SWSG March Dye Meeting

(click pictures on blog for larger image)
For March, the Saturday Group of Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild met at the home of member Cathy Sweeney for a dye session.

Here is Sue, Connie, Linda and Sara are tying up some samples of wool yarn that has been pre-treated with different mordants. Five knots is tin. Four knots is iron. Three knots is copper. Two knots is chrome.  One knot is untreated. They will be put into the dye pots so we can see how the mordants react differently in the same dye.

 EDITED TO ADD: Here is a mordant test bundle I brought home. There is a difference in color with the same dye, different mordant chemicals. From left to right: Tin, Iron, Copper, Chrome, Untreated.

Goldfinches visit one of the bird feeders.

The pots are set and we wait for the water to heat up. Notice the empty rack on the left. That will become a very busy piece of equipment.

 

One of pots has California Native Black Walnut husk, another has Silver Dollar Eucalyptus, another pot has Oak Galls from Valley Oak trees,

We had a pot of Red Onion skins and another pot of Marigold flowers (not shown).

Cathy has a lot of reference books, she has mordants, she has propane stoves, and most importantly, she has gloves to prevent your hands from turning colors.

Cathy also keeps a scrapbook that has index cards with snips of yarn samples from dying so she can repeat a process when a certain color is desired. We loaded up the pots with our yarn samples and let them set.

While waiting for the pots to set the color on our yarns  we waited. We chatted about projects we are working on and are planning. And I enjoyed looking at the flowers. I need some of these to plant next to the condo.

We also played with Kool-Aid softdrink mix powder and liquid food colors in mason jars. Koolaid is a popular dye that is inexpensive and non-toxic.

Here is the result of Strawberry Koolaid and Cherry Koolaid as dye. Notice how pale the liquid is now that the color has been drawn into the yarn. That is called "exhausting" the dye.

This Cooper's Hawk is a local resident and kept flying over the area.

Cathy shows off a purse that she knitted then over-dyed with Madder root which is a strong red dye. She says the upper part of the bag was light green like the yarn in the handle but the Madder changed it to this dark brick color.

Cathy pulls up the yarn that was sitting in the jars with koolaid, making a multi-colored skein.

Here I am with Stephanie fishing out a skein from the pot of marigold flowers.

It was a beautiful day. Overhead there is a flight of Sandhill Cranes, big birds with big booming calls.

Here we have yarns drying on the rack. Most of them went into the natural dye pots, with a few colored with koolaid.

This is my little set of  five samples. I used bright white cotton yarn. From left to right, Onion, Eucalyptus, Black Walnut, Oak Galls, Marigolds. They will be washed later. I plan to weave them into a sampler for display.

EDITED TO ADD: This is my little set of  samples after washing in cold water. From left to right, Onion, Eucalyptus, Black Walnut, Oak Galls, Marigolds, Indigo, and the mordant test bundle.

Loading up the rack with so much! I'm surprised it did not collapse!

With the natural dyes all done, Cathy started a pot of Indigo dye, which is a very strong blue dye. Here is Nancy in the straw hat, Sue in the red apron, and our youngest Saturday Guild member, Ellie, is winding yarn on a niddy noddy for a skein to dip into the indigo.

This is the pot of indigo. In a process not well understood by me, the oxygen is displaced from the liquid before dipping the yarn in for dying. Care has to be taken not to stir, or drop yarn too quickly so as not to introduce air bubbles into the liquid.

As we waited for things to drip dry the birds provided lots of entertainment. Here is a crow chasing a hawk.

Here are some of the items that were dipped into the indigo dye. The color develops as the yarn is exposed to air after dipping. Some of the yarns are dipped more than once. The bottom left is raw wool that was dyed in mesh bags. The skein to the left center of the picture with the purple and blue color is the skein that was koolaid dyed with red yellow and blue. Cathy overdyed it with the indigo!

Here is one members bundle of skeins. Sorry about the funny lighting but it was a nice bunch of yarns.

Not shown was the lunch which was pot luck with everybody bringing something. We had thirteen people in attendance with a couple of guests and new members.


Our next Saturday meeting will be
April 14 (Sat), 10 am - 12:30 pm At the Arcade Library
Spinning! Bring your spinning to show off!

Visit the Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild website for schedules
http://www.sacweavespin.org/saturday

I want to thank Cathy Sweeny for a wonderful time playing with dyes. One of the best things about being with the Guild are the members who are willing to share their knowledge and experience.

It was a good day!

Bad Day For A Kite

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This is a White Tailed Kite being harassed by a pair of crows. I noticed the crows mobbing the Kite, so I grabbed my camera and managed to get one picture of the fight.

For some reason the Kite circled around the area as if reluctant to leave.

Then another White Tailed Kite appeared on the scene and also started harassing the first Kite, dive bombing and screaming at it several times. I think it's a struggle for territory. This is one of the better pics of the aerial combat.

This is the best picture I managed to capture. The lower bird is the attacking bird and it is screaming at the upper bird. So first the Kite is mobbed by crows and then is run off by a screaming Kite. It's a bad day for that Kite.

And here is the winner of the turf war. You can see the beak open and I will always remember that screech!

Camera is Panasonic Lumix DMC ZS8. Pictures cropped/sharpened with Photoscape.

From my corner of the world, West Sacramento, Calif.

It was a good day!

No Cut Sprang Bag

My latest cardboard sprang frame has holes punched on the side so I can adjust the size by moving the sheets of cardstock. A piece of string holds the position and rubber bands help prevent it from flopping. This is adjusted about 13 inch long.

Here is the frame with a warp on it. The red yarn on the bottom helps hold the yarns in position.

 

Here the sprang completely covers one side of the frame. The frame was adjusted to about 12 inch. See the red cord that holds the yarn position from the beginning.

 

This is the other side where the two sprang rows are coming together. With about 7 inch to go, I divide the sprang into two columns which will form the handles. 

 

As the sprang gets closer and tighter it is difficult to get my fingers in the sprang so I used a chopstick to work the yarns. I put a little groove in it and tapered the point. (Shout out to Umeko Buffet, Chinese & Japanese Food)

 

I used red yarn so you can see how I sewed up the sides. I also used yarn to close the sprang at the bottom and at the top of the handles.

The bag is big enough to hold a water bottle. The yarn ends will be tied off and cut. I was testing an idea for a little bag that had it's own handles that could be made on a the cardboard frame. And no cutting!

Have a good day!


EDITED TO ADD: My recent sprang activity was inspired by the release of Carol James' book:
"Sprang Unsprung: An Illustrated Guide to Interlinking, Interlacing and Intertwining."

Experimental Sprang Frame Finish

This is the sprang I started last month (see here) and finished a couple of weeks ago. I made it on the experimental frame as continuous warp. Then I sewed up the sides and cut the strings to open the top. I was trying to tie off the ends when the thing started unlinking. Highly annoying. I was really mad at it for a while. But I came to appreciate the good parts. It proved I can sprang on cardboard frames. I can do pattern changes. And I also have a different idea for the design. More to come in the future.

Have a good day!

EDITED TO ADD: Musing on an adjustable sprang frame. Someone suggested using long screws for sides of a frame. That might be workable. I think two 12 inch long pieces of all thread screw rod, two wooden dowels drilled to accept the screws, and eight hex nuts to adjust the position of the dowels.

Or two wooden dowels drilled to accept two other dowel and maybe another screw to hold it in place?

All of which is more work than using more cardboard but being adjustable could make the difference.

Saturday Group Feb 18 2012

 

Here is the Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Saturday Group. This is our first meeting after the Open House. We had a total of 20 people at the meeting, with 8 of them coming because of the Open House! At the front left is Janelle with her Fricke wheel. At the rear middle is Cathy with her Nagy wheel.

Here are some more people. Peggy is holding up one of Linda S woven shawls that we passed around. In the middle of the picture is Debra with her Ashford Traditional.

On right is Linda S showing a shawl woven on her rigid heddle loom as Linda Y and Stephanie look on. Behind them on a table Anne is weaving on a Cricket rigid heddle loom. 

Our topic was Weaving For Beginners. We worked on little cardboard looms to show what warp and weft is. Did not get any pictures of the little looms, but they were fun. We had a couple of rigid heddle looms to demonstrate. We had a Louet Klik and Structo multiharness looms as well.

 We had a couple of challenges as well. This is a Lily two harness loom Annette brought and Stephanie is looking to see what might be done to adjust the harnesses. We didn't figure it out during the meeting, but I have since found some pictures on line that show what we were missing

This is the last minute success story. About 4 pm while many people had already left, Melisa showed up with her Ashford Traditional that had been in storage for 10 years. She said she just needed a drive band. I told her bring it to the meeting. She bought a Ashford Maintenance kit which has a drive band and other parts. Which was good because beside a drive band, she needed a brake band and spring replacement, which was in the kit. I wasn't sure how to hook up the brake band but Linda Y looked up the Ashford Manual on the internet thanks to the library wireless access. After we got the parts on it was time to fiddle with it to get it spinning right. With Betsy, Linda Y, Linda S, we were able get the tension set for spinning again. In above picture Melisa is thrilled that her wheel is working again as Betsy looks on. This was the first  Ashford Maintenance Pit Stop we have ever done.

That was our meeting.

Next meeting will be a dye party at Cathy's studio on March 10.
Visit the Guild website to see future meetings
http://www.sacweavespin.org/saturday

It was a good day!

Sacramento Weavers Spinners Open House Pt 1

Here is a few pictures from the Sacramento Weavers & Spinners Guild Open House. Here are some of the Saturday Group members during a short break in the day. We had a lot of visitors to our table.

Here is Wil Taylor spinning flax on a wheel. We rarely see anyone spinning flax on a distaff. The little cup is for water he uses to wet his fingers then wets the flax to soften it for spinning into linen.

There was a loom set up for members of the public to try weaving.

We had some little cardboard looms to give introductory lessons to wannabe weavers.

More pictures to follow.

It was a good two days!

Sac Weavers Spinners Guild Open House Ready!

Start with Shepard Garden and Arts Center.

Add Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild. You have the making of another great Open House event!

Open House - Sacramento Weavers & Spinners Guild

This year's show theme, "Fantasy Fibers",  will be held on

Saturday February 11 and Sunday February 12, 2012

from 10 am to 4 pm each day at the

Shepard Garden and Arts Center, (just east of McKinley Park)

3330 McKinley Blvd, Sacramento, CA. 95816

The show is free to public and members.

Visit our website

http://www.sacweavespin.org/

Have a good day!