The wide ranging experiences of someone who lives in the Australian bush in a knocked together tin shed with a heap of animals and still manages to hold down a job, study full time and raise a family.
Indigo dye vats have fascinated me for a while now; the magic that happens when you add fibre to a yellow green dye pot to get a blue result puzzles and excites me. Recently I found the time (and courage) to have a go at it; thank you Sandy for the push.
First I did a fair bit of research about how indigo is made from the plant. Indigo is made from the leaves of indigo plants which are fermented, soaked in a caustic solution and then dried to produce the blue 'rocks' or powder that comes in the mail for me to play with.
Once I had my little pots of powders and chemicals, I downloaded the instructions for use and got to work...
I decided to dye some hand spun cotton as I had an order for cotton gloves.
I gathered up pots, scales, utensils, indigo, caustic soda sodium hydrosulphite, yarn and a sense of adventure as per instructions
I added the caustic and hydrosulphite to the 15 litres of water
I added the indigo to the dye pot
It made a big pot of blue at first, so I put the lid on and waited.
Until the pot was yellow/green with a copper scum on top. This photo doesn't show the copper scum to full effect, but it is there.
I decided to experiment with cotton, merino and suffolk yarns (because I had those lying around).
Better late than never, I found a pair of rubber gloves.
I made a tiny skein to test dye first, this one is cotton.
Well, it came out blue.
So I tied the skeins to a bit of wood and lowered them into the pot.
They went a lovely shade of dog vomit green/yellow at first. The copper scum shows up much better in this photo.
I lifted the yarn out and waited for it to turn blue
Which it did
Then faded to a much lighter blue as it dried.
That was the batch that worked......the story of the vat that didn't is much the same until the 'lifting the yarn out' stage then I found that my four skeins of cotton yarn (which take forever to prepare and spin) had turned into a big blue jelly fish in the bottom of the vat. I eventually figured out that the 150g of caustic recommended in the instructions was just too much for the yarn and it melted. The second lot I cut the caustic down to 15g (about a tablespoon) and it worked well; must have been a misprint.
In ancient times indigo dye vats were made using stale urine (because they didn't waste anything). The processed indigo was stuffed into a cloth bag and lowered into a big tub of stale urine and left to ferment for a week. Cloth and fibre was then soaked in the vat for various lengths of time then rinsed (really well, I would think) and left to dry in a breezy place. This kind of dyeing vat is called a sig vat. I will try this method at some point, when I can afford more indigo dye.
Maybe I should try growing some indigo plants, what do you think?
Have you tried indigo dyeing? What was your experience?
As most of you already know; I am a witch. I celebrate the Wheel of the Year, I follow the basic commandment of 'An it harm ye none, do what thou wilt', I believe in the three-fold law and I collect information. Being a witch is (for me) about learning new things and exploring new ways of looking at life. Being a crafty witch, I make my own tools.
One of the most important tools a witch has is her (or his) books, they hold the tiny crumbs of wisdom and knowledge we manage to gain in our life and can be passed on to another witch to use once we die. I make my own books; one for every new 'subject' (although they all interlock in some way); I made a massive, red leather, hard covered, parchment filled tome for my Book of Shadows (tools, correspondences and rituals); I made a cute little upholstery fabric covered book to record my life changing journey through the Sacred Cord (sort of like a rosary that takes two and a half years to complete); I made a black suede, hard covered slim lined book to record my divinations and dreams (Tarot, runes, iChing, scrying, etc); I made a decorated hardwood, post bound tome for my Tarot learnings (meanings, correspondences, Kabbalah and, layouts, etc) and now I have made a versatile, refillable, black leather traveller's journal for my Kabbalah learnings.
My first Book of Shadows
My Sacred Cord book
My divination book
The cover of my Tarot book
Inside my Tarot book
Because I used what I could find about the house, my journal is a rough item, but I am fairly pleased with it. The first thing I did was; make a cup of coffee (essential to the creative juices), then I got down to business. I wanted the pages to look old and worn so I found a ream of photocopy paper, carefully folded each page in half (not the whole ream, only about 32 pages), dipped each one individually in strong instant coffee and laid them out on a towel to dry. This makes the pages unpredictably brownish yellow with blotches (perfect for that aged look).
My instant coffee bath
Some of the pages laid out to dry
You can see the difference in colour between the new paper on the left and the coffee stained stuff on the right.
While the pages dried, I dug out an old leather skirt (it was the eighties OK) and cut a piece that was 2 cm or so higher than the folded A4 paper (A5 size page) and 6 cm or so wider than an open sheet of A4 paper (A4 size page). The leather was fairly thin and would have been too floppy for a book cover on its own so I also cut a piece of heavy duty interfacing and some pretty orange material the same size as my leather.
Old leather skirt
Heavy duty interfacing on top of the material square
These three sheets were glued together with the interfacing in the middle, clamped and hung to dry for a while.
My cover drying in the breeze.
While the cover dried I began making the note book to go inside this cover. I followed the clip below to the letter, but my finished print block was much messier than hers. Undeterred, I decided it added to the antique-y charm of the project and used it anyway. Unfortunately I didn't take photos of this step (I got lost in the process and forgot what I was doing).
I then trimmed the outside edges and punched some holes in my cover and threaded hat elastic through them in the sequence described in the clip below.
Here is the inside of my cover with the elastic in place.
Next I simply threaded my text block into the elastic holders and it was finished.
Spot the dog loved it; a leather paw rest, how innovative.
Then I started filling it up with collected bits of understandings and knowledge.
The three elastic bits mean I can add another two text blocks as I fill the original one up.
I loved making this project, I think I will make some more soon.
Somewhere down the track, I have plans of making my two daughters a book each and fill them with little snippets of information I think they may need, the sort of thing you ring your mum for...like;
'How do I unplug the bathroom drain..without putting my fingers in there?'
'How do I make pancakes?'
'Is it better to close the windows in a wind storm or leave them open?'
'Where do I go to register to vote?'
'How do I make soap?'
'What herbs are good for a cold?'
and many others.
Maybe one of these journals would be appropriate for that, new books can be added as more questions arise.
What do you think of this project?
Do you like the old and battered look for books and journals?
For a while now I have wanted a loom wide enough to weave material for clothes making. At last I have saved up enough to buy the materials I need to build one. My first step was to rough (very rough) out a design for the loom;
I want the weaving width to be about 70 cm. So I bought myself a 70 cm rigid heddle (a frame which lifts the warp threads up and down to facilitate weaving) and designed the rest of the loom around it.
My rough design.
The YouTube clip below inspired my design, but I added a way to wind warp from the back beam to the front beam so I could weave longer pieces.
The rigid heddle replaces both the shed stick and the string heddles used in the clip. To be able to use it I will have to add holders at the side which hold the heddle in either the top, neutral or bottom positions, as you can see in the clip below;
This is the design I eventually came up with.
This is the heddle guide in action.
This is the rigid heddle; the entire loom is built around this piece of equipment.
I measured the frame pieces and made sure the heddle would fit nicely inside it.
Then I cut the frame pieces using this nifty gadget I found in the shed.
Rabbito joined me for the cutting part and offered sage advice like "OOOh, mind your fingers"
Puddle duck looked on suspiciously and made loud quacking noises.
I used these corner bracket thingies to hold the frame together.
The heddle fits perfectly and the frame is strong. Note that the side pieces are positioned inside the top and bottom pieces so that the pressure of the warp will not be only on the brackets.
I then measured the 'legs' to be the height I wanted as per the clip instructions and cut them on the handy gadget.
These two bits are my warp and cloth beams. I will explain them in more detail below.
This diagram might help you understand what I am on about.
The warp and cloth beams on my loom are not attached as they are on a normal rigid heddle loom. Instead they rely on the warp (and some shoe laces) to hold them to the frame. On most looms the beams act as storage for the warp and cloth as well as being a tensioning device (keeping the warp tight enough to weave on). On my loom the two beams will be bolted together (as in the original design clip) to act as a tensioning device and the two bits of PVC pipe will act as the rollers for the warp and cloth. The rollers have an apron rod attached (to anchor the beginning and end of the warp) and holes drilled at intervals around the edges to align with a hole in the beam so pegs (nails in my case) can be used as both a crank handle and pawl so the warp can be moved through the loom while still maintaining warp tension.
The long bolt things pass through the beams and the wing nuts are used to fine tune the tension.
This is the loom with it's first warp. You can see how the tension device works.
A closer look at the beams with their PVC rollers.
This is the beginning of my next project; a woven bag.
Using the rigid heddle is so easy and quick. I love my new loom and I love that I made it myself (with minimal help from my partner). If you are wanting a quick to build, cheap loom this is the design for you. In total this loom cost me $120 to build, including the rigid heddle.
The scarf is finished.In the end I used a hem stitch to secure the warp. It turned out a bit bulkier than I like, next time will be better.
I am extremely happy with the weaving though.
