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 

...