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!

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.

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.