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Heather Yarn
Posted 3/23/2010 7:30pm by Eugene Wyatt.
Gray heather yarn is back! Green Mountain has spun 30 pounds of heather from our Saxon wool which they blend in the card: 25% of a dyed-in-the-wool black (farm dyed) with 75% of natural white (farm raised); it's lovely—the spinnery did well—I'm pleased and it's for sale at the stand in Union Square, or you can order from the Heather Worsted department of the Yarn Store.
(Photos of gray yarn go better with onions, or any colored item.)
Right now, it's about 9 PM; I am leaving soon for the evening lamb check; when the lambs slow down (13 lambs born so far today, about 100 newborns since 3/11) perhaps we can overdye some heather.
Posted 10/9/2008 8:16pm by Eugene Wyatt.
Kombu
Kombu is arrived at by dyeing Osage Orange over a gray Heather Yarn which is made when the spinnery cards together undyed wool and dyed-in-the-wool black before spinning it.
Yarns to be dyed with Osage Oranges (including over dyes of Heather) must be first mordanted with Alum, then dyed according to the Immersion Dyeing procedure outlined in Natural Dye Workshop 10. Note that Osage takes quickly; you may want to pull it from the bath after 10 minutes if you're looking for a lighter hue. If it's too light reintroduce the yarn, pull it and look again in 5 minutes or so. Osage dyes dark at 4% WOF, light at 2% WOF.
Trick of the Trade: don't throw a dyebath out until it's exhausted. The Kombu pictured above was dyed in the bath left over from dyeing natural yarn with a dark Osage—using a bath twice (the 2nd color will be lighter than the first) saves and it quickly adds another hue to your color story.
Kombu is a seaweed harvested off Hokkaido and is used in Japanese & macrobiotic cuisine as an ingredient in soups & stocks.
Kombu is a seaweed harvested off Hokkaido and is used in Japanese & macrobiotic cuisine as an ingredient in soups & stocks.
Posted 12/4/2007 11:28am by Eugene Wyatt.
18 pounds of dyed in the wool black were carded with 60 pounds of undyed natural wool to produce this heather gray. Carding is the mixing step that must occur before the wool is spun into yarn on a spinning frame.