In this second part of episode 13, I share a few fibre projects (including swatching for my first adult sweater design) and go through my first experience in natural dyeing (for which I highly recommend the workshop by Tarndie).
1:12 Handy Dandy
2:28 - Machine Knit scarf
11:39 Multicrafty
11:55 - Sweater design
17:12 - Boxet Bag (crochet)
21:58 Craft for Thought
37:41 Stat Chat
38:33 Multicrafty - Spinning
39:29 Heart Full of Craft
41:03 Thanks!
Transcript
Hi everyone, welcome to part two of my episode 13 of Bobolog. If you didn't catch my previous episode, I have- I'm filming this directly after I filmed that one, but I'm putting them out a week apart because I felt- I feel like my episodes have started getting too long. So I've just been keeping an eye on the clock and when I feel like it's gotten to a more reasonable length I signed off and now I've started up again and I'm just going to continue on as if they are the same episode.
So if you're tuning in for the first time, welcome and thank you so much for joining me. My name is Bobbie Olan I am a knitter and crafter (but really just a knitter) in Victoria, Australia. I live here with my partner on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people and I would like to pay my respect to them and their elders and to all Aboriginal peoples past, present and future.
Handy Dandy
So I will continue on with Handy Dandy. I- last week I had presented my progress on the Star Illusion Blanket by Katie Ahlquist. And the- the sweater surgery I'm doing to the Greenwich pullover by Martin Storey, which I made last year in 2021 but the recipient has asked for the front of it to be not so cropped. So if I have made any progress on those since that episode went out - I obviously have none to show you because I am filming this on the same day that that last episode went out - but if I've made any progress before I put this video up online, I'll insert photos of them here for you to see. So hopefully that Greenwich one is done and gone and is with my sister and hopefully I will have more progress on the Star Illusion Blanket.
Machine Knit scarf
The next and final knitting Handy Dandy that I wanted to talk about is, I machine knit a scarf. So that is this one here. I haven't actually measured it out to see how long it is. But I think it is quite long. I made this out of Blue Monday Yarn, which is 70% Baby Alpaca, 20% cashmere and 10% silk. So- And I believe that, yep, each skein is dyed with plant based dyes. So I bought three skeins of that. It says that they're 400 metres (m) each and I thought- I thought that three skeins would be what I would need to make a scarf.
I had made another scarf on my knitting machine. So both of these are done using the ribber attachment on my Matador knitting machine. I made this one last year using Prestige Yarns Bambini 4 so this is a- I think it's an extra fine Merino in fingering weight. And this one here is a light fingering. This one used five skeins, five balls, which came to, I think, 1000m and because I knew I wanted this one to be longer than what this one came out to, I bought three. And also- I mean, I didn't think two skeins which would have been 800m would have been enough because this was 1000 and I wanted this to be longer. What I didn't consider is I also wanted this one to be narrower so as you can see it is quite a bit narrower. And then I guess I also didn't consider that this was light fingering and I knit it at the same tension. So this one I cast on 91 stitches on the knitting machine and this one I cast on 71. And the difference in width is a bit greater than I had thought.
And I don't know if you can make it out on the screen but the- this grey one here, which is done in the Merino in the fingering, it's kind of fuller. It's more filled out. I guess you could say denser, but it's not a dense fabric. Then this one here, this one is a lot airier and lighter and- and just not as- not- it- I mean neither of these have been washed but this one feels like it's bloomed and this one feels like it hasn't, in a sense, you could say. But I will give both of those a wash, probably after I finish these. And yeah.
So I was really surprised and pleased that I had a full skein plus a bit leftover of this and that means I get to make something for myself out of it, which I'm really pleased about.
But this this one I didn't actually take notes of how long I made it, but I think I got to somewhere around 700 rows and this one is 800 rows. So I am going to - oopsies - I'm going to do- let's do a bit of a length comparison, which I haven't actually done before. So just holding them together. Let's just see what the difference is, together, in length. I mean there they are quite long. But I think the grey one is under 2m and I believe the green one is well over. So you can see the grey one end's there and this one still goes on for a bit. Yes.
Yeah, I'm really- I'm really happy with how both of those have turned out. I think they look really good and I hope the recipients are happy with them and I'm very excited to have some of this green yarn for something for myself. So those are the two machine knit scarves that I made.
I have to say I don't really love using the knitting machine. It starts feeling like a chore after a while. It is amazing how incredibly fast it goes. But it's not- you- I mean you still have to operate it by hand. And it's not- it's not completely mechanised. So there are a lot of times when it would have, like- like it dropped stitches a couple times. There were a couple of times when the latches didn't actually grab the yarn and I had to go in and fix it up myself.
And one of the tools that I had that you can use to sort of - this is gonna be really hard to explain without showing you - but there's a tool that you can kind of like hook over the latch and it can scoop up the yarn and that broke. So what I actually use instead of that is I use a tapestry needle or a knitting needle. And I- the eye of it - actually I have a hook here that's similar to- to what - and my- my tools are so jammed in here that it doesn't want to come out. But let's- let me try. Let me try so I can show you. Everything wants to come out. Gosh, I need to take stuff out of these. Oopsies.
So the hooks on the machine are like this latch hook here and - I wasn't planning on showing you this. It didn't occur to me that I could, but let's see if I can show you there. So- so they're kind of like this latch hook. So it's got this bit here that, you know, flips back and forth and, you know, it holds yarn in that front hook bit while other yarn that's over this back bit slides over and off and forms the knit stitch. So basically, when I- when I need to fix something, I get a needle- I get a knitting- a darning needle, and I hook the eye of it over that hook and then pull it so that the yarn that is sitting on this part of the needle, I pull the latch out and it slides and it closes that and the darning needle is trapped on to that hook bit. And then the yarn slides off this latch and onto the darning needles. And then I can just unhook the darning needle off the latch and then I can move that yarn where I need it to go.
I hope that made sense. I was not planning on explaining that. So hopefully that was clear to you. But if not, you may just have to look up a video on knitting machines to see what I'm talking about. But yeah, I make do and I make it work and it's- it's fast and it produced something that looks good and would have taken me hours and hours and hours to do. It still did take me hours and hours and days and days. But - well not days and days. Maybe just days. Definitely not as long as if I was completely knitting that by hand.
So it is wonderful having a knitting machine that I can use like that and I do love that the one that I have comes with a ribber- a ribbing attachment so that I can do ribbing on it as well. And I have used it here and there to do other things. But it's long. It takes up most of this desk and I feel like I can't really work and do other things in here when that is out so that does get frustrating after a while. But very, very- I'm still very happy to have it. I bought it off eBay many years ago and every now and then it comes out and yeah, it's great. It's a great thing to have.
So- so that was the last thing that I had to talk about in Handy Dandy.
Multicrafty
My next segment is Multicrafty where I talk about other crafts that I do.
Sweater design
And the first one is actually knitting, but I'm putting it in the Multicrafty section because for me this one is more about design.
So I mentioned last week that I am working on my own design that I had an idea for at the start of this year. So I have finished that first swatch that I showed last week. So it is this here. And this swatch was basically me trying out different ways of creating the stitches. So I've got three different panels here. They all essentially do the same thing, but they're just- the stitches are formed slightly differently. So I just wanted to see how that works.
And then in this bit here - I mean, between each of the three panels but this one's more obvious because it doesn't line up - I have put in a column of purls like a faux seam. And I want to seam them together and see if that lines them up. So that's just a test within the test that I'm doing there.
But this, I- when I first started making this, I thought that I'd be able to, you know, turn it into a beanie so that it wasn't a complete waste of yarn. But when I finished it was just way too long for that. So I mean, I guess it wouldn't have been really way too long but because it would have been slouchy and stuff, I feel like it would have been better if I did the ribbing tighter and the body of the hat looser. So in the end I just bound off in ribbing and it will be - this is a bad idea - I mean, if I want to, I can kind of just wear it as a very snug cowl. But it is quite warm so I'm gonna take that right off.
I was just using stash yarn to try out the stitches because it's not really a swatch for the gauge and the fabric. I kind of just wanted to see - fluff all over my face now - I just wanted to see which way of doing the stitches looked best. So this is actually done in Bendigo Woollen Mills Galaxy, which is 50% wool and 50% bamboo, so not the best for colourwork but it still actually worked out. So yeah, that really helped me make some decisions on how I wanted to form stitches for this design that I'm making.
And then these- these triangles at the top here, I still wasn't 100% sure of those. So I decided to do another swatch just to try to get those triangles right. So I didn't bother trying to do something that could be wearable again. I just did a swatch. So that's the pattern that's going to be the body of the sweater. And then I tried three different triangles here and you can see this one is a bit sloppy because I tried doing elongated stitches. And it works in the other ones but that one is just a bit sloppy. So yeah, so I'm pretty happy with how that's looking.
And this yarn here is much more rustic than the bamboo-wool blend that I used previously. I had- I'd actually forgotten that I had this until I started working on a crochet- crochet project that I'll show you in a minute. But this is rug yarn, actually, that I got at a trash and treasure market before I knew anything about wool and yarn. And I was just like, "Ooh, cheap yarn!" And I bought it and then realised it was too rough to do any kind of garment or accessory with. So it's been sitting in my stash for a while. And I figured I would just use it to make this little swatch just to see how- how I want to make those triangles. So that is nearly done there.
I think I like the top version of the triangle best, but I want to try doing it one- I want to try doing one more iteration of it just to make absolutely sure. And then I should be getting the actual yarn that I want to do the pattern in this week. So I've got to write the pattern and then- and then test it out. Get it tech edited and see if I can find some testers. So that- so that's coming along slowly but surely, and I'm excited to be working on that.
Boxet Bag
So like I said, I had that rug yarn out to work on another project. And this is- these are panels for the Boxet Bag by Cal Patch, which I- which was in one of my Making magazines.
So the- the bag is made- is crocheted using two strands of yarn held together. I really liked how the pattern was done in that they- they didn't do it like I've done where it was a full panel... was just made in the one way using the two different colours held together throughout the whole thing. They had sections where the main colour was held doubled so you get sections - on this one for example - where it would just be brown and then patches where it would be brown and blue. And then, you know, they didn't have just the one colour on each panel as well. They'd, like, mix it up and make it all completely random. So it was multicoloured and it was beautiful. But because I want to use up as much of this rug yarn that I have as possible, I decided to just make it more colourblocky.
So, last episode - not, okay, it won't be last episode now - last last episode, where I first showed this, I had knit - crocheted - I had crocheted the bottom panel, which is this pink here. I had made one of these end panels and I had just started the other one here. And so I have finished that second end panel obviously and I am now starting on the side panels, which are going to be the long panels that have the handles and my final colour is yellow. So hopefully I'll have enough of that.
The only thing is I- I made the- I did the foundation stitches- I made the number of foundation stitches that the pattern called for. But after I had done a few rows I checked it against the bottom panel and it isn't wide enough. And I'm sure that has- it just- it just occurred to me why. I was thinking my crochet tension must be really off but I should- actually I just realised it's probably because I'm using very different size crochet hook - I nearly said knitting- knitting needles again - than the pattern calls for.
So the pattern calls for, I think it's worsted weight yarn on 6 mm crochet hooks. I am using what I believe is DK weight yarn on 8 mm crochet hooks. Again, mostly because I'm trying to use up more of the yarn. But that didn't occur to me when- coz I- I'm not a crocheter. I don't know about- I don't know anything about gauge when it comes to crochet. I don't understand how gauge could possibly work in crochet, to be honest. So- but I'm sure that is why this is a lot longer than this is wide. so I'm going to have to undo all of this and and make that quite a few stitches longer.
I actually feel like, looking at it now it's- the yellow has gotten even shorter than when I- than when I looked at it when I first originally realised that they weren't going to match. And I did send a photo of this to my crochet friend, Hannah, and I was like, "Is this gonna stretch out?" Because I was feeling lazy and didn't want to have to undo it, even though I hadn't done that much and it goes pretty quickly. And I was saying, "Is this going to stretch out or do I have to redo it?" And she said to redo it. So I'm going to redo it and be good.
But yeah, I'm quite enjoying how these colours are looking together. So hopefully I have enough of the yellow and enough of the brown to finish those- those end panels. And maybe next time I will have a little project bag to show you. A completed project bag. So that is my Boxet Bag by Cal Patch.
Craft for Thought
So the thing that I am really excited to talk to you about is the natural dyeing workshop that I did at Tarndie. So Tarndie is a - says here - historic wool shop and homestead. But they are, I believe, the first breeders that - the family who- who owns this farm are, I believe, are the first breeders of the Polwarth sheep. And the- the- I don't know when that was but it's- it's- yeah. "With 250 years of farming experience behind them, the Dennis family developed Australia's first new sheep breed, the Polwarth, at Tarndwarncoort in the 1800s." And it's been in the family ever since.
And I- I have been interested in using their yarns ever since I discovered them because I'm interested in trying different sheep breeds other than Merino. So last year, I had bought some mini skeins to do some swatches. That's one of them. They're in their 4 ply. And while I was at- at the- at the- at the farm doing the workshop that I did during the - this- splitting this episode into two parts is a bit tricky because I want to say last weekend because for me, filming on Monday the 14th - filming this today on Monday the 14th which is the same time I've filmed the episode that went out last week - for me it was last weekend. But since this second half of the episode is going out a week later, I have to say it was the weekend before last which is very confusing to me.
But anyway, I bought some of their hand dyed yarn while I was there as well. So this one, I believe, isn't naturally dyed. It's made using acid dyes, to my understanding. But I bought four skeins of that that I'm going to do something with. But I've kind of, sort of been interested in natural dye for a while. I've watched lots of videos on both natural dyeing and acid dyeing. And acid dyeing, while I find it really interesting to watch and see what people come up with, it's not something that I would ever- it never really grabbed me as something that I wanted to do for myself.
But natural dyeing, the idea of getting something from nature and extracting colour from it and putting it into yarn or fabric or whatever, it just seems like magic to me. And I love the idea of- yeah, I just- I just love the idea of the whole process of it. Using all natural products, pretty much, to- to- to create new and beautiful items that you can craft with.
So there are- there are some sort of chemical components to it but there are natural alternatives to that and they are natural- natural alternatives. I'm explaining this all really badly.
Basically, when you're dyeing you need something that is called a mordant, which fixes the colour to whatever you're dyeing so that it doesn't fade or wash out. So for natural dyeing there- the main one that seems to be used is alum. I'm not sure how that can be achieved naturally, but maybe just like an aluminium tin or something like that. I have no idea.
But I do know that a couple of other mordants that can be used - iron and copper - they can be naturally achieved by just doing the dyeing in an iron pot or a copper pot and the- they will leach into the water that you're cooking up the yarn in. But you can buy iron compounds and copper compounds and all- and other- other things to make your mordant so that you get something that's more consistent.
Anyway, I went to Tarndie for a natural dyeing workshop. I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to A) try natural dyeing, and B) visit- visit the homestead and get some of their yarn in person. So that was a two hour drive from where I am to where they are on the other side of the city. And we did natural dyeing.
It was just- it was so exciting. So I have watched videos before so I had some idea of what to expect from one of the plants in particular which is the eucalyptus cinerea. I get the impression that it's one of the more popular natural dyes because it can give such a vibrant colour that is nothing like the plant itself. So it's also called the silver dollar gum and it's that sort of faded silvery green colour. And this is the yarn that I got out of it which is just just incredible. It just- It just amazes me that this came from that.
Other people had- I pretty much left this in the pot for the duration of the class. I left it in for as long as I possibly could. Other people took theirs out earlier and got a much lighter orangey shade. So I guess kind of similar to - well, not really actually. I was gonna say it's kind of somewhere- kind of probably more like this shade. But you know, the longer you leave it in the more colour it can get- it can get. So you can get from paler to that to- to this and anywhere in between which was just incredible. Like, that comes from nature. That colour comes from nature. It's magic. It's- It's amazing. So that was the eucalyptus cinerea.
The other plant that we dyed whiz- what- that we died whiz- width - I can't talk! The other plant that we dyed with was the cherry ballart. So that produced this gorgeous yellow colour here. So this one I- I had- I put it in the pot and I left it in for quite some time and then I hung it up on a hook and I moved it around a bit so that some of it would be in the dye solution for longer than other parts of it. And you can kind of see. I only left a very small bit of it out of the water but you can see that variation, that tonality there. And again, such a vibrant yellow that comes from a plant that does not have this colour on it as far as you can see. Amazing.
So the other thing that we did is we- so they had pre mordanted the skeins in alum for us. So another thing that we did is - one of these skeins that was pre mordanted in alum, we put in another solution that was the same cherry ballart - it was actually the same pot. They just put some of that same pot into another smaller pot with the, whatever the copper compound is for- for the copper mordant solution. And with that one, a lot of us did get a bit more experimental and we twisted our yarn up into these skeins.
So when you dye them up, you have them in there like loose hanks and you tie them so that they don't get wool completely tangled and loose. But for this copper solution, a few of us skeined them up so that the dye was only touching the outside of the skein and then the inside of it wasn't getting any dye. So it was kind of like a way to put in a resist.
I- I skeined mine up too tightly so I barely got any of the green and it's - the colours are sort of more blended in together because I have re-skeined this since I got home - but there's just a lot more white in here than I would have liked. It's not- I mean you can see this- it's not completely white and then completely green. There is some shade variety in there as well. But I was a bit sad that I put that much resist. And then I commented on one of the other ladies in the group. She had- I think she'd done something- I think she maybe hadn't done this. I think what she had done, she had tied tight knots around her skein so that she'd have smaller bits of resist. And I told her that I thought hers looked so pretty because it had so much more green in it. And she said, Well, I don't use 8 ply yarn so you can have this." So, thank you Judith. I thought that was just the most generous thing. And she gave me her- her lovely skein of the chell- cherry ballart in copper mordant.
So to give you that comparison, that beautiful green came from the same plant as this beautiful yellow. And again, that green is still nothing like the green that the plant was.
And then what I also did was, I had another skein that I had in the cherry ballart pot, so this yellow pot. And then after a while, I took it out and I hung half of it into the pot of the eucalyptus cinerea so that when I pulled it out, it was half orange, half yellow. And then we also got to play with indigo dyes. So we did- I did that one in indigo, and it came out like this. I love how rich and vibrant the green of this is. So that- that green comes from the cherry ballart dipped in indigo. And then the browns that you can see are the the sections that were the eucalyptus cinerea then over dyed in indigo. And you can see this colour here, that- that was just un-dyed natural white yarn. So that blue over this yellow and this orangey red to get this green and brown magic.
It's amazing. It's magic.
And then, of course, since we're doing the indigo we had- we did just plain indigo, of course, because how could you not. So that is my skein of indigo there. And indigo, it is just its own magic. If you've ever watched any videos of anyone dyeing with indigo, you see that when it comes- when it first comes out of the vat, it's green. And then once it reacts to the oxygen - once it oxidises - it turns blue. It's all magic. It's magic. It's amazing. I- It's amazing.
I do want to dabble in more natural dyeing. But I would really like to try solar dyeing. So instead of cooking it up in pots - and I would need to get separate pots and a stovetop that I can use outside - instead of doing that I want to try solar dyeing, which is just putting it into another vessel, usually jars, and letting it sit out in the- in the sun for a few days, for up to a couple of weeks possibly, depending on the weather, and letting the natural heat of the sun and the environment cook it up for you and do that. So I really want to try that. But we are now technically in autumn so I may have- I might wait to do that until we start moving back into summer at the end of the year so that I don't have to be leaving my dyes out for as long to get the colour out of it.
But that is my natural dye and I'm just so happy and it was such a fun day. It was such a great workshop and I'm just so thrilled by what we produced from it. Like, it's- it's beautiful. It's so beautiful and it just makes me think that, for one thing, I looked at all of these and it made me think, "Well I never want to buy solid colours of yarn ever again. If it's in a colour that I can naturally produce myself, I would much rather do that - buy un-dyed skeins - than go to a shop and try to look for an orange, say, or yellow if I can do it myself."
The only one that I probably wouldn't do myself is indigo because they- she- she- the- the woman who was kind of running the class, she was saying that it's kind of like- it's kind of like sourdough. So the vat is alive in the same way that, I guess, sourdough starter is alive. And it's, yeah. I- I- It just seems like more work than I would be prepared to do at home for myself doing small batches. But you know, I may change my mind about that. We shall see. But I'm in love with natural dyeing and I can't wait to try some solar dying on my own. So that's that.
Stat Chat
What is next? We're getting to the end of this now. So I probably should have done this Stat Chat at the start of the first part of this episode, but I'm doing it now. So what I wanted to just have in the Stat Chat was just: since the previous filmed episode - so not the previous episode - since the episode before that - oh goodness, this is going to be confusing.
I have worked on one machine knit. I have worked on three hand knits, which are the Star Illusion Blanket, the Greenwich sweater surgery, and I'm counting the design swatches in that. And I have worked on one crochet project. So that is a total of five projects that I have worked on in the last couple of weeks.
Multicrafty
Spinning
I have not done any spinning. The only thing that I've done towards that is, I've had a go hend- hand blending some fibre. So the- the grey fibre that you can see in there is the one that I have nearly two and a half kilos of. And then the pink that you can see is, when I was looking at buying the insane amount that I bought, they sent some samples and some other colours as well. So this is- this, I think, is something like- I think it's- I've got 5g of pink and 15g of the grey and I just had a go blending those together and that's- that's all I have managed to do for my- my spinning. So yes. That's- that's that there.
Heart Full of Craft
And the very last segment is Heart Full of Craft and usually when I get to this, I feel like I've already said it all in previous segments and it's happened again. I feel like I have said it all in my Craft for Thought in talking about the natural dyeing.
But I am just so grateful for this magic, this natural magic. I am grateful to the people in the past who discovered that this could be done, particularly the ingido- indigo. Like, how do you-? What-? How do you discover this? What makes you think to try whatever they would have needed to try to come up with the solution that does this? I- incredible. So very clever, creative people in history.
And then, yes, grateful to Mother Nature. Grateful to the people who discovered this magic. Grateful to people who have continued it on. And grateful to people who teach it to others. Particularly the wonderful people at Tarndie who- who ran this workshop that I got to take and that's all - ooh, dropping all the yarn. That's all that I have to say.
Thanks!
Thank you so much for tuning into this part two of episode 13 of Bobolog.
I hope that- I hope you learned something. I hope you were inspired. I hope you enjoyed hearing everything that I've got to say and I hope that you come back for more.
If you did like this episode, please give me a thumbs up. And I would also really appreciate it if you subscribe to my channel, Platypus Knitting. You can also find me on Instagram @PlatypusKnitting and on Ravelry. My username there is my name, BobbieOlan, and information about all of the knitting and crochet projects that I do are in my Ravelry projects. I try to keep that pretty up to date.
So thank you very much for spending some time with me and tuning in. And I hope to see you again in another week.
Fare thee well.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Resources
Mentions
Patterns (on Ravelry)
Star Illusion Blanket by Katie Ahlquist
Greenwich by Martin Storey
Boxet Bag (crochet) by Cal Patch
Yarns (from my LYS, or on Ravelry)
Prestige Yarns Bambini 4
Bendigo Woollen Mills Galaxy
Tarndie hand-dyed yarn from Polwarth sheep