dyeing to knit.

the last little while, i've been playing around with a bit of yarn dyeing.
i talked about one project in this post, but since then, i've been doing even more!



i had these few vessels just slowly ticking away, doing their thing.
the pot in front, had a bath of acidified avocado pits with half a skein of bendigo bamboo sock wool, anticipating a nice light and subtle pink.
the white lidded jar, housed the other half of the skein of sock wool. after not getting a nice light pink from it after soaking it in with the avocado pits, i popped it in here with some red food dye and added some vinegar to the avocado bath to see if that changed anything...



as you can see, i didn't quite get the subtle pink i was after from the front pot, but the food dye, well it sure did the trick!
i'm knitting these two together for a hat project i'm hoping to share a little more about soon.

the orange lidded jar, well i have no results from that one as the yarn is still in there! perhaps i'll find some time over the weekend to fish out what's in there and give it a rinse.
i'm hoping for a nice green gradient for a pair of socks. we'll see what happens!

before that though, the jar housed a different dye experiment...



i put together another solar dyeing jar with walnut shells, though this time with a skein of linen, instead of woollen yarn way back in november.

after four months, the results were a little lighter than last time...



but still a nice little bit of warmth to what was a very cool skein of white...

that might be the end of my dyeing for a little while, i'm basically out of white yarns in my stash he he. plus i have plenty to knit with for now too!

have you ever tried any fiber dyeing at home?

green love.

hrmmmm so it would seem i've missed a week again...
i had the best of intentions last week, i got out and snapped some pictures, loaded them onto flickr and worked the html magic to get them onto this here page, and then i was done.
i had no words... i think i've found them this week though!

there's a little bit going on in the garden at the moment, so i thought i'd take this opportunity to share...



the chilli plant is putting on it's annual flower display. no fruit to speak of, even now a week later, but they are beautiful and delicate flowers to look at all the same.

you wouldn't know from looking at it, but this is my finger lime pot...



it's become completely overrun with native seedlings! the seeds from which have obviously drifted in on the weather and wind and found this to be the best place to spring up!
i think i'll have a crack at replanting them, could use some natives to plant around the farm.

after moving some soil around to top up this section of the bed, i've got a bit of garlic in the ground to harvest come summer!



it feels a bit weird to be thinking about, when we've still got SO much garlic from the last harvest, but it won't last forever... particularly the way we go through it!
the cloves are pretty happy in there, a lot more have popped up since i took this picture too!

last year, i picked up some berlotti beans from a local produce shop and kept a few on the windowsill to dry...



now, we have some of our own!
i've been picking them while they're little like this, and then steaming or boiling them to have alongside dinner. sadly, the beautiful purple colouring doesn't survive the cooking process he he!

ever seen a pomegranate seedling?



now you have!
i popped a few seeds in the ground from a fruit i found on a tree in melbourne before we moved and i've had one lonely seedling pop up! hopefully it survives and gets nice and big, fingers crossed!

also in our makeshift hot house (ie. the windowsill of the shed)...



some turmeric!
this was grown from some fresh turmeric, picked up at a local produce shop. i'm super interested to see how it goes, and how it grows!
so far it's looking super happy and green!

how's your garden growing? ever grown pomegranate or turmeric before?