National costume

There are basically three versions of the national costume, all derived from "Faldbúningur" which dates from the early 16th century.  Prior to that women wore a long loose fitting one piece dress, probably with a belt.  This changed, and it became the fashion to wear two pieces of clothing, a pleated skirt and a narrow fitting jacket.  There was also some jewelry made of bras or silver, the silver often gilt.  An apron was worn, hanging in an ornate silver belt with the help of fairly large round buttons.  A piece of cloth, preferably ornately embroidered, also hung from the belt, and a rather peculiar, chimney shaped headdress.  Doubtless there were some undergarments, but since no garments have survived from this time, the knowledge of the dress is derived purely from illustrations of the time.  Since most of the texts were religious in nature, there aren't any illustrations of people in their underclothing and therefore the
knowledge is limited.  Not much is known about the dress in the 17th century, since most pictures show the women wearing a large overcoat and what is underneath is hardly visible.  But in the 18th century there are some illustrations that show the women's dress  Again, no dresses have survived from this time and the oldest surviving dress dates from 1809.

At that time, there don't seem to have been that many changes since the 16th century.  There was still the narrow jacket, either embroidered or embellished with gold or silver bands, or both.  Under the jacket there was underwear, a lightweight white linen shirt and a corset.  Women also wore up to 7 underskirts, according to some sources.  I guess they needed to keep warm.  The corset which could be in blue, red or green was embroidered with colourful silks with flower motifs and/or embellished with gold or silver embroidery and ribbons.

The corset was closed with filigree silver loops through which a silver chain was threaded.  The skirt was still bulkily pleated and always worn with an apron.  Both the skirt and the apron were embellished on the bottom with embroidery or velvet.  The clothing could be blue, red, green or black, and all the colours could be used together in the same costume.  The colours, naturally, all derived from natural sources, indigo for blue, madder for red and perhaps cochineal (although that was much more expensive) and a combination of weld and indigo for the green.  Black was a difficult colour to achieve, but George MacKensie describes dyeing in an account from 1810.  It was obtained by dyeing with Sortulyng, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (Bearberry) and black earth, which undoubtedly contained a lot of iron.  It is also apparent that there was a lot of variation in the dress and women used whatever materials they could find, local or imported.

The headdress is a whole story in itself.  Faldbúningur derives it's name from the headdress, which was was originally a white cloth, shaped like a chimney and called "Vaf".  But in the 17th and 18th centuries that evolved into "Faldur", an elongated cone shape that had a forward bend in it.  This then changed into "Spaðafaldur", a flat spade like form, held in shape by pins.  For every day women used a knitted hat with "Skúfur" a kind of tail hanging down on one side.  This was decorated with silver.

There are now more or less three variations of this costume in use as a national costume.  One is "Upphlutur" which consists of the long skirt with a white shirt, a corset and an apron.  In this version the undershirt and corset are used as outer garments.  This verison is really the working garments of ordinary women of the olden day.  They would often take off their jacket and even the thick, heavy skirt and work in their undergarments.  Nowadays there is a 19th century version and a 20th century version.  Both use quite a bit of silver, both on the front of the corset and in brooches and a heavy belt.

The second version is Peysuföt, a tight jacket, almost always black nowadays, hooked in the front but gaping slightly over the breasts.  This version has lost the embroidery of the old jacket, but is always worn with a bow.  The skirt is the same heavy pleated skirt, again always black and there is the same type of apron, although Peysuföt were, by the 19th century considered better clothes and therefore the apron would not be a course woolen one, but made of silk or linen.  With this there is little jewelry, only a brooch and the silver for the hat.

The third type is a revival of the 18th century Faldbúningur and is in my mind the most spectacular.  It is colourful and ornate and it isn't a depressing black.  I want to make one, but it takes someone diligent about 3 years to make it.  And that's assuming one buys the silver.

I have already made a silk apron and knitted a hat.  I am in the process of sewing a shirt and wills take a course in sewing an underskirt (petticoat - I love that word.  I used to buy a British magazine with that name back in the seventies) next week.  I have studied the construction of the other pieces and can hopefully make some practice pieces for fun this summer and start in earnest to sew next winter.  I want to start the silver work soon, though.  I'm really holding back not jumping into that, but there is a lot of stuff to do before I allow myself to do that.

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Posted by Ambra at 10:22 AM 0 comments

Filigree - Víravirki

I have been blessed in my life to have had some of the best teachers.  Really.  And many of the best teachers have been a lot older than I.  So I was really thrilled to get an opportunity to take a class from one of the oldest working goldsmiths in Iceland. She is over 80 years old and has been untiring in keeping the old traditional silver filigree making alive.  Silver filigree adorns the old dress that women wore and the art of making filigree goes back all the way to the vikings who settled Iceland.

I do not own a dress myself and I guess one of the reasons is that the cost of the silver is high, anywhere from US$ 3.000 - 5.000.  I have become more interested in making a dress for myself, using natural materials, like they did in the olden days.  Today it's not usual to use natural dyes, but I think the dress would be even more charming if one did.  But I saw the course for the filigree and decided to sign up.  I did two courses of jewelry in my fine art studies in the 80's, but I haven't touched a torch since.  I am not really a fan of taking courses in order to learn stuff.  I'm much more of a do it yourself type person so I tend to just dive into learning on my own.  But learning from the very master was too tempting, and sometimes it's just a lot quicker to have someone teach you the right way to do things.  It was fun.  More fun than I remembered.

The course was a short one, just two weekends and we were expected to do a brooch in that time.  I did a small one and turned it into a ring.  Brooches are an essential part of the dress, but I do not wear brooches really ever, but I have been wanting a large cocktail ring.  I also did a pair of earrings.

I was really surprised by the process.  It is very simple, but also very fiddly.  I got the bug very badly and although I hadn't thought about doing it myself, I decided to make the silver for my dress myself.  It is of course a lot more economical, even if here is some cost involved in equipment.  Most of the cost is in the amount of time it takes to make.

The Icelandic filigree is made out of two sizes of wire, an outer wire (Höfuðbeygjuvír) and an inner wire (Innanbeygjuvír).  The outer wire is a round 1mm silver wire that is rolled into 0,5mm.  The inside wire is especially textured and much finer.  To start to make a shape that is round, one bends the outer wire around two nails that have been hammered the desired distance into a piece of wood.  It is a humble beginning, and doesn't look like much.

The next step is to use pliers to coax the silver wire into a nice round shape with a small center and then this is soldered.  The resulting round shape is then worked with the pliers to make it into the shape one wants and to make it even and then it is ready for the finer filigree to be filled into the shape.

I chose to make mine in a heart shape and filled it in with little round shapes (Snirkill) which always get a small ball of silver (Korn) on top.  I had planned to fill in with leaves (Lauf), but that proved difficult so I choose another traditional shape, whose name I do not know.

I have since this time spent a lot of time reading about the dress and the silver that accompanies it in order to choose what type I want to do.  There has been some change in the style of dress and also the style of silver and one has to make a lot of choices.  I have chosen to do an older version, 19th century rather than 20th century.  There are no surviving dresses until around 1800, but there are illustrations of dresses back to the 16th century.  One day I want to do an 18th century dress (Faldbúningur), but that takes about 3 years, if one is quite diligent and I don't have the time right now.

I signed up for a course in sewing the shirt and the apron.  I started the 19th century shirt, which is made of a very fine linen (can also be cotton), but I can't find a linen thread here so I can't finish it.  I've almost finished sewing the apron, with thread from the fabric.  I just have to do buttonholes and slight finishing.  In the olden days it was either made from local wool, striped or checked, imported silk or, rarely, white linen.  I would love to weave the fabric for my apron, but then it also becomes tempting to spin the yarn for it and dye it myself.  So silk apron it is.  I have also started the knitted hat, which is most often done in black, but the older hats were more commonly blue and even red or green.  Since I didn't want black, I used the woad dyed alpaca from last summer, very happy to have found a worthy project for it.  I'm waiting for a course in sewing the very delicate embroidery for the corset, as well as a course in sewing an underskirt.  But the overskirt and the corset itself may have to wait a while.

This project is taking on a life of it's own.  It's my goal now to make a dress for July 19th which is my grandmothers birthday.  This year we will celebrate the centenary of her birth and I plan to finish some form of a national dress to wear that day.  It will undoubtedly deviate quite a bit from what is most often done, a lot of black, but it will be handmade and I will stay true to the handiwork and even more correct in terms of the colours I use since I plan to use mostly indigo dyed wool and a lot of white.  The white is not very traditional, but I don't care.  After all it will be summer.

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Posted by Ambra at 10:11 PM 3 comments

A Shot of Green

I sometimes make soup to have for lunch.  I started with a recipe for Broccoli soup that I got from a book by two Canadian doctors about food that fights cancer.  I do not have cancer, but a lot of people around me do and I was intrigued by the title.  This was many years ago and I have since been mindful to include some or all of the super healthy stuff in my diet, one way or another.

I have also experimented with this recipe, trying different kinds of vegetables, depending on what I had handy in the fridge.  One can really use pretty much any vegetables and adjust the seasoning to taste.

Cauliflower would be nice and light with its delicate flavor.  Beetroot would be a bright pinkish red, carrots for an orange soup and rutabaga for a yellow one.  An addition of linseed could be interesting.  My mom used to make a really good linseed soup.

But anyway, the other day I made this soup, and it's just really, really good.  It oozes healthiness and my mouth waters when I think of it's thoroughly green taste.

Start with sautéing one onion, preferably in butter.  If garlic is added, it should go in at the last stages, it doesn't take as much heat as the onions.  Add to the onions a tablespoon of turmeric (I am a firm believer in the health benefits of herbs and spices, turmeric is wonderful stuff and this soup is one way to get it naturally and in a form that makes is easy for the body to absorb.  So do not skip sautéing the turmeric and do include black pepper to get all the benefits.), half a tablespoon of freshly ground pepper and the same of crushed coriander seeds and mustard seeds.  Let the spices fry a bit in the butter.

Add a quart/liter of chicken stock to the pot (it's great to have homemade for this, but use the best quality store bought if that isn't available. Chop up one head of broccoli and add to the stock as well as one cup each, spinach and kale (in winter all I have is frozen and I use 4 balls each).  Let this simmer for 10-15 minutes. Take a stickblender to this a whizz it smooth.  Salt to taste and snip a lot of fresh parsley over the soup if it's available.

I store the soup in a large mason jar and keep it for a week in the fridge, it lasts me 5 days ( I guess the soup is 4-5 servings) which makes it perfect for weekday lunch, with two soft boiled eggs.  I have been changing my diet somewhat and feel much better for it. I avoid grains, sugar and starches.  For someone who isn't doing that, an addition of one potato will make the soup thicker, but I find that I don't really notice much difference.

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Posted by Ambra at 10:56 AM 3 comments

Handiwork

In my language we use the word handiwork when we talk about all sorts crafts, anything really that is done by hand as the word implies.  Although, the word tends to have a bit more feminine slant covering more of the things that women tend to do more than men, like knitting, crocheting, sewing and embroidery.

Handiwork was the name given to the class where they taught those skills in school when I was seven.  The boys learned something called "smíði", a word that might be related to the english word smith which means metal worker.  The Icelandic word has a more general meaning because it captures a lot of materials like wood, metal and stone, but not wool, fabric or yarn.  I like to do both and would have enjoyed going to the boy's classes if they had been open to girls.  But nowadays they are, of course, and girls are free to explore a wealth of materials in their creative work.

I still like the feminine materials and love to have some handiwork going.  I have been doing a lot of knitting and crocheting as well as spinning, dyeing and cleaning both goat wool and eiderdown (yes, I'm still doing that).  There is something very comforting in having something on the knitting needles (or the crochet hook as the case may be).  It's like having a great big book to read.  Something that one can turn to again and again.  But then all too quickly it's all over.  And there is a sense of loss and emptiness that needs to be filled.  This didn't use to be a problem because in the past I hardly ever finished projects, but I have found that as I get older I also get better at finishing what I start.  I now have two new sweaters and a growing stash of beautifully coloured yarn.

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Posted by Ambra at 9:50 AM 2 comments

Icelandic cashmere

Cashmere!  Seriously!  I have to admit my ignorance.  I really thought that cashmere came from a special breed of ... well, I probably thought it was sheep.  But it's goats.  I really didn't know that it isn't the breed that determines if the wool is cashmere or not, but basically the combination of fiber diameter (in microns) and the length of the fiber. Cashmere is between 14 and 18,5 microns (human hair is around 50 microns) and the length of the fiber should be no less than 32mm (11/4") in relaxed state (crimped).

The Icelandic goat is a small breed, originally Norwegian.   They have very long and coarse guard hairs, but under that they have high quality luxurious cashmere fiber.  In recent tests the fiber qualified as cashmere in terms of the diameter, but comes in just short in the length.  So technically it can't be called cashmere, but I don't care.  It's absolutely lovely to the touch and I can't wait to try to spin it.

Since Iceland was very isolated for a number decades our livestock, which came with the Vikings just after 800 AC, has evolved to be uniquely Icelandic.  We therefore have our distinct horses and sheep, and also have our wonderful Icelandic cattle, the very colourful poultry and the cheerful Icelandic goats.  Importing foreign animals is not allowed, mostly to prevent diseases since past experiments have unfortunately brought us diseases that are still being battled today.  Just a few years ago some harmless virus came from Europe, probably via unclean equipment, and was transmitted to the defenseless Icelandic horse, killing large numbers of them.  So even if the laws about animal imports can sometimes be annoying and sound very strict, experience has taught us that we can not be too careful. And at least we are still free of rabies in this country.

The Icelandic goat is an endangered species.  In 2011 there were 818 goats in the country and until breeding females number over 1000 they will be in danger of extinction.  There are a few individual farmers who are breeding goats in order to preserve them, mostly working without much support from government.  The breeding now, is only aimed towards reducing inbreeding and trying to get the most variabilty into the heard.  Hopefully that will be successful and the breeders can then concentrate on specific aims like the quality of the wool or milk or meat.  I recently visited one of the farm, the largest, Háafell.

Needless to say I fell hopelessly in love with these charming and sociable creatures.  They are very cuddly amimals and litterally jump up on you to get a cuddle.  I have been wanting goats for the longest time and now I know why.  They are just like pets.  And cute too. Even the large males are adorable with their large horns.

The survival of the Icelandic goats is of course hugely dependent on economic issues.  Can they be bred profitably?  Well, we'll have to see, but did buy quite a bit of wool as well as some cheese and meat.  I also volunteered to come and comb the goats when the time comes to do that in April.  In the meantime I've been busy cleaning the wool, both washing it and removing the coarser guard hair.  The resulting fiber is temptingly soft and I really, really need to get better at spinning very soon so that I can make some lovely yarn for a sweater for myself.

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Posted by Ambra at 1:05 AM 3 comments

Icelandic wool

I am fascinated by the wonderful materials that nature provides.  I was therefore rather surprised, when  traveling recently, to discover that not everyone shares my preference.  I love to knit and crochet, so I took some wool with me, both Icelandic lopi and some of the Alpaca that I had dyed with lichen.  It surprised me that almost everyone I met, who was knitting or crocheting, was using acrylic or some other synthetic yarn in screaming bright colours.  I just don't understand why anyone would spend all that time on handiwork, and not use the best materials.  I just don't get it.  But I was polite and said nothing.  Each to his own.  But I still don't get it.

The old saying: "The grass is always greener on the other side of the river" is so true.  Very often I feel slightly envious over the abundance of material available to people who live in other, most often warmer, countries.   Eventually I stopped looking into the distance and discovered right at my feet the most wonderful materials, a wealth of medicinal and dye plants and of course the precious eiderdown and now, my latest discovery:  Icelandic wool.

It has always been there and we learn at an early age in school that it kept the nation alive through decades of misery, it has unique properties, yada, yada, yada...  And I never really gave it any thought.  I have been using it for dyeing for some time and I have always thought that I had full appreciation of it, but now I realize that I really didn't know what it was all about.  I just started an evening class about how to prepare and spin and I just  fell in love.  The teacher, who happens to be a neighbor in the allotment garden, brought raw fleece, just the way it comes off the sheep, but washed.  And we started from there.

But first a little bit about the Icelandic wool and it's unique properties (that's the yada-yada part).  The thing is that, like other primitive sheep species, Icelandic sheep have two types of hairs.  The outer coat, called "tog", is coarse and shiny, and the fibers are very long, 10-45 cm / 4-18 inches.  It is water repellent and serves to keep the inner coat dry.  The inner coat, "þel" (or thel) is only 5-10 cm / 2-4 inches long, but much finer and softer.   Traditionally the two were separated and treated quite differently to produce completely different materials.  And I had never, ever touched pure þel before I attended the class.  The reason is that the two types of hairs can only be separated by hand.  All attempts to make a machine to do that have failed.  All the Icelandic wool that is produced commercially is a combination of the two and as a consequence it is quite coarse and scratchy.  It's fine for Lopapeysa (the Icelandic sweater), but not for anything that one would like to have next to the skin.  So þel wool can not be bought in stores here, it has to be made by hand, but no one is doing that.  So I look forward to having a completely new material to work with.

Tog is combed, rather than carded, with viking combs and I haven't tried that yet.  I understand that it is always spun as a worsted, which means that the fibers are all paralell.  It is and is also a completely new material to me.  Even if it is coarse, it has a lustre that makes it perfect for embroidery thread, warp thread in weaving and for strong and water repellent outer garments.

I've been separating tog from þel and carding the þel.  It's wonderfully soft and completely different in feel from Lopi, the Icelandic wool that I've been dyeing.  I just tried my hand at spinning some and it was quite fun.  I got Abby Franquemont's book Respect the Spindle and highly recommend it.  I have along way to go, but I really, really think this will be fun.

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Posted by Ambra at 1:37 AM 5 comments

The Thirteenth

The last day of Christmas is thirteen days after Christmas day.  We call the day "The Thirteenth" (Þrettándinn) and it is celebrated in a small way.  We have bonfires, parades with elves and trolls and all kinds of strange beings.  This is also the day to fire up the last remaining fireworks.  Our Julelads (Jólasveinar), all thirteen of them have left, one every day since Christmas day and then, when they have all left, Christmas is all over.

I remember Christmases of my childhood with fondness.  My memories are mostly all muddled together and it's hard to distinguish one Christmas from another.  But one I do remember particularly well.

My sister and I were probably around six and seven years old.  This was in the days before we had overdrafts and credit cards, when ones wages just had to stretch till the end of the month.  My parents must have very broke, because instead of the usual expensive traditional Christmas dinner, we had the very inexpensive and traditional Meat soup (Kjötsúpa).  We only got one gift from my parents that year, and although we must have had a few other gifts from uncles and aunts, this one is the only one I remember.  It was the kind of toy one would expect to find in a gas station, 4 very cheap plastic bowling pins with a metal rod through them, on a stand and one ball to knock them down.  We were a little puzzled, since we were used to receiving one gift each from our parents.  But they, probably horribly guilt ridden, seemed to be really excited by this, obviously very cheap, toy and got down on the floor and started to played with us.  And they made it exciting and fun and we played all evening.  We had so much fun, I'll never forget it.  It wasn't until years later that I realized how terribly broke they  must have been and most important of all: That the best gift that children can receive is their parents undivided attention.

I do not remember the most expensive gift they ever gave me.  Not at all.  I couldn't even guess at it.  That's not to say that I didn't receive many very nice Christmas gifts from them.  They were very good at giving us very nice things even if they never were rich.  But that cheap plastic thing is the one I remember best.  I think we need to remember sometimes that money doesn't really matter as much as we pretend it does.  Most of my pleasure these days are not expensive.  Most of them cost very little and some cost nothing at all.  This year I plan to enjoy as much as I can, all the free things in life.  I will feed the birds, gaze at the sky and look for the Northern Lights.  I'll admire the sunset, pick wild flowers, visit old friends and take long walks in the woods, along the river or on the beach.  It's going to be a year to remember.

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Posted by Ambra at 10:51 PM 0 comments

Old Years Evening

New Years Eve has a different name in Icelandic and with that comes a slightly different meaning.  It's called Old Years Eve.  It emphasizes the end of the old year rather than the beginning of the new.  The name may be why I find it an almost a melancholy time.  I think back.  To old times and old friends.  To people I loved.  The people who have died.  And then I think about myself, as one does.  I wonder if I have changed over the years.  Most of the time I don't think I have, but I'm pretty sure others would think so, not having the inside scoop on the logic of my life's journey.

The similarities between the chain smoking, cola drinking, make-up wearing, fashion conscious art student and the juice drinking, Pilates addicted, business woman-cum-back-to-nature-and-the-simple-way-of-life naturally graying middle aged woman may not be obvious, but I'm all still here, although neither smoking nor drinking cola, but still wearing make up and enjoying beautiful clothes and other materialistic things in life.  My curiosity about everything is still the driving force in my life and having mastered some skills during the first fifty or so years of my life, I am now tackling some that I was vaguely interested in back in the seventies (macramé anyone?) and others that I never gave a second thought.

I have to admit that my interests are centered around women and what women do.  Mostly, no actually almost exclusively, around women that are older than I am.  Their lives are interesting, their knowledge and the skills that they had to have fascinate me.  Most older women have lived lives that are far more interesting than any man's.  At least to me, but I have to admit that I find men rather uninteresting people.

I was at a friends's birthday party the other day.  It was a fairly large gathering, with many "important people" there.  I'm not one of them and only knew most of the guests in sight.  But I did find wonderful company in a lady in her eighties with whom I shared the major part of the evening.  She was much more interesting company than any of the politicians or business people who were there.  I got to hear of her life as a poor married student living in Germany in the late fifties, driving across America with her husband and three children (the northern route) to live in Palo Alto in the the early sixties, driving back across America (the southern route), this time with four children, moving back to Iceland and then moving to El Salvador with all four children to live there for a year in the seventies.  I also learned a few tidbits of her life as a teenager, a bit of her handsome husband's infidelity and consequent divorce, her work as an efficient CEO, mother and housewife as well as her political work.  All quite remarkable, but unknown to most people.  I got to hear about her children, her second husband, their happy life and how he died from cancer in only two weeks.  This woman is still very beautiful, her skin is perfect (and I asked, she uses Nivea cream) she dresses distinctively and in a manner that makes anyone envious of her good taste.  What a wonderful woman and how I appreciated her willingness to share her life with me.

I think it is remarkable how women have kept traditions alive through the ages.  They have kept alive skills that modern society has deemed redundant and I would love to master more of them.  I know that growing dye plants and experimenting with dyeing is going to take up quite a lot of my time in the next year.  I am beginning to try my hand at spinning.  I will continue to make my own creams and lotions and I know I will make soaps, but probably always on a small scale for my own use and enjoyment.  I really did miss not having made any soaps for Christmas to give to people.

I also have six dining room chairs to refinish and I finally have what I need to make milk paint to paint those, as well as some other pieces of furniture that are half done.  I even have ambitions of building my own sofa.  I have yet to try out an old Iceland craft of card weaving and the same goes for bookbinding.      I have been doing more knitting and crochet lately, mostly because I have to do something with all that dyed yarn, but also because I enjoy having something going.  I also know that I need to sort through my piles of stuff, get better organized and try to stop acquiring more stuff.  Althought all of it is really wonderful old stuff that I absolutely love.  Oh, well.  Balance.  That sounds like a perfect project for January.  Happy New Year, to all my blog friends, I look forward to following you in 2013!

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Posted by Ambra at 5:36 PM 0 comments

Ladies bedstraw - Galium verum

Red colours are difficult to get from nature.  Madder root is one of the best known plants for this, but it is not a native of Iceland.  Galium verum, however, is a member of the Madder family and a native and was used to get red tones.

The roots of the plant are very slender, so it does take quite a lot of effort to get them.  I only managed to dig up a little bit of the roots, but tried to use it for dye anyway.  The result slightly disappointing, but that is most likely because I wasn't watching the dye pot carefully enough and the wool started to boil.  That is not good.  It makes the colour browner than it would otherwise be, besides felting the wool.

All red colours should be dyed at a slightly lower temperature than simmer in order to get the most red dyes.  There are both yellow and red dyes in the roots and I may try to use the dye material a second time and see if I get redder tones.

It shouldn't come as a surprise how much colour the unmordanted yarn took, since roots contain tannins that work as mordants.  The Alum mordanted wool is a redder shade, but the Rhubarb mordant gives a yellower tone.

The Iron gave a light brown and the copper turned the yarn a greyish brown.  I like both of those colours and am slightly amused by my new appreciation of all shades of browns and greys.  The acid lightened the colors quite considerably, while the alkaline didn't really change the colour that much.

The flower tops of the plant can also be used to get a yellow colour so I might try that next year.

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Posted by Ambra at 11:17 PM 3 comments

Weld - Reseda luteola

Another biennial, but this time one gets the most brilliant yellow colours.  I was a bit skeptical about growing Weld.  I mean, who needs more yellow?  But I had read that this is the clearest and most lightfast yellow one can get and it's supposed to give a very pretty green when overdyed with Indigo.

The plant is a native of Europe, and also grows in the US.  It has been used as a dye plant  for hundreds of years.  Reputedly it was used to dye the robes of the vestal virgins in roman times, and apparently was only used for womens clothes.

The plant is a biennial like Woad and also grows in a rosette in the first year.  The leaves are much smaller, quite thin and long.  The second year, when it flowers, the flower spike can reach 150 cm.

I had no trouble growing this plant.  It germinated very well and also grew quite well in my vegetable garden, even though that is a little wet.  The plant likes chalky and dry soil, so I might find a better place for it next year.  The yellow it produced was spectacular.  I have never seen such strong clear yellow from plants.  It was almost too much.  I have a small skein of Alpaca wool that I dyed and am waiting to overdye it with Indigo or Weld.  Some say that the dried plant material produces slightly less brilliant colours.  I will find out since I dried some leaves to use later this winter.  But when the plant was used commercially in large quantities it was always used in the dried state.

The unmordanted wool didn't really take any colour and the Rhubarb mordant didn't turn yellow, just a beige.  But the Iron and Copper really produced pretty lime to olive green that I could see using.  Acid practically removed the colour, while alkaline just made it a tad stronger and slightly more orange in tone.

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Posted by Ambra at 6:59 AM 0 comments

Woad - Isatis tinctoria

My first dyeing experiment was with Dandelion flowers which I picked where they grew as weeds.  Then I tried Rumex root and I have to say that there is something extremely satisfying in using something useless like a weed to make something useful and even beautiful.  The next level is to grow plants specifically for the purpose of using them to dye.  There are a few traditional dye plants that are particularly good but none of them are natives.  So I bought some seeds and sowed them this spring.  They all grew very well and as a consequence I have been busy experimenting this summer.

I have tried to be organized and have documented all my steps and I set up a system to store my samples.  For me, it was a piece of carton, punched with lots of holes and folded.  This way it's easy to attach the yarn samples.  Then I put all the cartons in a big ring binder.

I planned the experiments early this spring and the plan was to use:

1 piece of un-mordanted wool
1 piece of wool mordanted with Rhubarb leaves (since I'm a bit fascinated with Rhubarb)
1 piece of wool mordanted with Chrome
6 pieces of wool mordanted with Alum...

...5 of which would get the following treatment:

1 piece modified with Iron water
1 piece modified with Copper water
1 piece modified with an acid solution (citric acid)
1 piece modified with an alkaline solution (washing soda)
1 piece modified with Tin

I also planned to dye a sample of alum mordanted cotton and linen, as well as a small piece of silk, but for some reason I kept forgetting to add those to the dye bath.  Also, I never used the Chrome or Tin.  That will have to wait till next year.

I was very excited to experiment with the Woad.  To get a blue colour from green leaves is like magic and I wanted to try to do that myself.  I probably have well over 20 books about dyeing and have read them all and most more than once.   My favorites are two books that I have by Jenny Dean, especially Wild Colour, and I also like very much a book that was written by a couple, Dye Plants and Dyeing by John and Margaret Cannon and illustrated beautifully by Gretel Dalby-Quenet.

Woad, Isatis tinctoria, is a biennial and a native of Europe.  It grows so easily that it is classified as a noxious weed in some places in the US.  I found it very easy to grow here.  I sowed only 6 seeds and they all came up.  I'll be sowing more next spring since one needs quite a bit of the leaves to get a strong colour.   The best colour is from first year leaves, And the plant is a gready feeder so give it plenty of nitrogen rich fertilzer.  To get an harvest of fresh seeds one needs to let the plant grow in the second year.  Woad leaves need to be used when fresh, so no freezing or drying will work.  The process is very similar to that of Indigo dyeing, but Woad leaves do not tolerate too much heat, i.e. no boiling.

One can harvest the Woad a few times, I got three harvests before the cold set in.  It's important to weigh the leaves to know how much wool can be dyed.  I had about 120 grams, from my first harvest. Not a whole lot, but I did manage go get a very pretty blue.  The blue of Woad is much lighter than the dark blue of Indigo and I don't think of Woad as a substitute for Indigo, but rather a completely different blue.

The leaves were chopped and then I poured hot water over them and let it sit for an hour.  The water should turn a sherry colour.  When the temperature is about 50°C /120°F the pH should be dropped to 9, using washing soda and then aerated by pouring from one vessel to another until the foam turns blue.  Mine never really turned blue, but a blue green, but it seemed that that was enough.  Then one adds hydrosulphite to reduce the oxygen content of the vat and lets that sit for 30 minutes or so.  The liquid should now be a yellow colour.  This is the stage that the dyeing can take place.  To dye, either yarn or cloth no mardant is needed, just dip it in for a few minutes and take it out again, being careful not to stir any oxygen into the vat.  The fiber will magically turn this pretty blue colour right before your eyes.

Not many dye books speak about modifying Woad dyes colors, but I did that anyway.  I love the un mordanted blue (one more light than the other, that is the second dye bath), but also the greens that came from the Rhubarb mordanted wool and Copper treated.  The latter I just let sit in the modifyer until I see some effect in the change of colour.  I applied no heat, but the time could be anything from a few minutes up to 24 hours.  I could quite see repeating those experiments is larger quantities next summer.  The other colour chart shows some slightly pink colours, those come from the exhaust bath and I treated them in the same way:  Unmordanted, mordanted with Alum, mordanted with Rhubarb (úps - I forgot that one!), aftertreated with Iron, treated with Copper, treated with Acid and treated with Alkaline.

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Posted by Ambra at 11:48 PM 2 comments

Plant Dyeing - The Basics

Using natural materials to dye textiles, plants mostly, is an incredibly satisfying activity.  It doesn't cost much and guaranties an increased awareness of nature and long outdoor walks.  It is also surprisingly easy to do and predictably unpredictable, as tends to be natures way.

Most plants will yield some colour, the most common (and consequently least desirable) is a yellow green/greenish yellow and brown tones and they may not be very fast to light or washing.  Some plants produce more clear and durable colours and have become known as dye plants.  Just as medicinal plants often have the second latin name of officinale, the ending tinctoria denotes well known dye plants.

All parts of plants can be used to dye.  Many roots give great colour, like Madder and Alkanet.  With some plants it's the leaves that are used, like Woad and Weld.  Or it can be the flowers, as is the case with Dyers Chamomile and Lupin.  Barks of shrubs and trees are also a source of colour, like the exotic Brazilwood and Logwood, or simply try Cherrywood prunings.  Some mushrooms give great colour and of course Lichens.  And then there are the insects, like Cochineal and Lac.  The possibilities for experiments are endless.

Most of the time, one uses one part plant material to one part of wool (or other textile).  The plant material is chopped up into small pieces and simmered (80-90°C/ 180-200°F), most often for an hour or so, to extract the dye.  Flowers should be shimmered at a lower temperature or they tend to give browner colours and barks and tough root need a longer time.  The dye solution is strained and cooled before it can be used to dye wool.

The dyeing process itself is simple.  The easiest textile to dye is wool and it's easier to dye yarn than fabric.  At least to get an even colour.  The wool is wound into skeins and tied in several places (The tie should be in a figure 8).  The skeins need to be wetted (and possibly scoured or washed) before they are put into the dye bath.  To wet the wool let it sit in room temperature water for at least an hour and squeeze out all the air to make sure it is completely we through.

I tend to make the skeins 20-50 grams / 0.7 to 1.7 oz and tie them in 3-4 places.  The wool is immersed in the dye solution and water added if needed.  The wool needs to be able to move around freely in the dye solution.

One thing that is a bit surprising to beginners is that the intensity of the colour isn't determined by the amount of water in the dye solution, but by the ratio of dye material to wool (or other textile material).  So to get lighter colours, one uses less plant material.

Since wool is very sensitive to sudden changes in temperature, it needs to be heated gently.  It should take at least one hour to reach simmer.  Most of the time the wool is simmered for an hour to get good saturation and to make sure the colour is fast.  If the wool reaches the desired strength of colour sooner, it is best to continue to simmer it in clear water for the rest of the time to insure the best fastness.  Just make sure the temperature of the water is equal to that of the dye solution.  The used dye solution can be used to dye more wool until all the dye is exhausted from it.  That way one can get a few increasingly light tones of the same colour.

Most of the time the wool needs to be mordanted before it is dyed.  Without mordants, the dye won't adhere to the wool and simply wash off.  The exemptions, substantive dyes such roots, do not need mordants, and barks contain tannins that are mordants.  Lichen are also substantive as are Onion skins and Indigo.  Mordants are most often metalic salts, the most common being Aluminium sulfate (Alum for short).  Alum and Iron iron (ferrous sulphate) are quite safe to use, while the other frequently used mordants like Tin (stannous chloride), Copper (copper sulphate) and especially Chrome (potassium dichromate) are toxic and need care in handling.  Each colour affects the final colour differently.  Most dyers prefer to work with Alum.  It is not toxic and give clear colours and good fastness.

The best pots to use are stainless steel.  Pots made of Aluminium, Copper or Iron will affect the colours (very much like the mordants) so they can be fun to use.  I have gotten most of my dye pots from thrift stores for very little money, so this doesn't have to be an expensive hobby.  Substantive dyes do not require a dedicated set of dye pots and equipment so they are perfect for beginners.

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Posted by Ambra at 11:01 PM 1 comments

Peachy - Liquid Soap

The other day I wrote down all the ideas that I had for my next soaps.  I wanted to do a liquid soap by rebatching and I wanted to do a peach coloured soap, among other  things.  The peach colour came from the colour I got from a Woad exhaust, a really nice pale peachy colour.  It's so strange how that works.

But anyway, I dyed a long silk scarf and got this colour, instead of the blue that I hoped for.  But I loved the colour and it reminded me of some elastic that I picked up the the Good Shepherd, purely because I loved the colour, not because I had any use for a lot of elastic.  I have no idea what I want to do with it.  Although it probably could be designed as a very funky-something-to-wear if I were a bit younger and could carry off some funky clothing.

But back to the soap.  I had one soap left of one of my favorites, the Madder soap with Neroli that I rather selfishly made just for myself.  The colour was long gone and the scent wasn't really noticeable any longer either, but it was white and hard.  I had loved the feel of it, the smell of it and I remember that the lather was really nice.  So I grated it into a pot and poured some fresh cream on top, as well as a bit of coconut milk and some water.  I heated it gently and stirred to melt the soap.  Then I thought: Wouldn't it be nice to have a bit of colour?  So I went to my stash shelf and picked op a jar of Rhubarb oil.  Pink liquid soap!   I've made a quite a few nice pink soaps using both Rhubarb oil and Rumex oil and I always really like the nice pinks I get.  So I poured it in and magic:  It turned this nice peachy orange.  I was delighted.

With that colour the scent just had to be Ylang Ylang, Sweet Orange and a bit of Sandalwood, for depth and a tiny dash of Cubea Litsea for a fresh top note.  I added a little bit of Natrium benzoate a a preservative and some glycerin to help to keep it from clumping up.  Now I just have to wait and see how it ages.

Since I don't have it in a pump, it won't really matter if it thickens a bit, but I would like to be able to make liquid soap that can survive in a pump without having to use KOH.  The kids have been asking for that and I've been meaning to do some experiments.  Although one of these day I'm sure that I will treat myself to 25 kg. of KOH and start to really experiment with liquid soap.  But in the meantime I'm perfectly happy to compromise and rebatch my leftovers to get some liquid soap.  It's so important to remember that it doesn't have to be perfect.  That's the beauty of making stuff oneself.  It's not only just fine if it is slightly imperfect, it's actually better.  It's more human.  It's more me.

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Posted by Ambra at 10:39 PM 2 comments

Pure Joy - Homemade Perfume

I have used this perfume since I was very young.  Not exclusively, but this has always been one of my favorites to wear for very fancy occasions.  I'm sure it's to do with the advertising: The costliest perfume in the world, they used to say.  Who can resist that?  Well I certainly couldn't at twentysomething when I finally saw it in a store and was able to smell it.  I had wondered for years what the famous perfume smelled like.

Joy was created in 1929 by Henri Alméras for Jean Patou. It was right around the time of the Great Depression and the fashion house had to produce something other than the wildly expensive clothes to be able to survive. It reputedly takes 28 dozen roses and 10.600 jasmine flowers to make just 30 ml of perfume along with a medley of other flowers including ylang-ylang, tuberose and iris with base notes of sandalwood and civet.  The result turned out to be the second all time best seller, the first place of course is Chanel 5.  Joy isn't for everyone taste, the frangrance of the perfume and the au de toilette isn't exactly the same, but the scent is quite strong and is best applied in moderation.

I found this recipe somewhere on the internet and as usual I didn't write down the source.  I hate it when I do that!  But I found it again at Organic Gardening and Homesteading website.  Apparently the recipe comes from an out of print book entitled Cosmetics From The Kitchen.
I don't really know if it smells exactly like Joy, probably not so much, but it's undoubtedly a lovely scent judging from the lovely oils that are used.  I haven't been able to find ambergris essential oil, nor musk oil, but the others were easy to find.  So I used 15 drops of Sandalwood instead and just skipped the musk because I'm not sure that one can find a natural musk oil.  I'm sure it does change the scent somewhat.  But I didn't want to make an exact copy anyway.  I still have my glass of the real Joy and even if it may at some time have been expensive it isn't the most expensive perfume on the market anymore.  But this adapted blend does go very well with my Special Blend White soap.

The orginal recipe calles for Heliotropin, but the author of the blog substituted Vanilla oil instead.  It's interesting to change recipes.  I'm sure there are many ways to tweak this one to make a few great fragrance blends.  I have preferred  to used all essential oils, but the original recipe calls for perfumed oil or frangrance oils in some instances.

Pure Joy

1/2 teaspoon of Vanilla essential oil
1 1/2 teaspoon Rose essential oil
1/2 teaspoon of Bergamot essential oil
(4 drops Musk oil) - I skipped this
15 drops of Sandalwood essential oil (the recipe called for ambergris essential oil)
15 drops Jasmine essential oil
4 drops Neroli essential oil
8 drops Angelica essential oil
8 drops Vetiver essential oil
Jojoba oil - 100 grams / 3 ounces

Blend all the ingredients and let sit for a while to merge and mellow.
Store in a dark glass.
Enjoy.

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Posted by Ambra at 2:35 AM 6 comments

Blue Facial Soap

My all time favorite soap that I made myself, is the facial soap that I made over two years ago.  I used Almond oil in it, an oil that I don't normally use because it is difficult to find here and it's expensive.  I also used all sorts of other oils that I normally reserve for making facial creams like Avocado and Rose hip oil.  I think I have some of that soap left, but my soaps are stored haphazardly all over the house, and I haven't stumbled across them recently.

I had quite a bit of indigo blue left in the mortar from making my blue tooth soap and my frugal self decided that I couldn't simply wash it away.  So came up with a blue facial soap, again using my pastry molds that I love and lining them with cling film, because they are aluminum which would otherwise react with the alkaline soap.  I also decided to gather all my yummiest ingredient for this soap, although I did forget a few.  Like shea butter, and scent.  So it's unscented.  Which is really better for facial soap.  The blue colour is so light that it is almost a jade green.  The colour depends on the light, but I love it.  It's delicate and feminine.

I only made a very small batch, probably the smallest batch one can get away with easily, (7oz) 200g of soap.

Almond Oil - 10%     - 0.7oz /  20g
Peach Kernel Oil - 10%     - 0.7oz / 20g
Coconut Oil -  28%      2 oz / 56g
Castor Oil - 5%     0.35oz / 10g
Avocado Oil - 15%     1oz - 30g
Argan Oil - 10%     0.7oz / 20g
Jojoba Oil - 10%     0.7oz / 20g
Cocoa Butter - 10%     0.7oz / 20g
Borage Oil - 2%     0.14 / 4g

Water - 2.3oz / 66g
Lye - 0.9oz / 25g which makes it 10% super fatted, but always check a lye calculator (I use Soapcalc myself).

I used water with the leftover indigo and I had hoped that I could pour the soap quite runny.  It however thickened quite quickly, hence the scentlessness.  I simply didn't have enough time to grab some EOs.  But I did manage to get the soap into the molds and bang them down a little bit to get the soap to iron out the plastic film.  It was semi successful, some soaps have a very good impression from the mold, others more from the cling film.  But it's for me, not for gifts, and I never mind handmade irregularities.  I'm waiting for it to cure completely, its very, very soft as I remember the old facial soaps to be.  But those did haden very well and I'm expecting these to do the same.  Of course I have already tried it although I can still smell the lye.  It looks promising, nice lather.  But I keeep sniffing it.

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Posted by Ambra at 6:16 PM 4 comments