Milkweed, Not Just For Butterflies

If you ever get the chance to stand in a patch of blooming milkweed, do it!  When it's really blooming, I can smell it from all the way across the yard as I walk up the driveway.

Here's a new puzzle for you if you are looking for a cool "inside job".

The 2025 Tour de Fleece

Against my better judgement, I'm putting Murphy in as our Team Leader this year.  What could go wrong...

Hopefully he'll just lead us to good grazing and some grand fiber adventures...but he could also lead us into trouble, so everyone should be prepared.  I have a small stash of bail money.  20 knows where to find it.

The Tour de France and Tour de Fleece start Saturday, July 5 and run through July 27.  The women's race starts July 26 and finishes August 3. This is primarily a spinning challenge, but any fiber work counts on our team.  You can officially join our team on Ravelry or just spin along on your own.  Feel free to tag me on IG if you'd like to share your progress.

I think I'm going to once again do a sampler of some of my favorite sheep, but this year I'll also be including some processing as well.  I have several fleeces already washed and ready to card or comb, but I'll be washing a few more and hopefully I'll take some pictures of the entire process from sheep to spinning.  

Air up your bike tires and get ready to ride :-D.

Pinot's Porch

So glad it's at least a little cooler this morning.  I've regretted every complaint I made about being cold last winter.

Looking for a new puzzle?  I think this one might be fun :-).

I Mean, What Else Would You Do When It's Nine Million Degrees?

I don't remember why I started flipping through my natural dye books looking for a green, but I did and came across comfrey.  I'd been given a start of comfrey this spring to add to the B Garden and was pleasantly surprised to see it is also a dye plant.

I messaged my flower giving friend (who's also into natural dyes) and she said she had a big patch ready to be cut back so we decided to put a dye pot together.  Another natural dye friend was coming into town so it was perfect timing...and then the August heat dome arrived.  We had fun and learned a lot, but it would have been more fun if it had been a more reasonable temperature.  

 

Did you know that the screen drying rack flips up to access a perfect work table underneath?  I love this set up.  

The freshly started comfrey in the B Garden.  See the bee?  Mine was still blooming because it was a bit behind Rebecca's due to the transplant.  

It's a beautiful addition to the garden!

After a brief soak.

And a little bit longer.

The gray on the left and the white on the right were where we started.  The gray became pretty army green and the white, with just an alum mordent, became the light yellow green.  I wasn't super excited, but was instructed to reserve judgment until we had added in the iron modifier.

And that's when we got the two greens on the left :-D.  So those two skeins were mordented with alum, simmered in the comfrey dye pot and then dipped in an iron modifier bath afterwards.  Much better!

Another plant that could give us a dark green was ivy and I thought I had a source for that, but when we prepped it, we didn't get any color so I must not have the right variety.  We'd already mordented a couple more skeins so we looked through the book for other plants we could find and set up quickly and chose goldenrod.  

It's too early for blooms, but the leaves work well too, so I headed down to the creek in the blazing sun and picked a pot full.  The leaves started green and cooked to a greenish yellow color and when I dipped out a cup of dye to see where we were, it was barely colored.  I thought it was another fail, but was cautioned once again to give it a try.  

 

See the bright yellow strand on the end?  That was our test strand. The book cautioned that cooking too long might dull the color...and that's what happened with the skein.  The dark yellow had been in the dye pot for about 5-8 minutes.  The skein, closer to 15 minutes.  Yep, it faded it right out.  A good lesson. 

The other good lesson learned was to mark your skeins better.  I no longer remember if the middle skein was with the copper modifier added in or the iron.  At one point we lined the skeins up in alphabetical order (alum, copper, iron), but I don't remember if we did that before or after I took this picture.  It was hot.  

Overall it was a fun experience.  I got a green that I think will work well with my walnut dyed yarn from last fall.  And now, looking back for the link to that post I see it was the fall of 2023.  At least the blog remembers to put the "tags" on.  

If I want to wear that sweater this fall I better get knitting!

A Hundred Guests In The Wool House

 Those pesky summer visitors ;-).

This is a harmless wolf spider...and about 100 or so of her kids on her back.  Click to biggify.  

All spinners and weavers are welcome in the Wool House.  Spiders are beneficial insects.  Don't grab a phone book!