Time to move on...

This blog is moving...

I'm using Wordpress now

...please follow me here:

https://marylenelynx.wordpress.com/

Hope to see you there, thank you !
Marylene

Still Summer...

One must maintain a little bit of summer, even in the middle of winter.
Henry David Thoreau

The river Aulne next to the house

Le Bleu nouveau est arrivé...

The very first blue (and green) shades

some pre-dyed, some dyed twice, some will be re-dyed and re-dyed again and again...

using Woad and Rhubarb

What happens when you soak some onion skins in rainwater ?

Dyer's Chamomille (Anthemis tinctoria)

Jardin des Simples - Bellegarde en Diois

I've just started a fermentation vat with these flower's

Dyer's chamomille or golden marguerite is a perennial plant with aromatic bright green-bluish foliage and yellow daisy-like flowers.
It has no culinary and only limited medicinal uses. However, the flowers produce excellent yellow and gold-orange.
It has been used as a dye for a very long time, it provides the buff in Turkish carpets but in Europe dyers preferred weld instead as yellow dye.
The leaves give a light green dye.

Lost and found:

Some wooden stamps I've bought years ago !

I'm going to try and print on fabric

Soon

...

Summertime

Summertime,
An’ the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
An’ the cotton is high...

summertime is harvest time

Ash leaves (Fraxinus excelsior) to brew "Frenette". 

Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium) as herbal medicine.

and Dyer's Chamomille (Anthemis tinctoria) to make a yellow dye

When fermented in sugar or honey water, Ash leaves produce an alcoholic drink called Frenette or cidre de frêne. Frenette is a traditional drink fallen into oblivion since the sixties. However, it is still made by a few grandmothers in the countryside. This drink, which taste a bit like apple cider was already brewed by our ancestors the Gauls. Each region had its own recipe. Slightly alcoholic (2 °) and slightly sweet, this drink is not fattening. It is drunk fresh as lemonade.

The Gauls were Celtic peoples inhabiting Gaul in the Iron Age and the Roman period. The Gaul region corresponds to what is now Belgium, France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Western Germany and Northern Italy.

Sparkling wines from natural fermentation

"Frenette" , wild strawberries and raspberries, peaches, elder flowers

I'm testing all kinds of vegetable mordants for the moment,

to ensure a better result with plant dyes as I don't want to use any metallic mordants !

Here I'm testing leafs of Rheum palmatum commonly called Turkish rhubarb

It is said that the fumes are hazardous so I'm a bit careful.

It surely smells like the rhubarb jam my grandmother use to make

and here's the result

Blue faced Leicester top, Blue faced Leicester sock yarn, silk/mohair, 

alpaca/ silk and some eco wool from the Andes, 

dyed and mordanted with Turkish Rhubarb

waiting for the Woad vat to be ready...

to be dyed 

GREEN !

In the meantime I'm harvesting next year's blues

Isatis tinctoria seeds

Woad 

...

Midsummer in Brittany

Today it's Midsummer or Summer Solstice. The highlight of summer.

old Breton illustration of the "Feu de la St Jean"

On 24 June, "La nuit de la Saint Jean" as it is called here in France, isn't celebrated like it was in the old days. Except in some places like here in Brittany where it has remained a living tradition. And so it is that the Old cult of the Fire is still existent. Fire, for millennia was honoured as a source of universal life.

Old postcard, Tantad de St Jean du Doigt

In many Breton villages they still have the tradition of lighting a large bonfire around midsummer.

This fire is called "Tantad" in Breton. The firewood is collected one month in advance, it consists mainly of dried gorse (Ulex europaeus) which grows everywhere here in Brittany.

Picture taken a few years ago in St Jean du Doigt

just before lighting the fire

It used to go like this:

After the fire was lit, the villagers, all in festive attire, stand around the fire and began to perform all kinds of dancing and singing. Children were not allowed to participate and could only look at the fire through the windows of their houses, because it was mainly a celebration of adulthood, of love and fertility. When the fire had diminished, tough young men and brave young women jumped happily over the glowing embers. The older village women each took a piece of coal and threw it into the well to cleanse the water for the whole year to come. Towards the end, bystanders threw a small cobblestone in the cooling fire, this stone was called a "anaon" . And thus ended the party and everyone went to sleep. In the morning, the villagers went to see their "anaon" stone, because during the night the spirits came to turn over the stones of the people who would die in the following year! The cooled ash was then spread on the fields in order to promote the fertility of the soil.

Or at least that's how it used to be done. Now it is a popular festival linked to the still very strong Christian faith.

Tantad de St Jean du Doigt

Tantad de St Jean du Doigt

But "la fête de la St Jean" was not only about bonfires, it was also a good time to collect some medicinal herbs. The next day, the people who knew about these things, with bare feet, still groggy from the previous night and with a golden sickle in their hand went to pick the herbs. To ward off demons and to cure fevers. St John's wort (Hypericum perforatum) of course, but also vervain (Verbena officinalis), the sacred plant of the Celts. It was picked while singing a mysterious song, a very old charm formula, called "Verven-Dieu" but nobody knows what it actually means anymore.

...

Happy Summer Solstice

Thanks for visiting

...

early summer harvests

Summer has finally started here in my little Breton home ! I'm still experimenting a lot with fermentation dyeing and right now I'm harvesting everything that could be useful.

Have a look...

The front garden, which is mainly a herb garden.

I work with a lot of herbs,

for medicine, beverages, incense, food

and of course dyes...

Broad-leaved Dock roots

Zen

or the art of harvesting willow bark

and apple tree bark

clockwise: barks from oak, apple tree, willow and plum tree

a few fibers waiting to be dyed

some fallen Eucalyptus leaves

water from the river, common sorrel, wood ash

fermented

dyed

sheep wool, alpaca and silk yarn, paper thread

Thanks for visiting

...

The first shade of summer

birch, berk, bouleau, björkar, betula...

bezv (brezhoneg)

alpaca-silk & Poll Dorset - fermentation dyeing

actually it's not summer at all

in fact it's quite cold here in Brittany

so fermentation dyeing is starting very, very slowly

more sooner or later

...

The new colour season has started...

Different herbal dye vats are fermenting right now.
I've put them in my living room next to the wood burner because it's still chilly outside.

dandelion flowers, birch leaves, dock roots, eucalyptus leaves, woad flowers
all from my garden

I won't show pictures of the fermenting vats, instead some pictures of my place:

I can assure you that there are enough dandelions to share with the bees

picture is taken from my neighbor's meadow

Chinese rhubarb, which I sometimes use in the dyeing process

Woad flowers and forget-me-not's, such a lovely sight !

While the woad leaves are harvested the first year for the most divine blues, 

the flowers of the following year are great for a yellow dye 

I haven't tried to dye with Valerian yet, 

I will give it a try this summer

my cat, on the other hand, gets high from the roots

A view of the back yard with two oaks, 

every year a few dead branches give me some lichen 

In the back, the vegetable garden

a small herbal dye garden in the front yard, where motherplants grow:

a few woads, madder, dyer's chamomile, dyer's broom, pomegranate 

and seedlings of orange cosmos, marigold, pokeweed, St Johns wort, 

coreopsis, weld and others

a small pond with one of my favorites, the yellow iris which roots gives a blue-grey dye

I will do some fabric printing tests with the iron rich soil on the bottom of this pond

a little well hidden in the back yard

which I have named

Urdarbrunnr

the well of Urd

:)

I'm going to be more of a dyer than a designer this year

I hope you still will follow me and my dye-experiments on this blog

Comments are always welcome

Thank you for visiting

...

Mor

I come from the sea, she's my mother

Mor:

Breton for Sea

mother in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish

copyright: Ingrid Anna
"mor (-(g)-anna) .. without you .. there is no sea .."

...

stripes and stripes

This pattern is available again, for free !

With nearly all my sock yarn leftovers 

I've made this colourful infinity scarf

I've use the 4 ply organic Poll Dorset yarn from Renaissance Dyeing

Alternating small stripes and large stripes gives a nice colour contrast

I can wear it long or double loop close around the neck

I even made a pair of matching knee warmers

(I really love to wear knee warmers)

This is a simple design with a very colorful result.
Made with sock yarn leftovers but it would work in most weights of yarn,


with 3,5 mm (US 4) needles in at least 9 colors,
more or less 92 meters or 100 yards of each color

The pattern/tutorial is available here

Please read, sign and share !

"At a time when the European Commission is trying to lower trade barriers for the world's largest businesses, they are putting up trade barriers for the smallest ones, thereby stifling innovation and creativity in small start-ups who could be leading the way and taking advantages of new opportunities in a growing digital market place. We need the EU to realise the impact of these new regulations before it is too late and they have completely destroyed the EU’s sole-trader and micro-business community"

"You don’t think this affects you because you aren’t a business owner? Not only will the range of products available for you to buy be greatly diminished, but the information collected by those businesses that do survive needs to be retained for 10 years - creating a huge data security risk for us all. Where currently you only have to worry about your payment provider/card handler storing your personal data, going forward millions of small businesses across the world will now have a requirement to do so."

PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION to call for THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION to unilaterally suspend the introduction of the new EU VAT laws for micro businesses and sole-traders, which if allowed to come into force will unfairly disadvantage the EU’s smallest businesses:

https://www.change.org/p/pierre-moscovici-a-unilateral-suspension-of-the-introduction-of-the-new-eu-vat-laws-for-micro-businesses-and-sole-traders

I'm hesitating between carry on as normal or retire and move to a tiny tropical island 

to cultivate my own avocado's

I’m a EU seller and I sell digital goods all over the world. To cover the additional VAT and the administration costs I will have to put my prices a lot higher, which I don’t want to do! So no business for me anymore. This new EU law is a very bad decision for small digital business, I’m so sad and angry right now ! January 1th 2015 will be a dark day for enterprise and innovation.

more info, to read:
http://euvataction.org/

Akna's Caponcho...

...a new handknit design

I designed a warm capelet/poncho with a touch of folklore

but with a contemporary feel.

Wear this colourful caponcho whenever you want to feel like a Nordic Goddess.

The photos were taken on a cold and grey afternoon

in the dunes of De Haan aan Zee - Belgium

with a big thankyou to my lovely daughter Ingrid Anna for modeling

what would I do without her !

Ingrid Anna is wearing a dress designed by:

AZIRA - ethical clothes for free, confident women.

...

The knitting pattern

is available as an automatic pdf download

pattern with written and charted instructions

4,90 euros

It is knitted seamlessly from the bottom up, in the round.

Materials:

DROPS Andes Garnstudio, Super Bulky 65% Wool, 35% Alpaca

circular needles size 8mm and 9mm

4 colours: Light grey, Medium grey, red and powder pink

a few knitting tips:

Weaving the yarn while you knit the stranded colourwork section

For a tidy look in the back of the work I suggest the technique of stranded weaving to avoid floats on the back . The results will look so much better.  With a little practice, you can master this technique and it will become indispensable in working with colour patterns. It looks difficult at first but once you get the hang of it you will never ever knit stranded colourwork or Fair Isle the old way.

I know I won’t ! I'm using this technique for several years now and I just love it !

I found a tutorial where everything is explained, so much better than I ever could.

Here it is:

Why Weave?

"Traditional stranded fair isle has you carry the unused yarn in the back of the work until it is time to knit with it again.  It works smoothly for section where colors change every few stitches, but does not carry well across floats.  A float is a section of knitting where one color is carried along the back for an extended period of time.  

     Most knitters agree that it is safe to carry (strand) your yarn behind the work for up to 5 stitches.  Many traditional patterns put a tiny stitch (called a peerie) into long expanses of a MC to prevent stranding for more than 5 stitches.

     This method of weaving lets you lock the unused color into the one you are using so there is no loose strands hanging behind your work.  It also allows you to work more than 5 stitches between color changes, and helps prevent bunching and tightening of the fair isle work."

Read more:

http://deepspaceknit.blogspot.be/2007/11/tutorial-woven-fair-isle.html

and here’s a video on how to do short rows, the turn and wrap method

http://vimeo.com/6524735

...

a lot of fringes

a while back I posted this Boa Scarf pattern on my older blog

Someone on Ravelry asked me if I could please make it available again,

so here it is :

This long-fringed scarf is a very easy, fun and quick project.
Resembling a boa it can be worn in several ways

You will need:

2 balls of 50g of DK wool
- I used Lang Merino Superwash colour 340034 jeans-blue
For the fringe: 5 balls of various yarns
- I used mostly green yarn from my stash, one bright-green silk-mohair blend, one petrol-blue fun-fur, one dark-green yarn mixed with shiny thread, one turquois cotton and one paper-yarn in mixed colours: Ganpi Abaka by NORO. As you can see, this scarf is an ideal stash-busting project, all it takes is finding matching colours: blue with green and blue, orange with brown and beige, red with purple and pink, white with white and gold, black with black and silver, etc...

One set of knitting needles 4,5mm or US 7, one crochet hook 4mm or US G

Cast-on 22 stitches in DK wool using both needles (this will ensure elasticity of the cast-on edge), then remove one needle.

Knit 290 rows in garter stitch, bind-off loosely

Prepare 120 mixed groups of 50cm threads for the fringe, using five different kinds of yarn
Using the crochet hook and your DK wool, crochet 1 single crochet (US) or 1 double crochet (UK) in one corner of the long edge, then attach the group of fringe-threads by folding it in half and attaching it with the crochet hook, make a loop and fasten well. Tie a knot in the fringe with your hands, fasten well. Sc 6 (US) or dc 6 (UK), then attach the next group of fringe-threads. Make sure the groups of fringe-threads are attached 2,5cm from each other.

Work both short edges and one long edge of the scarf.

Have Fun !

I will post a new knit pattern on this blog very soon !

...shades of Gold...

I discovered something this week:

I really, really love to dye fibers with plants !


But I knew that already

of course I did ...

some lace merino and silk-alpaca dyed with Marigolds (Calendula officinalis) , using the fermentation method

In dutch this herb is called goudsbloem - gold flower -

And the colour is exactly that: the most exquisite light apricot gold !

The actual shade is difficult to capture with a camera but you get the idea 

...

something Frida...

This beautiful yarn package came today !

I think I'm going to design something "Frida"

the notebook is a present from my lovely daughter

Mist

I love mist

Mist and mystery are linked

Hidden things become visible when it's foggy

I rarely take pictures lately, 

but one early morning

I went to the river with my camera

I took some random shots, just like that, without further thought

Only later in the day I looked at the pictures

To my surprise I saw this ...

The River Spirit

She said

I come in peace

...