Dyeing with Elderberries

[caption id="attachment_2529" align="aligncenter" width="456" caption="Elderberry dye soup"][/caption]

The Elberberries were out in full bloom a couple of weeks ago and I decided that it was time to try some more berry dyeing. I still didn't have a regular mordant like Alum so once again I turned to the tutorial 'Making Natural Dyes from Plants' for their instructions on using salt as a mordant. I had a go with the same wool I used last time for the Blackberry dyeing and I am at the moment knitting up some berry socks by making stripes with the two yarns. As I had quite a large amount of Elderberries I decided to have a go at dyeing this pink raw silk fabric I had lying around. I like the colour it turned out but I did make one mistake though. I learned later that when dyeing silk you shouldn't boil it as silk goes hard when it reaches higher temperatures. My piece of silk did go slightly hard but nevermind. I still used the silk piece to sew myself the Bubbly Berry Skirt which you can see on my blog 'Grey Duckling'.

[caption id="attachment_2528" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Before and after dyeing raw silk with Elderberry"][/caption]

The images in this post are copyright of Eddie Roued-Cunliffe. You are hereby granted permission to use them for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit Eddie and link back to this page. If you are using them and talking about this post I would love to hear from you in the comments.

Dyeing with Blackberries

Blackberries are in season at the moment and we have quite a few in our garden. I have already used the best ones for Blackberry Jelly. After being inspired by the Hampshire Weavers, Spinners and Dyers Guild Exhibition, I decided to go home and give natural dyeing a try.

I picked as many blackberries as I could find (there were not many left). Not being very well prepared I didn't have a mordant, but I read the 'Making Natural Dyes from Plants' tutorial, which mentioned that you could use a salt fixative for berry dyes.

I made a mixture of 16 parts water and 1 part sea salt. I then put the yarn into the mixture and brought it to a boil. When it began to boil I turned the heat of and left it to rest in the salt water for 1 hour. I then gave the yarn a rinse and began to prepare the dye soup.

I added the blackberries to some water (c. 1 part berries and 4 parts water). I cooked the mixture for about 30 min after which I removed the pot from the heat and mashed the berries. I then let the mixture boil for another 30 min after which I strained the pump carefully. When there was no more pulp in the juice I put it back on the stove and added the pre-prepared yarn. I brought this to a boil again, turned of the heat and left it to stand till the next morning.

Next day I pulled the yarn out of the dye soup and gave it a good rinse, adding a splash of vinegar to one of the rinse baths. I then hung it to dry and used the end of my wooden spoon as a nostepinne to wind it into a neat ball.

[caption id="attachment_2367" align="aligncenter" width="476" caption="Ball of yarn dyed with Blackberries"][/caption]

I would like to note that a couple of weeks later I made a little tester by putting a strand of this yarn in the window for a week or so. It faded and became a more yellowish version of the original colour. Never having tried dyeing with a mordant like Alum I don't know what level of fading you would expect if you put your dyed item in the sun for a week. But I don't think you will ever expect it not to fade at all. Would be fun to experiment with. If anyone else has any experience with this I would love to hear your comment

The images in this post are copyright of Eddie Roued-Cunliffe. You are hereby granted permission to use them for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit Eddie and link back to this page. If you are using them and talking about this post I would love to hear from you in the comments.

Learning to weave

I have been wanting to learn to weave for a while now but have also been keeping it of because I wanted to wait till I had access to my mothers six shaft floor loom again. Nevertheless, my friend Dawn decided to book me onto a weaving weekend with Mary Keer a fellow member of the Hampshire Weavers, Spinners and Dyers Guild. I didn't know what to expect, but I must admit it was one of the best experiences I have had in a long time. Mary is such a great teacher and in a weekend I managed to set-up a four shaft table loom and weave about a third of my 2.5m long wall hanging.
I borrowed the loom to take home and finish the wall hanging. I am so proud of the result and I am still a bit high on the feelings that weaving brought out in me. I have so far thought of myself as someone who is more into the finished product than the craft process itself. At least that is how I feel about knitting and crochet. But with weaving it seemed to be different. I just loved the process of passing the shuttle back and forth. It also gave me a weird sense of connection with my mother and other weavers in my family history.
So am I on my way out to buy my own loom? Well my husband was surprised to hear that I hadn't already bought one. But I must admit that they are a bit to expensive for me at the moment. I also still have my mothers I can use. But I will be looking into making my own table loom so watch this space for more on that.

The images in this post are copyright of Eddie Roued-Cunliffe. You are hereby granted permission to use them for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit Eddie and link back to this page. If you are using them and talking about this post I would love to hear from you in the comments.

Learning a new Craft - Brewing beer

By Lars Olsen
Recently, beer has become fashionable again in Denmark. We went through a long period were wine was the appropriate drink to serve at dinner parties. This has now changed and this change has brought many new, wonderful beers into the shops. Beer is now a beverage as respected as wine, bringing with it, a whole new world of beer tasting events. The experts even talk of certain beers going well with certain foods. In the same way as with wine, there is also a huge difference in price between a standard lager and a more expensive micro-brewery beer. But there must be a market for these beers since most of the big established Danish breweries now have their own micro-breweries alongside their usual business.

It is of course great to have all these new beers on the market so that those that don't drink wine, also have a variety of beverages to choose from. There are of course also those of us who enjoy both wine and beer!

It is actually possible to cultivate grapes and produce wine in Denmark. Nevertheless, Denmark is not and will probably never become a great wine district. However, Denmark has a long tradition of brewing beer, giving us easy access to the raw ingredients required. This is probably helped to inspire more and more people to experiment with brewing their own beer and is how my brother-in-law and I began producing this noble drink together as a hobby. He has a good size shed, where he has installed our little brewery 'Malt Bryghus'. It is very practically furnished with a kettle on one side and a sink to wash bottles and equipment on the other. The heated room can accommodate several portions at once while keeping the temperature necessary for the fermentation process.
There are several companies in Denmark that sell the ingredients for brewing and we have chosen one that sells premixed batches with recipes for up to 20 different beer types; such as Christmas Beer, Easter Beer, Urquel and IPA. Maybe as we get more experienced we can gather the courage to try and mix our own brew. But don't think that this means that you can't experiment with the premixed brews. You can still add different things such as liquorice, depending on your taste and courage.

A brew takes about four weeks to complete, from the moment we open the bag of premix through to tasting the final product. After, 4-5 hours of mixing and boiling, the cooled liquid is poured into a pot and yeast is added. After one week, the brew is paddled and after another week you add sugar and bottle the brew. After fourteen days in a bottle the beer is drinkable but our experience tells us that it gets even better after a couple of months.

[caption id="attachment_1329" align="aligncenter" width="331" caption="IPA label"][/caption]

How does the beer taste you might ask...is it worth drinking? Well my brother-in-law and myself are crazy about it, and luckily our friends and family are too. The other day my brother-in-law carried out a blind test with a group of friends where he had chosen three different beers of ours and matched them with the equivalent shop bought version. He was very surprised when our beer won in all three categories. Which makes it fun and worthwhile!

[caption id="attachment_1327" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Urquel label"][/caption]

Price wise our own beer compares well with shop bought ones, as long as we don't count our own labour. If you look beyond the investment in equipment, which will hopefully last us many years, we can produce 0.5 litres of beer for 6kr (€0.80). In comparison with a micro brewery beer, which in Denmark costs between 20-45kr (€3-6), it is quite attractive to brew your own - especially when it tastes better too!

We haven't been brewing for long - my brother-in-law began last Summer and I joined him last Autumn. However, I have come to feel that it is a good winter activity which of course means that we now have to brew enough to last all Summer.

We buy our supplies from 'Hjemmebryggeren'. So if you were curious about brewing your own beer, have a look there. I will finish with a skål (that's cheers in Danish)!

This post was originally written in Danish by our guest blogger Lars Olsen and was translated by Eddie

If you are interested in brewing you can get English language information from the UK Craft Brewing Association or the American Homebrewers Association.

Dansk - Ølbryggeren

Af Lars Olsen

I Danmark er øl blevet igen blevet in, efter en lang periode hvor det fortrinsvis var vin som blev drukket til finere mad og sat på bordet til fester. Der er i takt med denne udvikling, kommet mange dejlige øl i handelen - eller måske var det omvendt, at der kom mange nye dejlige ølbrygge i handelen, som gjorde at øl er blevet en attraktiv vare på højde med vinen? Øl er blevet en anerkendt drik og der udbydes ølsmagning og tales om at bestemte øltyper passer til bestemte madretter. Og der er desuden stor forskel på prisen på en standardpilsner og en noget dyrere øl fra de ny-opdukkede microbryggerier. Og det må være et attraktivt marked, idet selv de store bryggerier har etableret microbryggerier ved siden af deres standardprodukter.

Det er selvfølgeligt dejligt, at der er flere produkter på markedet, så også dem der ikke drikker vin, kan få et dejligt udvalg af drikkevarer at vælge imellem til maden eller, uden mad for den sags skyld. Og vi er nogle der kan lide begge drikke!

Der kan ganske rigtigt dyrkes druer og produceres vin i Danmark, men Danmark er ikke, og bliver formentlig aldrig, et stort vin-producerende land. Til gengæld er der en lang tradition for at brygge øl i Danmark med nem adgang til råmaterialet, og dette har nok været med til at flere er begyndt at eksperimentere med selv at brygge øl? Således er min svoger og jeg også gået i gang med at producere den ædle drik som en dejlig fælles hobby. Han har et pænt stort værksted og der har han indrettet bryggeriet ”Malt Bryghus”. Det er temmelig praktisk indrettet med kogekar på den ene side af gangen og vask til rengøring af kar og flasker på den anden side. Desuden er der plads til flere hold bryg i det opvarmede rum, som er nødvendigt for at gærings-processen kommer i gang.

Der findes flere firmaer der sælger råvarerne, og vi har valgt et firma, der sælger råvarerne forblandede med opskrift til 15 – 20 forskellige øl-typer, så som Juleøl, Påskeøl, Urquel og IPA. Nu må vi se om vi på et eller andet tidspunkt får mod på at eksperimentere med selv at blande vores bryg? Men der er skam også plads til at eksperimentere indenfor de eksisterende blandinger, idet der kan tilsættes forskellige ingredienser efter smag og mod. Som eksempel kan der tilsættes lakrids, men det har vi nu ikke prøvet i videre udstrækning endnu.

En brygning tager ca 4 uger fra at kogekarret sættes i gang til vi kan prøvesmage den færdige øl. Efter 4-5 timers blanding og kogning hældes den afkølede væske på kar og gæren tilsættes. Når der er gået én uge omstikkes bryggen og efter endnu en uge tilsættes sukker og bryggen tappes på flaske. Når øllet har stået 14 dage kan den drikkes, men det er vores erfaring, at den bliver betydelig bedre efter nogle måneder.

[caption id="attachment_1329" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="IPA etikette"][/caption]

Hvordan smager øllet så? Er det værd at drikke? Min svoger og jeg er vilde med drikken, og heldigvis er vores omgangskreds også godt tilfreds med vores hobby. Min svoger gennemførte forleden en blindtest med et hold kammerater, hvor han havde udvalgt 3 forskellige typer af vores brygge og matchet med tilsvarende brygge fra detailhandelen. Og han blevet noget overrasket over, at vores øl vandt klart på alle discipliner. Så er det jo sjovt!

[caption id="attachment_1327" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Urquel etikette"][/caption]

Prismæssigt kan det sagtens konkurrere med de købte produkter, når man selvfølgelig ikke regner sin egen arbejdstid med! Hvis der ses bort fra investeringen i apparaturet, som jo kan holde i mange år, kan vi producere ½ liter øl til 5-6 kroner. Sat i forhold til at en specialøl i Danmark koster mellem 20 og 45 kroner, er det jo rigtig attraktivt at brygge sin egen øl, når den så oven i købet smager bedre!

Vi har ikke brygget ret lang tid endnu – min svoger startede sidste vinter og jeg kom med i efteråret, men jeg tænker at det er en typisk vinter-aktivitet, og det betyder jo at vi må have fabrikeret nok godt øl til hele sommeren.

Jeg giver dig lige linket til vores leverandør, Hjemmebryggeren, hvis du er blevet nysgerrig efter selv at prøve at brygge øl, og så vil jeg ellers bare sig .....skål!

Dette indlæg er skrevet af vores gæsteblogger Lars Olsen og er oversat til engelsk af Eddie

Learning a new craft - peg loom

Inspired by Helene's enthusiasm about learning naalbinding and the flowers coming out of the ground in my garden, I decided to take out the peg loom I bought last autumn and give it a whirl. I had also managed to acquire a bag of alpaca wool and some silk tops in red and yellow. With the instruction book in my hand I set to it and cut some warp from some woolen yarn in the same colour as the alpaca (i.e. white).

It took me a while to figure out how to twist the wool to make some pieces that I could weave in and out between the pegs. This is why I think that for the next rug I am making I will try carding the wool first and use that to weave with.
I managed to add the red and yellow silk at every pegs length and the result is rather nice I think.

The hardest bit, I though, was washing it. But now it is drying and I can't wait to see if it will fit on my chair.

The images in this post are copyright of Eddie Roued-Cunliffe. You are hereby granted permission to use them for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit Eddie and link back to this page. If you are using them and talking about this post I would love to hear from you in the comments.

Learning a new craft - naalbinding

While waiting for spring to come, what better ways to pass the dark winter evenings than learning a new craft. My choice fell on a relatively unknown technique called nalbinding.

This seemingly obscure decision was made earlier this winter when I agreed to take part in a medieval re-enactment trip later in the early spring and the thought then occurred – this might turn out to be a quite cold experience! To avoid getting cold feet (in more than one sense) warm socks seemed to be the solution - but alas, knitting was still an unknown technique in the Middle Ages in Denmark (see article on the history of knitting). To make socks and gloves they instead used nalbinding, which literally means ‘binding with a needle’. The logical consequence was then that I would have to learn nalbinding.

At this point in time I don’t know nearly enough about the technique to write an article about it, but I can share with you the little that I do know at present:

It is a sewing technique predating both knitting and crocheting and the oldest known relic is probably a Coptic sandal sock (?) from the 4th century AD. Using a single flat needle and shorter lengths of yarn you basically a loop and pull the full length of the working thread through the loop, but leaving it loose to form a new loop. In this fashion you form a chain either in a single direction or in circles to make for example socks.



I managed to convince a good friend to show me the ropes and I’m very much still in the learning process. It is invigorating to learn something new but also a rather slow process. So far my first sock barely covers my toes and I will have too speed up not to catch a cold…

Are you keeping crafty while waiting for spring to come?

The images in this post are copyright of Helene. If you wish to use the images please request permission from Helene.