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.

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.

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.

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.

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 fragrance of the perfume and the eau 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 Heliotrope essential oil, 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 (the original recipe used Heliotrope 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.

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.

Headboard reupholstering

I have always loved the 80's.  No one can tell me that things were not hip and cool back then.  I loved the fashion, the make-up, the music.  And I completely fell in love with those carved rugs that I first saw in the US in the 80's.  They were magical.  I  had never seen anything like it.  I didn't easily confess to this liking, being a design student known to love the Bauhaus movement and modern Italian design.  Black leather and chrome were my thing, so the carved rugs were a bit of an anomaly.

When I saw the carved rug at the thrift store, I didn't hesitate one minute.  Green, pink, peach, yellow and cream!  My colours!  I threw my arms around it to claim ownership.  No one fought me for it.  The same happened with the headboard.  It was just sitting there, that relic of the 80's, priced at four dollars and I knew it was coming home with me.  Except the difference was that back in the 80's I would have made rude gagging noises at the sight of it.  I used to know middle aged women who actually paid good money for something like that.  And they usually chose that dusty rose colour.  So naturally I fell completely in love with it.  How can one not love something so unapologetically cute.  I must have been a little old lady in a former life.

The rug was relatively clean, but the headboard was fithy, so I planned to remove the fabric and replace it with something new.  The fabric that was on it was a type of velvet, but polyester.  Not my thing at all.
So I set about to remove the cover.  Removing staples at the back can be done with a special tool that upholsteres use, a staple remover. They can be bought at upholstery suppliers for about 25 $ and are easier to use.  I used a screwdriver, just pried it into the board under the staple and janked the staples out.
Once all the staples were removed I set about to remove the buttons.  These were actually with nails at the back.  In order to remove them, I had to straighten the nails out at the back first.  I used an old chisel and hammer to get under the nails and bend them up.  Do not sacrifice a good tool for this job.
The buttons were pretty tight, but I managed to use a hammer to get them out.
Under the buttons I found at least two staples in each hole.  Those would have made it easier to hammer the buttons in originally.  By this time I was thoroughly sick of staples to I simply pulled the fabric and the staples popped out.  I wasn't particularly careful with the fabric since I intended to throw it away, but it held up so well that I decided to toss it in the washer and see if it would come clean.
It washed beautifully, although the creases of a few decades remained.  It looked so good after I washed it that I decided to use it again, provided I could reattach it.  Usually, when upholstering, one cuts the fabric quite a bit larger than needed and then trims it tight.  So I knew that I would have very little fabric to pull at the edges.
Starting from the middle, I began by stapling the fabric to the board where the buttons were to come, trying to fold the fabric fairly neatly.  It was easier to place the fabric correctly than I thought it would be, because I had the old creases still in the fabric to guide me.
Onve I had staples the fabric in every hole and arranged the fabric it folds I hammered the buttons in.  The nails at the back of them were not straight anymore, but it didn't seem to make much of a difference.  I managed to get all of them in and they didn't look noticeably crooked.
Then the challenge was to pull the fabric tight all the way around and arrange it carefully in the creases to make sure it didn't bunch.  I know that I didn't do this as tightly as the professional upholsterer did originally, but it looks good enough for me.
I managed to get the fabric staples all the way around.  I was quite surprised that the fabric didn't unravel more in the wash.
The finished product.  Not a tight as the original, but I just think it looks more friendly.

I know that this would have looked very sophisticated if I had used some of the stash of linen fabric that I have.   Although, now I'm glad I didn't because I'm hoping to have enough to cover the six dining room chairs that I bought and have started to make pretty.  The headboard looks very good with the carved rug and I'm quite glad that I kept the fabric.  I have two more headboard that I need to give an overhaul.  One really pretty with he most beautiful cotton velvet in a rusty orange.  That looks to date from the 40's and I hope the fabric washes nicely.  I would hate to have to replace that because that fabric is just gorgeous.  The orange headboard is for one of the daughters.  Then I got another one for my mom, but she can't seem to choose a fabric for it, so I may never finish that.  I somehow see hers with a blue fabric.  So I need to find a beautiful blue for her.  Blue is her colour.

The Blues - Tooth soap recipe

I'm not a blue person.  My colours are the warm tones, especially red.  It's not that I dislike blue, in fact I think blue is a very nice colour.  It's just not me.  So I tend to buy things that are not blue, except jeans.  And since I really like the blue of jeans, I guess it could be said that indigo blue is a favorite colour after all, even if I'm not a blue person.  I have been experimenting with dyeing from Woad and Japanese indigo.  It really is an amazing process to turn green leaves into a clear blue colour.  Just like magic.

I haven't made any blue soaps, although I did try once.  I used indigo powder, but not enough, so the colour disappeared.  Sometimes it doesn't pay to skimp on ingredients.  so when I got the idea for this soap I decided to be generous with the Indigo powder.  I somehow thought it would be appropriate to make a blue tooth soap.  I made tooth soap a long time ago and I still have most of it.  Not because I haven't used it.  It's just that it lasts forever.  But I started to feel a little deprived of the fresh minty taste of conventional toothpaste.  My old tooth soap had baking soda in it and baking soda just doesn't taste very good.  So I have been wanting to do a new tooth soap.  And then I thought about the old blueing agents.  Since i'm quite old, I remember when it was possible to buy a blueing agent to make white laundry appear whiter.  Admittedly, I just barely remember the stuff, but it was sold in the olden days and used.  Now they have something that works in a similar, but in a more sophisticated way, called optical brighteners.  But I thought it might be a great idea to make a blue tooth soap, maybe it would make teeth appear whiter, or it would just look nice.

I have mint growing in the garden and I harvested all of it when it was starting to get cold.  I made some mint jelly, but decided that it really is just too weird to eat that with lamb.  Even if British people do that.  It tastes just like toothpaste.  I guess one has to be reared on that to appreciate it.  But I used part of the mint for a tea that I used as the water phase in my soap.  So the genius me didn't quite think things through.  The art major should have known that mixing the yellow mint tea and the blue indigo would produce a magnificent green.  But I just didn't think.  So here is my "blue" tooth soap:

It's a small recipe (200g/7oz), but it'll last for a long time.

Olive oil 30% 60g / 2.1oz
Cocoa butter 30% 60g / 2.1oz
Coconut oil  22% 44g / 1.6oz
Soybean oil 15% 30g / 1.0oz
Neem Tree oil 3% 6g / 0.2oz

Mint tea 38% 76g / 2.7oz
Xylitol 2 tsp

Lye 28g / 1oz

Peppermint eo
Ginger eo
Licorice extract

Since I don't want the tooth soap to produce too many suds, I used much less coconut oil than usual and much more of the cocoa butter.  The neem oil has anti bacterial properties, so I added some of that.  I also added 1 tsp licorice extract, which is supposed to be good for the gums,  to the essential oil blend. I used 1/4 tsp ginger (again that is supposed to be good for the gums) and 1 tsp peppermint for that fresh minty taste that I had been craving.  I also ground up 1 tsp zink oxide and 4 capsules of magnesium citrate (good for teeth) with about 1/4 tsp indigo powder.

I made these into little hearts since I think they look kind of cute.  I have tried the soap already although it needs some more time to cure.  Well I can't say that it whitens the teeth, but it has a minty taste and it cleans well without sudsing too much.  I might add some more xylitol next time and even some more peppermint eo.  Just to get that really, really fresh minty taste.  And I might even skip the mint tea and go for a truly blue soap.

Distractions

Making soap is just the most satisfying activity that I know.  Ever since I started to make soaps I have been driven by some force that just demands new soaps.  My mind constantly thinking of new things to try.  Some new ingredient.  Some old ingredient in a new way.  A look that I wanted to try to create.  A scent that demanded to be made.  A new colour to strive for.  The ideas came fast and furiously.  So what happened?  Why haven't I been making soap?  I do not know.  Except my mind just wandered off to new things.

This summer I have been taken with dyeing and I bought a lot of used books on the subject.  I've started to organize the dyeing by making sample charts.  It's really interesting to see how the same dyestuff can generate different colours depending on the mordant and modifiers used.  A shift from acid to alkaline can generate a completely different colour, like all soapers know. I make one sample for un mordanted wool, one for rhubarb mordanted and five alum mordanted.  Then I use iron and copper water to modify the colours, as well as citric acid and washing soda to shift the pH.  I have bought Chrome and Tin, but haven't used those yet.  I also try to remember to do samples for cotton, linen and silk, but for some reason I keep forgetting to throw those into the dye pot.   I have assembled about 20 different charts already and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface.  I have a lot of natural dye plants that I have yet to try and now the leaves are turning and disappearing before my eyes.  But winter is perfect for using imported dyes like Indigo powder, Cochineal, Logwood, Brazilwood, Annatto and Alkanet as well as onion skins, which I still haven't tried although I have collected a bunch.

Another thing that has taken up some time is my addiction to junk.  I love to go on a treasure hunt at the local thrift store, The Good Shepherd.  I generally walk there every day at lunch, killing two flies in one swoop: I get good exercise and I do it during the lightest time of the day which is essential to keep good spirits in the dark winter that is just about here.  I've picked up some very nice things for very little money.  I got a studded headboard for the spare bedroom for a few dollar and redid that.  I also got the linen drapes and a lovely 80's carved Chinese rug (I've always loved those). And the mattress, a very good quality one, I also got at a thrift store.  And the night stand.  And the daybed thing, which I reupholstered.  In fact that whole room is filled with my finds and it's overflowing with stuff right now.

Just the other day I bought some dining room chairs.  They have coil springs in the seat which is way more comfortable than the modern day version that is used in the Ikea chairs we are currently using.  The chairs aren't really old, they are repro pseudo-rococoish, probably 80's or even 90's, but when I've sanded the frames and painted them with milk paint and reupholstered the seat with some linen, they are going to look great.  I also got this lovely little nightstand, a very simple thing, probably from the 20's or 30's with three drawers all of which have locks.  I'm sanding it down and I think I'll wax it rather than paint it with milk paint (which I find so interesting right now).  Originally the pine would have been painted to look like mahogany, but it had been repainted white when I got it.  I've decided that it will serve as an occasional table between two armchairs in the living room.  I can certainly use the storage space for the small treasures I have yet to find.

Then there is the gardening.  I haven't really kept up with the home garden this year, but the allotment has gotten some attention.  I just managed to harvest the potatoes while it was still reasonably dry.  The only thing that's left in the allotment is some salad, some kale and carrots.  And of course the dye plants, although I have harvested most of the leaves.  I've had the greatest fun and frustrations with learning to dye with Japanese Indigo and Woad.  Achieving a beautiful blue colour as well as a disappointing pinkish gray and slowly becoming wiser and more experienced.  Getting a pure blue from green leaves is just magic.  I love the light blue that comes from Woad.  I still haven't tried traditional Indigo powder.  That will wait till winter.  Except I just used some precious indigo powder in my last soap.  The context was perfect for a blue soap.  So I didn't skimp on the Indigo powder like last time I tried to do blue soap.  Well, the results were unexpected, although they should have been entirely, glaringly obvious.  But that's another post.

It's fall already.

It's here.  Summer is gone and fall is here.  The blustery winds and rain have arrived after an unusually good summer.  I'm never prepared, really.  There is always so much more that I wanted to get done this summer.  Every year it's like that.  But it's over in a blink of an eye.  Now we can light candles in the evenings again and curl up on the sofa listening to the winds howl.  Oh, well.  There is something cozy about that too.

I bought the perfect thing for fall.  I found this rya (also called smyrna) rug at the Good Shepherd (our local junk store).  It's owner had only just started it and obviously put it away and given up on it.  I love the colours, reds, yellows and oranges with purples, pinks, browns and blacks.  And it came complete with all the yarns, the pattern and colour swatches.  I only paid 15$ for it and now I'm all set for fall.  I try to do one line in an evening.  It's very calming and I don't have to remember anything.  It's numbered and I just have to change the colours.  I have no idea where I'm going to put it when I'm done, but that doesn't matter in the least.  I have a piece of handiwork that will entertain me in the coming winter months and serve as a warm blanket while I work on it.

Not that I have no projects going.  I'm still cleaning my eiderdown and there is a long way to go.  I'm also dyeing yarn regularly, right now I have some Dyers Chamomile in the pot.  But I haven't made soap in the longest time and I'm starting to miss that.  So much so, that I'm even beginning to get ideas for new soaps to make.  I guess I just might write a post about soapmaking soon.

Mushroom dyeing - Suillus luteus

Dyeing is fascinating.  One never knows exactly what the outcome is going to be and trying new things to dye from is always a thrill.  I have been especially interested in dying with lichens and mushrooms.  Just because it's different, I guess.  So if I see books about those subjects I just have to have those.

I have been buying quite a few books about dyeing.  Old books mostly.  Some of them I have bought for a few dollars and one I even got for a few cents.  I discovered that old out of print books can be found on the internet and many even on Amazon.  So now I have a pile of books on dyeing, most in English but I've also acquired some in other languages.  I even have one in Finish (a language which I absolutely do not understand, but I've used Google translate to help).

There is always something to learn from a new book, even if on occasion the lesson is mostly about how not to write a book on the subject.  I was lucky enought to find a used book market on a recent trip to Copenhagen and found one book in Danish about plant dyes and another in Swedish about spinning wool and linen.  Can't wait to read them.

It's mushroom collecting time and I've gone once with my mom to collect them.  Although I only picked berries and let her take the mushrooms.  There weren't that many of them of the right size for eating.  As I understand it though, the bigger and more unappetizing, the better they are for dying.

I have mostly gotten beige and brown from mushrooms so far.  The really exotic types that give purples, reds, greens and blues don't seem to grow here at all.  But I was really pleased with the results I got from The Slippery Jack mushroom - Suillus luteus.  My mom had dried quite a few very wet mushrooms in the oven.  The liquid that dripped from them was a bright yellow so she gave it to me to experiment with.

It dyed a wonderful yellow colour, even unmordanted wool.  When I make these experiments I always dye both unmordanted and mordanted wool and then I use modifiers to see if I can change the colour.  I always try an acid and an alkaline soak and also iron water and copper water.  The Suillus turned a very pretty orange in the washing soda bath and a paler yellow in the acid bath.  The iron made it dark brown and the copper turned it a lighter brown.  I love the fact that I didn't have to waste the mushrooms to use their colour and I will certainly go and look for some more after the next rain.  I'm planning to knit a sweater with a pattern where I can use lots of different colours, all with natural dyes.  I've harvested some of my home grown dye plants.  The woad and the Japanese indigo are just incredibly fun to work with.  To make a blue colour from green leaves.  It's magic.

Enzyme cleaner - does it work?

I made enzyme cleaner.  Way back in the beginning of March.  And then again at the beginning of April.  The recipe is very easy:
1 part brown sugar (I don't think it needs to brown)
3 parts citrus peel (or any other fruit peel, pinapple is supposed to really good)
10 parts water

Put some lemon and orange peel (or pineapple) into a 2 liter plastic bottle and then put in the sugar and water.  Close the bottle and shake it to dissolve the sugar.

Let stand for 3 months and be careful to let off some of the gas that starts to develop in the bottle or it will explode.  After the 3 months are up, strain and use by diluting 1:10 with water to clean most things.  The first webpage where I saw this, The happy homemaker was really happy with the results and it seems so is everyone else, but I'm just not getting it.

I did everything according to the instructions and then I also did another batch using pineapple scraps and I know that pinapple is supposed to have a lot of enzymes and should work really well.  I just decanted the pinapple cleaner.  I had that standing from April 7 until Aug. 20 and it never developed any mold.  It looks nice, it smells pretty similar to the lemon & orange peel one (almost like a plastic smell, does that sound right?) and I think it works just about the same.  Which is to me: Not really.  I really wished this to work although it annoys me, not to understand the chemistry, so if anyone can explain this I would be grateful.  I have no idea what went wrong or if I'm just misunderstanding something.

I guess I can use this as an excuse to my sloppy housekeeping in the last few weeks, although perhaps a more truthful story would be the nice weather.  We have had a record in nice weather, for more than 20 days in a row the temperature has reached 20°C (that's a whopping 68°F) somewhere in the country.  But now we have rain and more rain so now I really need to find out why my enzyme cleaner doesn't really work because I don't have any excuses anymore.  Or maybe it does work and I just have to let it  sit for a while before I wipe it off.  Does anyone know?  Or even care?  Maybe I shouldn't either.

Eco dying - Tutorial, T-shirt makeover

I have made four really unpresentable T shirts come alive using Eco dying.  I love doing the process.  It's really easy to do and it's fun.  I learned a lot by reading India Flynt's book Eco Colour (which I of course bought in the end).

What is needed is a piece of fabric, some string, a collection of leaves and flowers and a small branch from a tree or a bush, ideally slightly smaller than you largest pot.  Since this dyeing is not done with harmful materials it is ok to use your regular pots, but should you decide to start to dye it is generally recommended to have a separate pot for that.

Take an old T-shirt (or a brand new one if you want or any other piece of cloth for that matter, but not synthetic).  I used a dropper to put some Iron water and Copper water spots on the fabric, but that is not necessary.  And be aware that Copper water is poisonous so I do not suggest you use that.  Making Iron water is easy though, just put some rusty object into a jar filled with a mix of two parts water and one part white vinegar (5%).  Let the rusty objects sit there and disintegrate.  The water will turn a rusty (naturally) orange colour in a few weeks.
Now go outside to your garden or the nearest park or wilderness and carefully snip off a few leaves and flowers that catch your fancy.  Naturally, well known dye plants will give the most colour.  In this shirt I used Geranium, Cherry leaves, Apple leaves, Euphorbia leaves (gives a great green colour) among others. Then you can start arranging the leaves and flowers on you fabric.  Some leaves print really well, white others don't really come through, but sometimes act a a resist.
Then start to wrap up the fabric.
The size should be just slightly smaller than the size of the branch you are using.
Wrap the fabric tightly around the branch.  The tannins in the bark will act as a mordant to fix the colors to the fabric.  If you have any rusted objects lying around, like nails, bottle caps, hairpins or anything like that, feel free to add those to you bundle.  The iron will also act as a mordant and will produce gray and black colors and patterns in combination with the plant material.  Alternatively use an iron pot and you'll get a gray colour.
Now tie the bundle tightly with a piece of string.
Now put the bundle into hot water and simmer it for at least an hour or two.  If your bundle is larger than the pot, just turn it a few times during the simmer.  I used the left over dye water from an Avocado pit/skin dyeing experiment.  But clear water can be used.
I let my bundle sit in the dye bath overnight.  Some people steam their bundles.  I've never done that.  Simmering them in water works fine for me, but steaming is a possibility for those who have an easy time doing that.
I let the bundle sit for a while in the sink before I unravelled it.  I am not a patient person, so few hours is all I've ever managed.
The unravelling!  There is no way to predict what comes out, really.  I have started to recognize how some leaves print, but there are always so many factors that affect how this turns out.  One thing for certain is that with rinsing, the colors will fade a bit.
My revamped T-shirt.  The Avocado didn't really stick, but I got some really nice markings. I have done 4 T-'s so far and am still working on an off white sweater that got a small stain.  I was going to trow it out, but decided to try and treat it to the plant experiment.  It's sitting in my cast iron pot (great gray colour) and I'm going to let it sit for a few days to soak up all the iron.  So far it looks very dark gray.  I unravelled it a bit, but saw that the iron water hadn't penetrated the whole bundle, so I'm letting it sit for a bit longer.  I can't wait so see what comes out.  Also, the sweater is part synthetic so I'm curious to see if how the dye will take to a blend.   I've only ever dyed cotton, wool and silk and synthetics don't accept natural dyes that well.  But we'll see.

Dye-ing to tell you

Quite some time ago I saw India Flynt's book Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles in a bookstore.  I was intrigued by it, but didn't buy it since I was traveling and the book is fairly large and cumbersome.  And, besides I thought, I really don't like this mottled effect of muted colours.  I like the vibrants clear colours of flowers and the rainbow.

But that changed.  It really is amazing how ones taste does change when one starts do dye with natural materials.  I have come to a new appreciation of greeny yellows, browns and grays.  And my preference for evenly dyed yarn and fabric... Completely gone.  I now love the mottled, splotsy (I guess that's not a word) effect that can be achieved with natural materials.  I decided to try some eco dyeing the other day.  I started with an old not-very-white-anymore-t-shirt and then progressed onto a silk scarf that I had bought especially to try to do some eco dying.

I loved the whole process.  Picking leaves and flowers and arranging them onto the fabric, wondering which leaves would leave a mark and how they would look.  Admiring the wonderful colours, knowing that the end result will be completely different from the original composition.  Choosing a branch, wondering which wood would give what effect, and then rolling the fabric onto the chosen branch, tightly.  Tying the  whole thing into a tight bundle hoping that the branch would fit the largest pot, which of course it didn't since I didn't measure before I sawed it.  I didn't steam, I boiled the whole lot.  Wonder if the effect is different that way.  Probably.  Add rust water.  Is that too much or too little?  Have I ruined the whole thing?  Then the difficult time to wait for a while.  I've read some people wait for weeks and months.  What are they made of?  I waited an hour and it was difficult.  And whooo!  What fantastic result.  I love the way the scarf turned out.  Those wonderful patterns that I wasn't aware that I was creating.  I really, really like the effect.

I also loved the t shirt immediately.  Wore for dinner the same day.  And also wore it work.  And then proceeded to dye some more.  The next one was confiscated by a daughter.  That's a compliment, I'm sure.  Then I gave her a few old t's to take on a camping trip around the country.   She wants to gather plants where they stop to camp and arrange them onto the fabric and make a bundle which she'll boil when she gets a chance.  Adding rusted nails and old twigs all adds to the final result.  It'll be exciting to see what she comes up with since they are driving around the whole island and she will be picking plants in very different locations.

This is so easy to do and my shabby old t's look really respectable when they have been through this process.  No longer gray and dingily, they look like works of art.  I'm hooked.  I almost threw out some of my old t shirts and now I'm Google-ing "t-shirts in bulk".  I can't get enough of dyeing them.  I run out to the garden and pick whatever takes my fancy and arrange it carefully.  That part is tranquil and serene.  Tying it up is fun, the the marks usually show and make some pattern.  Then I have to wait to see what emerges.  I have one waiting right now.  I dyed that in avocado skins which gives a lovely dusty pink colour.  Then I put leaves on it and boiled it for an two hours or so.  I put some rust water on it and some copper water also (that is poisonous, but I'm careful) to get some effects.  The rust water produces the grays and blacks, the copper water enhances some green colors from leaves.  Both act as mordants, along with the tannins in the tree branch.  But all very unpredictable in combination with the different leads and flowers.

I can't wait any longer.  I'm unrolling the bundle.  It's all excitedly mottled and splotsy (that should be a word even if it isn't) and I'm sure it's the best one yet.

The Bigger Picture

Most people, when they look at landscape, look into the distance. They admire mountains and waterfalls, glacier, rivers and geysers.  The big stuff.  I was taught differently.  My parents would always concentrate on the details.  Their noses as close to ground as possible, they would walk across the landscape with their tiny loupes in hand.  And that is how I learned to appreciate the country and I sometimes wonder: Which is the bigger picture?

I went up to the north last weekend for a gathering-of-the-clan-thing.  In this case it was the descendants of my fathers grandmother and grandfather on his mother's side that gathered at the old farm, Svanshóll  (Swanhill) in Bjarnarfjörður (Bearfjord).  The last time we were there was in 2006 when my father came with us to celebrate his fathers centenary.  Later that year my father passed away, so that trip was very special.

I have been wanting to come back, so this opportunity was welcome.  I wanted to go to spend some time in the fantastic landscape, look for lichens which I knew are abundant in that area and even gather some.  And I did.

How to explain this purple stain on a rock?  One might think that someone took a felt tip pen and colored the stones.  There were a several purple stains on the rocks.  What they all had in common was that, on closer inspection, one could see at its middle a rather battered lichen (of the type Umbilicaria).  Well, I can only surmise that some bird left it's dropping on top of a lichen and the ammonia in combination with the oxygen developed that fantastic purple colour.  I know that purple can be obtained from this lichen and now I've seen it happen spontaneously in nature.  I wonder if this is how our ancestors discovered lichen dyes.
Umbilicaria proboscidea.  At first glance the rocks seem to have black flecks on them.  Then, when one looks more closely, one notices that it is lichens.  That there are more than one species of Umbilicaria isn't evident until one looks even closer.  U. proboscidea has the distinctive raised, white navel and black fruiting body.  U. arctica is larger and evenly colored and U. torrefacta is distinguished by having small holes in it's surface.
If one very carefully breaks away the thallus of the lichen, without taking the navel (the stem that attaches it to the rock) this lichen will continue to grow.  This way I managed to carefully gather some of the Umbilicaria which grew absolutely everywhere we looked.  I gathered at least three types, all quite common: Umbilicaria torrefacta, Umbilicaria arctica and Umbilicaria proboscidea.
Ochrolechia parella (I think).
A beautiful symphony of lichens.
Parmelia omphalodes (or saxatilis).
A fish head found in the grass.
I love the beaches in the north, full of driftwood from Russia, littered with old ropes and the odd shoe or boot and often you will find a small flock of sheep resting on the warm, black sands while Eider ducks swim with their young ones just a stones throw away.
That colour!
What texture!
The rhythm of the relentless sea.
I always stop at the churchyard to visit my grandmother's grave where she is buried with her two youngest daughter and the three other people who died with them in the avalanche that demolished my fathers home.
The gravestone
My older sister hasn't visited since she was about 6 or 7, so I took her to see Goðdalur (Valley of the gods), our grandfather's farm.  It is very remote.  The road is long and winding and very rough and we had to cross two rivers, one had a bridge, the other didn't.  Jeeps really are a necessity in this part of the world.
Goðdalur, the farm.
Quietly crumbling.
Eventually becoming a part of nature as everything must.
I miss my father.  I think he would have liked my interest in lichen. But this is how my sisters and I always remember my parents:  Together,  heads close, loupe in hand looking at some plant and discussing the details to be able to identify it.  Both of them have found new species of plants for Iceland.  I'm very grateful that they taught me to look closely at the world.  It really is only when one looks at the details that the bigger picture reveals itself.