A Sow's Ear, A Silk Purse, and a Bowl of Soup

Skeins of yarn waiting to be dyed.  L to R - Tunis, Romney, Shetland, and Wensleydale

In the world of fiber and yarn, sometimes things simply refuse to go as planned.  Mildred and I had been planning for months to experiment with dyeing yarn with black turtle beans.  I had read every blog on it, every Ravelry post, and we had viewed photos of yarns in various shades from gray to greenish to turquoise to indigo blue.  It appeared that black turtle beans produced the most reliable color, so we bought beans from the local co-op.  We had spun up two pounds of yarn to dye.  We thought we had it nailed.  We were wrong.

Using alum and cream of tartar as a mordant (a dye fixative), we carefully weighed the skeins and measured the correct amount of alum and cream of tartar into my large dye kettle, then gently put in the skeins, which had been soaking in water.  We heated the water slowly and simmered the skeins for an hour to bind the mordant to the yarn.  I rinsed the skeins the following day and hung them to dry.  So far, so good.

The black turtle beans (7 pounds of them!) were soaked for 48 hours in a food-safe kettle, and on Friday night, we re-wet the skeins and carefully - oh, so carefully - skimmed off the soaking water with a ladle, pouring the liquid through a sieve into the clean dye pot so that no bean particles or sludge would contact the yarn, which we had read would cause the yarn to turn grayish,rather than the blue we were hoping for.  We then lowered the skeins into the dye pot and left the pot on the floor to soak.  The beans were put into containers, and we froze them for use in soups later since they were just soaked and not spoiled or fermented.

I checked the skeins periodically.  The yarn turned from a pinkish color to a grayish color to a bluish-green, but the skeins didn't seem to be absorbing the color well.  I gently stirred the skeins from time to time, hoping that all would be well.

On Sunday morning, we took the skeins out of the depot and rinsed them to see what the results were.  It was not a pretty sight.

A dyer's disaster - (clockwise from top left - Tunis, Wensleydale, Romney, Shetland)

The yarn was bluish-grey with greenish-brown splotches.  f you can imagine a Confederate army uniform that has been buried in a horse stall (with the horse) for a week, you'll have an idea of what we had.  This was a dyer's disaster.  While parts of some of the skeins were sort of an interesting aqua color, the brownish splotches spoiled them completely.  The Wensleydale skein was beyond ugly.  It looked like part of a costume piece from a zombie movie.  This was particularly unfortunate as it had been spun for my friend, Leah, who had been given the wool by Neil Kentner, a notable Wensleydale breeder and wool judge.  

Clearly, an overdye was needed, so out came the big dye pot again, and we filled it with water.  I added about a cup of white vinegar and then combined about a tablespoon each of two Jacquard acid dyes - turquoise and brilliant blue - and stirred them into the dye pot along with a fervent hope that all would be well.  

We slowly brought the yarn up to a simmer, left it simmering gently for an hour, then let it cool for a few hours before taking the yarn out.

To our immense relief and pleasure, the results were better than we could have hoped.  The black bean disaster had created a lovely base for the blue overdye, and the hideous brownish blotches had absorbed the dye in a slightly different way, mellowing into subtle, slightly deeper blue shades which added depth to the yarn.  It would have been impossible to create this color without the prior disaster.  The skeins from each breed of wool are just a little bit different than the others, and all of them are stunning and rich.

The re-dyed skeins - Wensleydale, Shetland, Tunis, and Romney

I can't explain why the original dyeing went so wrong, resulting in such muddy colors.  I suspect it may be because we have hard water in our area and have to use water softener salt, but the next time I want to do a natural dye lot for blue, I'll be using tried and tested indigo or woad.

A happy ending:  Since the beans that we had soaked for dyeing had been frozen, I took some out and Mildred and I decided to celebrate our (eventual) success by making bean soup and home baked bread.

Note to self: There is a reason why black beans are not included as a reliable dye source in books on natural dyeing.  The results can be appalling.

Note to self #2:  When in doubt, prepare to overdye.  

To Beet or Not to Beet? A Real Pickle!

We've had a cooler than normal summer here.  This means that summer crops, such as Swiss chard, are slow in growing, and the tomatoes are coming along but the baskets are not overflowing... yet.  On the other hand, a slower than normal summer means that cooler weather crops, like lettuce, are slow to bolt, and the beets are huge and plentiful.

Both Harvest and I are fond of fresh beets, and it is one of the vegetables that cans well without changing its flavor too much.  A gentleman in our town grows a small truck garden, and he put up a produce stand last year toward the end of the season.  We've been waiting for him to put out his goodies, and they started to appear on the stand a couple of weeks ago and included these "small" beets, which are actually the size of large softballs, as well as "large" beets which are about the size of a teapot.  

Even at softball size, the beets are tender, sweet, and delicious, so I decided to make some pickled beets to add some color to our winter meals.   I used my stainless steel stockpot instead of my usual enormous canning kettle, and it seemed to be much easier and quicker to make smaller batches of pickles, with less hefting of heavy pots of boiling water, than my usual marathon output of dozens of jars of whatever I'm canning.  My stock pot can hold 5 pints at a time, which is a reasonable amount to make at one go, unless you enjoy production canning or have a large family to provide for.

The following recipe is adapted from the Farm Journal's Freezing and Canning Cookbook.  I used 13 of these softball-sized beets and got 11 pints in total.  The original recipe makes about 4 pints, and I canned the beets in two batches, with one slightly larger than the other, so I added more ingredients to the larger batch accordingly to make sure there was enough of the spiced canning liquid to fill the jars properly.  The process was remarkably quick and easy and minimally messy.

You can cook the beets the day before, refrigerate them overnight, and then make the pickles the following day.  This cuts down on the  mess and the stress of "must do it today."  

The pickles can be eaten right away, but I will resist temptation for a couple of weeks, if I can, to allow the flavors to meld.

Assembling the ingredients and jars

Pickled Beets

6 softball-sized beets or 24 small beets (the kind you usually find at          the store)

Remove the stems and root ends of the beets and wash them well.  Place them in a large pot of water, enough to cover them, and bring it to a boil.  Simmer the beets until tender enough to be pierced with a fork but still firm and not mushy (about an hour or two, depending on the size of the beets).  Remove the beets from their cooking water and plunge them into cold water to stop the cooking process.  When the beets are cool, slip the skins off.  You may refrigerate them at this point or continue with the recipe.

Cutting the onion

3 medium onions, peeled and cut into quarters

3 cups 5% strength cider vinegar

2 cups water

1 cup sugar

2 Tbsp. pickling salt

6 whole cloves

1 generous Tbsp pickling spice mix

1 stick cinnamon

Put the cinnamon, pickling spice mix, and cloves into a small cloth bag or a square of cheesecloth, and tie securely.

Combine the vinegar, water, sugar, and salt in a large pot, stirring to blend, then add the spice bag.  Bring the liquid to a boil while you cut up the beets.

The spice bag heating in the pickling liquid

Cut the beets into large chunks, about an inch square.  Add the cut up beets and quartered onions to the vinegar and spice mixture, bring to a boil, and simmer 5 minutes, stirring occasionally to separate the onion into smaller pieces.  Remove the spice bag.

Simmering the beets and onions

Washed and sterilized jars ready to be filled.

Using a slotted spoon and a canning funnel, fill the hot, sterilized jars with beets up to the bottom rim, then ladle the liquid over them to within 1/4" of the jar top.  Wipe the rim of each jar, place the lid on top, and screw on the jar cap firmly but not too tight.

Processing the filled jars in the boiling water bath

Process the jars in a boiling water bath - making sure the water covers the jars - for 30 minutes, then remove the jars and cool them on the counter.  Once cool enough to handle check that the jars are sealed and wipe the jars, lids, and caps clean of any mineral deposits before labeling them with the contents and date.  Store the jars of pickles in a cool, dark place to retain their color and flavor.

Enjoy!

The Butterfly Whisperer

When I was a kid, we used to have lots of Morning Cloak butterflies in our backyard.  They may have been attracted to the pomegranate or orange tree blossoms, but they were frequent summer visitors, and they seemed to be quite friendly.  I used to be able to raise my arm with my index finger pointing out, and if there was a butterfly nearby, it would land on my finger.  I had completely forgotten about these delightful moments until recently.

Earlier this spring, a Morning Cloak butterfly found its way into the open greenhouse where I was working.  I walked over to it and gently nudged my finger toward its front legs, and it hopped right on.  I was able to carry it, sitting quietly on my finger, over to a co-worker about 40 feet away to show her how pretty it was.  I called it my "St. Francis of Assisi trick."  It had been 45 years since I had held a butterfly on my finger.

I was out watering the front garden on Sunday afternoon when this little beauty arrived and landed on the garden bench to sun itself.  Moving slowly and carefully, I coaxed it up onto my right index finger.  It was completely calm, and I was able to move it quite close to my face to look at it.  It opened and closed its wings in a leisurely manner, displaying its beauty to my astonished eyes.  

After a minute or two, the butterfly spotted one of the echinacea flowers nearby in the garden and fluttered off my hand to have a snack.  I was able to retrieve my camera and take a photo.

I am... the Butterfly Whisperer.

The Trip to Rocky Knoll Ranch

One of the things I like best about where I live is the abundance of farm animals all around me - horses, goats, cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens.  I can drive five to ten minutes in any direction and find a herd of some kind of animal grazing peacefully in a field in summer or huddled together for warmth in winter.  In addition to dairy cows, for which Wisconsin is famous, we have a lot of sheep and other fiber animas - llamas and alpacas in particular - in our area as well.  

Many of the sheep raised in Wisconsin are raised for meat, but the number of shepherds who are paying attention to the wool they grow and who are raising sheep specifically for their fiber is increasing steadily.  Over the years, I have learned a lot about spinning wool, shearing fleeces, and evaluating wool quality for hand spinners.  I also know something about keeping sheep, since I had my own small, spinner's flock in California before moving to Wisconsin.  Because I teach workshops for spinners and shepherds on how work with raw fleeces and how to improve their wool and fiber sales,  I have the pleasure of going to farms from time to time to help shear sheep or to discuss the qualities of flocks with their shepherds.  

This past Saturday found me on the road toward Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, headed past large fields of growing corn and golden wheat and deep green, tree-lined country lanes to Rocky Knoll Ranch, owned by Kirsten and Rick Mortimer.  Kirsten and Rick are new shepherds with a small flock of mostly Shetland sheep, and they wanted me to take a look at their fleeces.

When I pulled into the driveway of their historic yellow brick home, I felt immediately at home.  I could hear the sheep baaa-ing in the back pasture and see the vegetable garden to one side of the house as Kirsten led the way to the porch where bags of fleeces of many colors were neatly stacked.  The three of us - Kirsten, Rick, and I - spent a couple of hours going over the fleeces one at a time, and I found a couple of nice ones that I encouraged her to enter into the fleece show at the upcoming Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival.

While we were working with the fleeces, Kirsten and Rick's children, Olivia and Ned, came home from swimming.  Both children are learning the art and craft of raising sheep, which is hard work, from their parents.   According to Rick and Kirsten, Olivia is a calm hand at going out into the frozen fields of early spring to help at lambing time.  Ned is a budding shepherd.

Olivia is also a knitter, and she showed me a great school project she had done - a "dissected" frog made out of knitted wool.  

The frog was knitted by Olivia, and the major internal organs were made from felted wool, attached to the knitted frog, and neatly labeled.  What a marvelous, and humane way to show the biology of a frog, and so much more creative and nicer to do than the real frogs I had to dissect in high school zoology class!  The frog even had little X's embroidered for it's eyes: it was supposed to be "dead" after all.  

Of course, no trip to a sheep farm would be complete without a visit to the sheep themselves, so after sorting fleeces, we all trooped off to the fields for a visit with the woolies.   Two of Kirsten and Rick's sheep are wethers - neutered males - who were raised as bottle babies, and one in particular, Cream, followed us around like a puppy.  Once Cream discovered that I love being around sheep, he would shove his head under my hand or lean his head against my leg until I gave him a scratch.  If someone wasn't paying attention to him, he would paw at them like a dog until he got a pat or a hug.  His huge, limpid eyes would close in bliss, and he would nuzzle in as close as he could get.  Sheep love is wonderful, and Shetland sheep are small and manageable.  Granted, I smelled faintly of sheep after all this affection, but I find it to be a rather pleasant smell most of the time, and I didn't mind.

Shetland sheep come in all kinds of colors, from white to brown to grey, to black, and like Icelandic sheep, sometimes a sheep has more than one color.  Each of the colors of Shetland sheep has its own Scots Gaelic name.  Cream's brother Oreo, shown below,  appears to be a yuglet due to his brown face and legs and fawn-colored fleece.

On the way back from the field, we stopped to visit with the chickens:  Mr. Manners, the farm's rooster, and his harem of hens.   Mr. Manners is well-named, as he is a gentle rooster to his wives and his humans.  Some roosters will attack people, but he seemed more interested in posing for a photo.  What a handsome fellow!

Rick and Olivia have two gardens full of produce, including some delightful lemon yellow sunflowers growing on the side of the herb garden.  

Before I left, they kindly provided me with a bag of kale, some 8-ball zucchini, a large bunch of oregano, and a dozen rich brown eggs.  I see a kale frittata in the near future.

Free Fleece - Icelandic Lamb

I have a philosophy about wool that goes something like this:
"All wool is good wool, but not all wool is good for spinning."  All wool is, ultimately, usable.  That may mean that it can be spun and used for luxury fabrics, made into yarn for hats, mittens, or blankets, felted into fine scarves or clothing, stuffed into quilts, used for making brake pads, or, as a last resort, used for mulching the plants in the garden or getting chucked into the compost pile.  

I can no longer count the number of times I have been offered free fleece and how often those free fleeces have mulched plants or been chucked into the compost because they were unsuitable for anything else.  The fleece shown above has a happier ending, and this is its story.  

There is a lovely yarn shop near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, called Studio S.  It's located on an odd, triangular intersection near a formerly infamous restaurant called the Duck Inn (a well-documented Chicago Mafia hangout in earlier days) and across the street from the Staller Estate Winery which produces some quite nice white wines.   The combination of local history, a drive in the nearby countryside, and a chance to indulge in two of our interests (wine and fiber) at the same location, makes it an ideal day trip.

Late last fall, I was asked by the owner of the shop if I would test out two of their spinning wheels and get them up and running.  I returned in January with my wheel tune up kit in hand to give the wheels a check up and test drive.  In return for my efforts, I was given a grocery bag full of about two pounds of Icelandic lamb fleece.

Icelandic sheep are raised by a number of shepherds here in Wisconsin.  They do quite well in cold weather, which we have in abundance here.  They also come in a nearly-infinite variety of colors, sometimes several colors in one sheep, which makes each fleece unique.

Icelandic Sheep  - photo from Heart's Ease Farm

Icelandic sheep have two coats - a coarser, outer coat called tog, which repels water and snow, and a very fine, soft under coat called thiel, which keeps the sheep warm.  In their way, they are very much like double-coated Shetland sheep, from which we get the lace shawls, durable Shetland sweaters, and tweed jackets many of us are familiar with.  Those who are fans of the Lord of the Rings films will have seen handspun Icelandic wool used to create the hobbit cloaks.

Depending on the qualities of the fleece and the needs of the spinner, the two coats of adult Icelandic sheep can be spun together or separately.  Icelandic lamb, on the other hand, is another thing entirely.  It's incredibly soft and silky all the way through, and since the outer coat hasn't developed fully, there is no coarseness to contend with and no need to separate the two coats.  Which brings me back to free fleeces and the grocery bag of Icelandic fleece I was rewarded with.

Free fleeces are often full of hay, chaff, sheep "berries," and burrs.  It is a sad truth that a substantial number of people who breed sheep and expect to sell the fleeces to spinners have no idea how to avoid this problem while the fleece is growing or how to take out the yucky bits once the fleece has been sheared off the sheep.  Such was the case with this Icelandic lamb.  It was full of crud of all kinds.  It was also so very lovely, though, that I decided to try to clean it up rather than use it for mulch, as I would have done with almost anything else.  The fleece had been sitting in the closet since January, and I finally decided to deal with it yesterday.

The photo at the top of this page shows the fleece fresh out of the bag.  It's full of vegetable matter and all of the other "gifts" of the field.  For the majority of the morning, I picked through the fleece, lock by lock, taking out every bit of undesirable matter.  The photo below shows the fleece after its initial cleaning but before washing.  I had only managed to save about half of the fleece, but all the good stuff was there.

I piled the fleece into a mesh bag and gave it two wash/soaks and three rinses.  What a difference!  The end result is a little over a pound of  clean, lustrous, creamy white, cloud soft Icelandic lamb that rivals Merino fleece for softness, and the yarn will be warm as toast.  In the end, it was well worth the time and effort.  My hand cards are itching to card it up for spinning. 

It doesn't happen a lot, but sometimes free wool is a very good thing.

New Handspun Yarn - Tutti Fruitti (from the "Muppet Barf" collection)

For those of you who are not spinners, ready-to-spin wool and other fibers come in several forms:  batts, roving, top, rolags, punis  and many other preparations, each with their own peculiar name.  Roving is a method of cleaning and preparing fibers which results in a long, thick, cottony strip of fibers which are ready to be spun.  It's rather hard to describe, but if you think of a giant cotton ball which has been stretched out into a strip several yards long (and sometimes weighing several pounds), then roll it back into a ball or braid it, you'll have a general idea of what roving is. 

To the left is a photo of a ball of grey Lincoln longwool roving.  You can see the end of the strip coming off the ball of roving.  The end is the part of the roving you spin from, and you unroll the ball as you spin the fiber.



A couple of years ago, a knitting friend of mine approached me with seven different braided rovings of wool, each about seven feet long, and each a different blend of fiber and a different blend of two or more colors.  She had purchased them at various vendors at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival.  They were all discounted rovings, and one look at them made the reason obvious - they were horrible color blends.  Sometimes the best ideas in hand dyeing go horribly awry, and Ann had purchased the "orphan" rovings dirt cheap because nobody was going to buy them.   There were greens and browns, bright yellows combined with weird shades of grey, reds that faded into muddy blues, purples with odd blotches of orange in them, and turquoise blue that wound up a greenish black as though it had gone moldy.  Individually, they were just awful. 

Ann was hoping to have her mother spin up the roving so that she could knit a sweater for her husband, but her mother wasn't able to spin at that time, so she asked me if I would do it as a commission. Because Ann was a friend, I said I'd spin them up for her.  I must have been out of my mind.

I took the big bag of roving, weighing over two pounds, home and started to examine what I had.  If I spun up each roving by itself, the results would be disastrous, and the resulting sweater would be one that would be stashed in a drawer by her husband as soon as possible, there to be forgotten until the moths had made an end of it.  There was only one option:  I would have to spin all seven of the rovings simultaneously and hope that somehow the colors would blend into something that would at least be tolerable.

I tore the rovings in half and then in half again and split the strips up so that I had eight strips per roving (56 strips in all).  I dealt out the strips into eight piles, one strip from each of the seven different rovings, and wrapped a scrunchy band around each pile so that they wouldn't get mixed up.  

Holding a pile of seven roving strips in one hand , I started to spin all of the colors at once, and the effect was miraculous.  The ugly, muddy colors became a pleasant, muted background for bright splashes of vibrant yellows, turquoise, fuchsia pink, and purple, and the end result was a soft, variegated yarn that was absolutely unique and lovely, full of color but not so bright that a man wouldn't wear it in front of his buddies.  

When the yarn was plied and finished, I was amazed at the results, and I took the finished yarn to my favorite yarn shop, The Sow's Ear, to show my knitting friends and deliver it into Ann's waiting hands.  Amy Detjen, a knitting rock star if there ever was one (her hair is purple), declared the experiment a success, and christened the result "Muppet Barf" because of the multitude of colors in the skeins.  Ann was stunned, as was everyone else.

Ever since that first experiment, I have continued to spin multiple rovings simultaneously, always with unexpected and beautiful results.  I have spun as many as ten roving strips at a time.  More than that is somewhat difficult to hold in one hand, but I'm sure I'd find a way.  I finished three skeins this week, spun from two different rovings I was given by Harvest for my birthday, and I have called the new Muppet Barf skeins "Tutti Fruitti".

The skeins are spun from Australian wool top into a yarn that would make some delightful socks or a great hat and socks to match - 876 yards total in 7 ounces of yarn.

I think Kermit the Frog would approve.

Roadside Attractions - Summer Wildflowers

Southern Wisconsin is a land of great contrast.  The monochrome tones of winter - white, black, grey, and brown - give way to a riot of color in spring and summer.  Roadsides which were covered with six-foot high snow banks are now covered in a nearly-infinite variety of wildflowers which seem to change almost daily.  

The abundance of flowers in front of homes and on the roadsides makes even the most brief and trivial of errands a feast for the eye. The photos below are a sampling of some of the flowers I saw on a single, 30-minute drive from Madison back to my house.  I didn't go anywhere special.  These beauties are just everywhere, reminding us that summer is short but full of life.

Daylillies - these plants may have originally been escapees from someone's garden, but they now form huge masses of orange or yellow flowers along the roads at random intervals.  Most of the time they are orange, but occasionally, there are yellow ones growing wild as well.

Queen Anne's Lace - Almost certainly an import from European settlers, where it was a popular herb for strewing on floors to sweeten the air and for producing a yellow dye, Queen Anne's Lace is also known as Wild Carrot.  The fields teem with these delicate, nodding flower heads, some as large as saucers.  They will soon be overrun with Goldenrod, another yellow dye plant.   When I dye wool with Queen Anne's lace, the whole house fills with a lovely aroma - sort of a cross between yarrow and chamomile.  Not every dye plant is as pleasantly fragrant.  

Sumac - In summer, sumac bushes - many growing to six feet tall or more - grow conical, bright red blossom clusters which will later set fruit to become deep red berries.  Sumac berries are tart, and they were a common addition to pemmican or were used to make a type of "lemonade" by the native peoples and, later, by the European settlers to this area.  The blossom clusters are quite large and very dramatic against their deep green foliage.  In fall, the foliage will turn bright red, orange, and burgundy.

Chamomile and Fleabane - Chamomile and its many relatives, including Fleabane and Feverfew, are among several of the daisy/composite type plants that have naturalized in this area    Chamomile is familiar to many people as a relaxing tea.

White Clover and Vetch - These two plants were originally planted by farmers as food for cattle, but they now dot the landscape near fallow or abandoned fields, forming soft clouds of pink or white on hillsides and disturbed ground.  Sometimes they will grow separately, but I found them growing happily together in an abandoned field.

Wild Phlox -  There are several species of wild phlox in my area, in addition to the many garden varieties.  In the spring, huge masses of wild pink and purple phlox grow along roadsides and in fields.  By summer, the pink and purple phlox is gone, but the smaller, white variety blooms in smaller patches here and there.







Harebell - This flower is part of the Bellflower (Campanula) family.  I spotted a single clump growing in the shade under a leaning maple tree.

Partridge Pea - This flower seems to love growing near sidewalks, where it cascades gracefully over the cement.  It is very fragrant, and it reminds me of the Scotch Broom that grew on the roadsides of the mountain where I grew up.  I put some in a small vase, and it scented the entire room for days.

Is it any wonder that I can go down almost any road in summer and say to myself, "I'm so lucky.  I get to live here!"