & preparation experiments https://wordpress.com/post/feltingandfiberstudio.com/34915) I told you of painstakingly unpicking 2 items of commercial knitwear in a bid to gain some interesting sequin yarn. Strangely I haven’t yet used that yarn but rather the waste!

Somehow, I couldn’t face throwing away the manmade yarn and, as shown in the previous post, I had crocheted some waste into large ‘mats’ (also, as yet unused), the remaining yarn languished in bags until I had a vague idea. I wound the various lengths 10 times around two fingers to make little 2-3cm bundles….hundreds of them, or so it seemed. I spent many, many, evenings making them.

Using two bundles together I crocheted through the middles to make 2 large mats (yes, more mats!) approx. 45 and 50 cm diameters.

02b

I’ve mentioned before that I have a Coloured Ryeland fleece, bought years ago in naivety, having been seduced by its colour. Not wanting to throw it out, I have found it is useful as a ‘stuffing’ wool. I have to say here that I’m not a needle felter, so I just use one type of basic needle to prod and poke the fibres as required.

For the 2nd quarter challenge I had thought to make a cushion (possibly, a purpose made cushion to fit my mother’s wheelchair to give her a soft seat?), so my vague idea was to use the waste yarn and Ryeland to create the internal pad – prod them together, throw into the washing machine and taadaa!

I hand carded batches of the fleece then set to needle felting these to the ‘mats’. The mats were then sandwiched together with 3 layers of wool between – laid concentric, radiating and concentric.

I laid radiating batches to the outside to which I’m now adding a concentric layer. You are up to date!

As I write this post it now has 6 ⅞ wool layers and is about 2cm squishy firm (if that is not an oxymoron). This is an evening activity which seems to take up an inordinate amount of space on my sofa, more so because surprisingly the ‘pad’ is increasing in size and is now 55cm (22 in) and firm right to the edge.

But now comes a dilemma….I actually like the pad and my thoughts are drifting….more later!

Over recent weeks I have been working, when time permits, on our textile group’s challenge for 2020 – to use a plain paper book to practice our drawing, sketching, creating etc to produce a journal. I’ve chosen to title mine ‘nature’ and have thus far been exploring flora which I love. Fortunately, parts of my garden (and my neighbour’s) offers some wonderful opportunities.

An update – I am gradually resurrecting my garden when time and weather permit.

Recently though, living in the countryside at harvest time, I have been plagued by the thrips (or thunder flies – 2mm long and about the thickness of a hair!). They tend to fly within 3m of the ground and 1m into an open doorway, particularly if it is sunny. They get everywhere – unscrew a container and they are actually in the thread and even into supposedly sealed boxes! Having very sensitive skin, I can feel each and every one and for a week/10 days end up running around the garden like a mad woman, as if my hair is on fire under my hat – they use my blond hair as a landing strip and keep taxi-ing!!!

But I digress….

Rather than concentrating on simply sketching I’ve been exploring patterns. I always doodled in school and can remember one time being asked an unexpected question from the teacher who had come up behind me – as I got the answer right I was never stopped from doodling again. Zentangling is however new to me (some ideas I have borrowed from the internet) so I’ve had a play.

All of this has led me to do more detailed studies, thus far on poppies and sunflowers (having enjoyed my vase of sunflowers, bought by my EPH, I couldn’t just throw the spent flowers away!) – so I’ve been pulling them apart, hammering them or slicing them up, recording my findings along the way.

33
One of our members has been doing basketry….so Kim, my discovery is for you – the stem, emerging after only a week in the vase, revealed very strong fibres!

The results have been very interesting, offering a wealth of pattern opportunities.

Back to my dilemma….

I’m now seeing an oversized sunflower to complement my oversized felted seeds that are all in shades of grey!    Mmmm!  🤔 Possibilities!   Sorry mum, you’ll have to continue with the other cushion!

2 New Ram Fleeces

2 New Ram Fleeces

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While I have been working on the Mer-Project, I have been up to other things. To give you a bit of a break from “OH no another fish thing!!” (Sorry there is a bit more fishiness to come), but for now let’s have a peek at one of the other things that happens in the summer.

I spotted two ram fleeces for sale on the guild Facebook page from Shady Creek Lamb Co. I picked them up at the same farmers market Ann sells butter tarts.  They pasture the ewes under solar panels! Great self-mobile lawn mowers!!! Unfortunately, there are many burrs under there too. The Rams were kept elsewhere and claimed not to be as fond of burrs as their girlfriends.

1  1 Barrhaven farmers market at the log farm (they don’t farm logs.  It’s all very confusing)

You may have seen the short needle felting interruption where I picked them up and re-bagged them (they didn’t fit in the new bags well but they will not get wet if it rains! But this is August.  We don’t usually have much if any rain in August.

2 2 Miss Manta is blocking your view of the new fleeces

The one I was most interested in was the large grey fleece.  It may be hard to tell from this picture, but He is a BIG boy!

I need a sorting table!

3  3 the Ram in question (I think he is a Shropshire?)

Yes, I need a Big sorting table!

I don’t have a sorting table but I have a metal frame from my neighbour, Valerie, who moved a few years ago.  She left it for me, she used to grow cucumbers on it!  It has been sitting behind the metal bench in my side yard studio waiting to be useful. It will now have its chance!

44 Wire frame

I pulled out the metal frame and propped it up on the water barrels and a 2×4. I added extra support with a group of S-hooks.  It was a bit rusty and the spacing is a bit large so I used an old sheet that I use in the fall to cover the tomatoes saving them from a September frost.

5-6 the new sorting frame and quite dirty wool

As you can see I have thought ahead and had gloves ready, which you can see I will need. This fleece and his friend, have not been skirted! If you have not bought a raw fleece before they are usually pre-skirted. This means getting rid of the wool that is on the belly, lower legs, and especially the messy bit around the butt. This wool is worn, matted or particularly filthy.  (Sheep are not usually neat bathroom users. It may be due to their lack of toilet paper or just the lack of thumbs to operate toilet paper effectively.)

77 port-a-shade

It was again a lovely hot day so up went the umbrellas, Instant shade!! Oh that’s much better.

8910118 – 11 skirting and sorting into strainer bins

When I skirted the giant Shetland last fall, I sorted for colour. This time it seems mostly the same colour and from what I could feel similar fibre size. So, I divided more by cleanliness.  I kept skirting and sorting until I had mostly even buckets full of similar filthiness.

12-13 sorting done starting soaking

I pulled out the fleece washing buckets and moved the newly sorted wool to the table.  I also pulled out the remaining Shetland still to wash from last year.

 

Although I was dying of curiosity I started a batch of the Shetland as well as a bucket of the new ram

14-15 wool drained water filthy, on to next rinse

Hanging the strainer buckets up between rinses. The water is still filthy so I change it and soak them again.

I added another one of the giant soaking buckets and got a third strainer bucket going. This is going to take all summer at this rate!!

19-21 first batch out and second batch in

As the first batch was drying, I started the second batch.  Continuing the process of; soap soak, lift buckets gently and then replace a few times, drain and change to fresh water was going along wonderfully, ….. And then it Rained….

2222 UNFAIR!!!

Weather? Is this a snide comment that I am rushing and I should soak it longer? Or are you suggesting It needed another rinse?

and it stopped raining so it may dry, but no the sun didn’t last long and its back to raining, so let’s just consider this as well rinsed.

2323 soak

Showers intermittent continued and I decided it was a sign to work on something else. I am Back to felting inside.

It’s sunny this morning, well at least at the moment. I am getting suspicious the sun knows when I’m out here!  The wool is back out drying and I am working on another project in the outside studio. (I moved the wool buckets over so I could sit on the bench). The lighting was getting a bit darker and I was just about to go check the fleece when the sky opened up yet again! ok  let’s just consider this one more rinse….. positive thinking! positive thinking!

242524-25 Rain Again!!! (Is this some comment on the topic of my summer theme of Mer’s?)

Just to show you how much water we have been getting the farther 2 buckets are under on the umbrellas the nearer one is not and is now a lot deeper than I had filled it.

2626 the amount of rain we got covered the fleece strainer

The sun is just tempting me I know by this time but I will fall for his evil machinations again, by draining and putting out the fleece to dry.

2727 there is sun

Yes it was all a plot and Ann messaged me that we have a tornado warning happening, I took down the umbrellas, put the fleece away , it was getting So Much close to dry!!, back into bins and stuck them in zip lock bags away from  the  incoming storm. We had greenish tinted sky and cloud layers moving in different directions and speeds but luckily no tornado. On the western edge of Ottawa, One of our friends lost a Very big tree who’s aim was luckily poor and just missed their house. We were glad to hear she was safe.

Next morning Glenn picked up a couple knocked over pots and I put the fleece back out to dry… Someday dry fleece will come… maybe tomorrow?

28-29 OK trying again to dry wool

If anyone needs a bit of rain, you are welcome to have some of ours, the rain barrels are full and I don’t have to water the garden (which is actually helpful). That includes Ann who lives south of the city and has not had nearly as much rain as we have gotten!!! Why not rain on her sheep? Hers must be much cleaner sheep than my fleece is. Oh well it looks like it may be worth the work, if I can get it clean and dry. I am looking forward to seeing how it will felt and it should spin up some spectacular sock yarn, now I just need to figure out how to knit socks.

 

Burning the fuzz off a basket and then dying it.

Burning the fuzz off a basket and then dying it.

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I thought I would try burning fuss of some felt, a bergschaf wool basket to be precise. My son gave me his cool little cigar lighter he picked up. It worked for about 5 seconds then was out of fuel. no problem we will just get some butane and fill it. Well, you would think that was easy but no.

So I will try a candle. We really only have beeswax candles so I got a tealight and tried it. It worked  (it looks more scorched than it is)  but I spilled wax on the basket and that’s not good. Good thing I decided to try the inside of the handle where it won’t show so I will not have to look up how to get beeswax out of wool. I seem to remember something about ironing with paper from my grade 7 batiking class. We will not mention just how long ago that class was.

Next was to see if Walmart has a little torch in the kitchen section for doing the tops of Creme Brulee. No, they do not. How about some butane? No, you have to order that on the online platform. No flammable gas in the store but they will ship you pressurized gas in the mail. No time for that, buy a BBQ lighter. They have that. I had to return that seems it won’t light. Next, let’s try Canadian Tire. Yes,  according to the website they have butane and even have a little torch on sale cheap ($9.99 marked down from $39.99). No, they are sold out even if the app says there are 2 left. And where is the butane? Nowhere to be found. Another fail. I am starting to think the universe is telling me not to do this. But there are BBQ lighters at the cashout. Let’s try again, I grabbed one and off I went.

This BBQ lighter works, now I can give this a try.

I worked well. A little hard to keep it lit because of all the safety features on lighters these days but I managed. I was wishing to the flamethrower lighters of my teen years. Just not the same waving a phone light. Not to mention you cant singe hairs of wool with them.

It wasn’t easy trying to get a picture of the singed hairs. If the pot had been white maybe it would have been easier but many tries later I got this good one. Keeping the torch moving is the key to not singing it. and the hairs shrivel quite fast.

The problem is it looks like it’s nice and hair free and then you brush off the burned bits and it just raised more hairs. I tried to be gentle but still. after a second pass, it was better but still, there were hairs. It’s too bad it didn’t work as I wanted because even though is it a bit stinky it was fun to do.

Oh well moving onto the next step, dying the basket. This time I picked magenta and purple.

First into the dye pot upside down to do the lighter colour on the top. it cooked loner than usual as when I went to take it out I realized I hadn’t added any vinegar. Oh well, no harm done.

Then the other way up to do the darker purple. You can see the wax I didn’t get off, on the top. A very effective resist.

I was very happy when I rinsed the basket, there was no bleeding at all.

I rolled up the handle to dry in the right shape this time. So there is a happy face instead of an alien this time.

This is a nice close up that shows the colour changes nicely. When it is dry I will shave it.

 

Here is t is off the ball. I will add some stitching but that’s a job for Sunday.

 

By now, with basket 3, I am sure you are sick of hearing about may baskets. I promise not to do another basket post next week when it is my turn to post again.