Friday 18 February 2022

A Shetland Circular Mini Shawl dyed with cochineal


I have been knitting a series of mini shawls in a Shaping Shawls series of workshops with Elizabeth Williamson Knitting (1).  This is actually the second. I will write more about the first one when I describe the third which I hope will be very soon. I have got so involved in knitting, weaving and dyeing that my writing now needs to catch up. 

The completed shawl

Diameter  25.5cm (10”)     Weight 10.5g



…and this has been my first ever circular shawl, so I was very keen to try it. The idea being that by doing this mini one, and learning the processes needed, the knitter can scale it up to the size desired.



I decided to use some alpaca fibre that I had spun ‘lace weight’ rather than superfine and that I would dye it in two toning colours. I choose to dye it with cochineal. Again this was a first, my first time dyeing alpaca and dyeing it with a natural dye too.I chose 20% and 10% cochineal as this gives a good colour to wool, and I decide to use tap water to give a ‘cooler’ tone to the pink. 


2 balls of dyed cochineal alpaca yarn, yes very little difference and all calculations were at least double checked! 



The yarn is more unevenly dyed than I like, just about visible in the picture below but confirmed in the picture of the completed piece.





I was very disappointed by the dyeing…..subtle is a polite way of putting it. All disappointments like this are learning opportunities and so I set about reading about dyeing, and natural dyeing particularly, of alpaca. 


I kept reading that dyeing alpaca was ‘just like dyeing wool’ which it clearly wasn’t! This is with the exception of Jenny Dean (2) who did note that ‘the colours are probably less saturated than those achieved on sheep’s wool. So this led me to why? I know not all wools dye the same but the difference is not as stark as with alpaca. I had some understanding of the differences in the fibre from spinning alpaca. I have written an additional page for my website about comparing the two fibres. However, I did not feel I could get a balanced comparison as people who breed and keep alpaca, as one might expect, write about the virtues of the fibre and I was interested in getting comparative facts. If you are interested further in what I did find out, I have given a link to the page on my website below.( 3) 


So more about the circular mini shawl. This starts in the centre and is knit back and forth to form the centre section, this is knitted in garter stitch. This was fun to do, just more and more stitches on the needle. 

Then the stitches are left on the needle and the edging is started, knitting onto these stitches, every other row. I chose to do the outside lace in the different hue of pink. 


Preparing for the inner join

(The actual colour is better shown in the completed shawl above)



If you follow this blog, you will realise you have seen this shawl before, that is because I used the outer edging to try out, on my own, the invisible joining of lace devised by Joni Coniglio. The post relating to this in some detail is in the post here of 28Nov2021. The details of this superb method can be found in Interweave Knits winter 2022 and explained by Joni Coniglio in her blog (4). When I did this shawl I did not realise she had chosen this lace edging as the example in her blog! 


The invisible join of the edging - in here! 




Once the edging is finished, one  is left to join the centre section together by grafting along the remaining crescent and then the edging. 

Other than being disappointed in the colour, I loved doing this and can see some more of this size coming off the needles before too long, and then I need to be working on a bigger size one. However the next in this series of hap shapes is a mini crescent shawl. For that I will be dyeing the yarn with a plant from the garden but be using wool! 




Notes 

  1. Elizabeth Williamson can be found here, her website includes details of her online workshops https://www.elizabethwilliamsonknitting.co.uk/
  2. Jenny Dean’s post on natural dyeing with alpaca https://www.jennydean.co.uk/dyeing-alpaca-fleece/
  3. Link to the page on my website comparing wool and alpaca   https://jemcreatingtextiles.wordpress.com/about-alpaca/
  4. Joni has written much about grafting lace  and has made 3 videos/dvds about this and an excellent blog post about grafting lace edgings this can  be found here https://www.interweave.com/article/knitting/grafting-a-lace-edging-is-as-easy-as-1-2-3-4

Sunday 6 February 2022

Investigating more natural dyed green colours


I used two different yarns, a couple of skeins of jumper weight as test skeins to judge the strength of the dye of the indigo vat and the remaining skeins were Shetland Supreme 2 ply. I used Genista Tinctoria from the garden. (1) 

The plant



This is a heritage dye and has been noted as being used in England since prehistoric times and before weld and other plants giving a similar yellow were imported. It was used for dyeing by the Romans and in the reign of Edward II along with woad to give ‘Kendal’ green. (2). In the 1700s it is stated that it was used to dye linen and wool cloth and also leather. Sources state the summer as the time to dye with this.  I decided to use the January prunings as my  brain told me that it might work and give me a reasonable yellow.   The dye, a flavone, contains a couple of compounds with large multi ring molecules, one of which is also found in weld. 

I used the dye alongside indigo and on a cold and dull afternoon I was really pleased to get these colours. I can see why a common name for this plant is Dyer’s Greenweed. 

The greens from this trial



I had previously used the Genista Tinctoria to dye some Shetland Supreme yarn in which I knitted a mini crescent shawl, which I still need to write about in more detail.

It is being ‘dressed’ currently. As I think you will agree  I got far more than a reasonable dye, from a January dye bath. It is a brilliant yellow! I have learnt that many dye books just repeat earlier ones and this is how inaccuracies creep in! 

Mini shawl being dressed



I am currently in love with these  plants which I have nurtured for a few years and also glad I have more of the current batch of dye in my store! I am looking forward to having more time to experiment. 


This mini shawl was from a workshop with Elizabeth Williamson (3). The lime/apple green is for another sample technique  workshop and the two skeins on the right are likely to be used together in yet another lace knitting workshop. 


As I was pruning the bush in preparation of this I did a bit of weeding in the area and dug this up…….which I am sure many of you will recognise. I am expecting there will be more about dyeing with this plant later in the year. (Answer at the end of this) 

Picture



Further details of my natural dyeing can be found on my website, there is a link to it from the top right of this blog 

Last photo is a small madder root 


  1. Other ‘everyday’ names include Dyer’s Broom, Dyer’s Weed, Dyer’s Greenweed, Dyer’s Greenwood, Woad Waxen, 
  2. Kendal is a town in Cumbria 
  3. Elizabeth is also running online workshops, see her website for further details