Ink, Yarn & Beer

Saturday Dyeing

I spent all day Saturday dyeing yarn with indigo, cochineal, and quercitron (yellow oak bark). Judy came out from Ventura with three skeins of white yarn, one of which was 100% washable merino, another was merino and nylon, and another of merino and silk. Mine were all 100% wool, specifically the Crazy Eight yarn from Wool2Dye4. I gave Judy a skein of the Crazy Eight, so all told, we had 8 skeins of pure white wool for our projects. I also had two skeins of Sea Wool I had dyed using cochineal, one lighter than the other, and a skein of moorit Shetland which I had earlier dyed with quercitron.

Friday evening, I set out 15 g. of quercitron bark to soak overnight, as well as 10 g. of cochineal mixed 10 g. of tartaric acid. Saturday morning, once we got the first dye bath heating, we set up the indigo. After my earlier disaster with indigo, I decided to order a dye kit from Dharma Trading Company, in Berkeley, California. This is a very tidy little kit, well worth the small price – kind of like frozen vegetables in midwinter – a definitely good thing to have! The only thing I needed to buy was a container with a lid – this little kit produces 4 gallons of intensely blue dye, and we certainly did not make a dent in it. Putting the container – a commercial food storage unit – on a furniture dolly was a good thing to do, too, as that is a lot of weight to carry around.

Cochineal Skeins with Overdyed Skeins on Outside

We found out, very early, that the indigo in this vat is very strong. I dipped my two cochineal Sea Wool skeins in the vat once it was ready – and they turned deep blue violet after only a minute in the vat. Oops! I was aiming for lavender! You can see how dark the two cochineal skeins became, as well as the original shades of pink. We used this knowledge to good advantage later on, and diluted the strength of the indigo by taking a couple of cups and pouring it into water in another container. Much nicer! The lavender and greens Judy got were all done with a diluted indigo bath.

Judy's Lavender (Indigo Over Cochineal) and Green (Indigo Over Quercitron)

To get her lavenders and greens, Judy did two dye baths. The first was a purely yellow skein in the quercitron, and a purely pink skein in the cochineal. As her skeins had different fiber content in them, as well as had been treated to be washable, her colors were not as intense as the Crazy Eight yarn, which is a washable merino, but is made up of 4 2-ply strands plied together. Because of the silk in her yarn, all temperatures were carefully controlled not to exceed 180 F. – important to keep the luster of the silk, as well as to keep the yellow from drifting into drabber shades.

If you are unfamiliar with indigo dyeing, you might like to know that before you get the blue, it is green in the dye vat; the oxygen in the air creates the blue color. You can see that the large vat is green in color, with a bluish rim at the top. As a result, it is difficult to gauge how dark your indigo will become once exposed to the air. So, as I said, we diluted the indigo with more water. Then, to get the gradated yellow-into-green, and pink-into-lavender, Judy dipped only a part of her skein into the indigo, and slowly squeezed the dye into other areas of the skein once it was removed from the weaker solution. Doing this three or four times, she made some very nice space-dyed yarn.

For myself, I wanted to preserve most of my skeins as solid colors, and so chose to do one skein in pure quercitron, one in pure cochineal, and one in a medium indigo. My last white skein was tied off in the traditional flammegarn method. and dipped first in the cochineal, tied up some more, and then dipped in the indigo. The results were quite pleasing altogether. I was also quite pleased with the indigo-dyed moorit yarn – it took on a pleasantly greenish cast.

Left to Right: Tie-Dyed, Quercitron, Cochineal, Diluted Indigo

Saturday flew by! By and large, Judy and I were happy with our results. Judy had done a flammegarn in quercitron, cochineal, and indigo, but it was too pastel for her tastes. Rather frustrated, she dumped it into the undiluted indigo – and lost all here cochineal. However, the yarn came out really nice, despite that. In place of the yarn she didn’t like, she got one which is mulberry and teal, two of her favorite colors. The picture here is a bit too intense – the graduation between the purple and teal was far more subtle, with the teal being darker.

Our working concept was to use the lightest colors first, and then move to the darker ones. This meant yellow, then pink, then blue. I was not really pleased with the green we got using this method. Looking around, I see some people dye with indigo first, and then with a yellow overdye. I expect that the initial indigo has to be relatively pale to achieve middle greens. This is something I plan to do at a later date, and while greens are often readily available in other dye plants, the ones done with a combination of blue and yellow seem to be more vibrant. Color mixing is an art, and not knowing how something works best is frustrating, but at the same time so much fun. Since I am not a professional dyer, I am not too concerned about creating repeatable products, but I do like having control over my results a bit more. This is where a sense of adventure is important, as well as a willingness to try something. Theories often do not work with realities!

That said, here are the skeins, all hung up to dry a bit before getting dinner ready for the men.

Sparkles

I am a magpie at heart – I love shiny objects. As a kid, I used to drive my mother nuts because I liked rhinestone buttons on my dresses and gaudy costume jewelry. These days, I am more conservative, or at least demonstrate better taste, than I did when I was five years old as far as clothing. But, I am still irresistibly drawn to sparkles – splashes in water – spider webs in the morning light – flickery sun in dark shadow.

Today, I returned to the local botanical gardens. Autumn is settling in. The sky has a different quality of blue, the light is cool and intense. The scent of pine needles rises up with the heat of the day. With me came my Lumix ZS5, and the Canon QL17 GIII. I took a few pictures with the Canon, and oodles with the Lumix. This is the luxury of digital – 60 pictures without the cost for processing.

The path I took this morning was one I haven’t taken before. I always head uphill for some reason, but today I deliberately went downhill. Here, the garden is more of a woodland, with large California oaks mixed in with other native plants. The colors are more brown and green in the woodland area of the garden than up the hill, but there are little bright spots here and there of sunshine and shadow, along with lingering flowers and autumnal berries.

What I looked for today, very deliberately, was the contrast of light and dark, of sun and shadow. I stopped the camera down to -1/3 EV, to keep the camera from making all the light areas washed out. In the shadows, this creates a bit of drama with contrast. Compositional elements were a bit more studiously considered as well, such as movement of a tree branch across the picture, a pathway, a stairway. Some shots I framed with foliage, others I attempted to focus on a specific part, such as a tree leaf, and open the f/stop as much as possible with this camera (which is not more than f/3.3 manual), to blur out the background.

The set on Flickr for today contains images as they came from the camera. Most of them need some help, I think, but a few of the ones of the oaks are interesting and successful as they stand, I think. The one below has been cropped.

I am always in conflict about post-processing images, yet it has been done since the early days of photography. Images have been manipulated by time and f/stop, airbrushing out of unwanted characters who have lost political importance, handpainting. Processing of film images also influences the final product.

Why should digital images be any different?

F.O.

I’ve been knitting in between playing with three different – no, four different – cameras. I’ve got some mitts I’m working on for Josh, a shawl out of Noro, and I just finished the Flip Flop Socks in Paton’s Socks in the City booklet.

These toe socks were not really hard to do, but I think that the instructions were rather peculiar. The yarn colors are also odd, making me think of the colors of rayon dresses of the 30s and 40s, but these odd colors I find quite appealing. Out of all the stripes that Paton’s has in this series of sock yarn, I really like this one the best. It is called “Summer Moss Jacquard” and about 2/3 of two balls are used altogether.

One of the criticisms I have about the pattern is that they measure the foot length from where the heel is turned, and where the gusset joins. I just measured my usual 7.5 inches before beginning the toe. Another criticism is that the little toes are only an inch long – if I were to have followed those instructions, I would not be happy. They should say something to the effect of “knit until 1/4 inch shy of length of second toe, then begin decreases.” Something like that. And the big toe needs to be custom fit as well. There are other oddities in the pattern as well, which I ignored, and met with success anyhow.

This yarn seems to want to pill a bit, but it could just be that I need to wash them so that any little fuzzies can go bye-bye. I’ve never had any complaints about Kroy sock yarn – it is a workhorse of a yarn and very reasonably priced. These days it seems that solid colors are hard to come by, whereas about ten years ago, patterned yarn was far more of a challenge. Obviously, fads come and go.

Self-striping yarn is always fun to work with – it keeps me visually entertained during plain knitting. What will the next round bring? However, self-striping yarn is not something to use with cables or lace, unless you want to get specific effects. For instance, Mini Mochi is a self-striping yarn, but the stripes are miles apart, so lace or cables can be seen, and not lost in the pattern of the color. If you use narrower striped yarn, patterns which create ripples can be fun, as then the lines of color undulate.

These socks, despite pattern issues, were really a lot of fun, and an easy, quick knit. Below are my own socks! Not as elegantly photographed, but still pretty good . . .

Conscience

The suicide of Tyler Clementi has been bothering me all week. Two young adults, both obviously minorities and quite possibly victims of racism at some point in their lives, took it upon themselves to torment a young man because he was somehow different from them, and make public a very private encounter. Such despicable behavior is beyond comprehension.

There is nothing in me that can express the horror I feel over this. I cannot imagine what his family feels, and can only offer them my thoughts and sympathy. If this were my son, my loss would be inconsolable. If the perpetrators were my children, disgust and contempt for them would be at war with my love.

These two did far more damage than they may ever imagine possible.

Sumi-e / Ink Painting Books, ii

Motoi Oi, i

Today, I am going to begin a brief series on a rather lovely set of books, published by Motoi Oi (1910-2004) shortly after his arrival in the U.S. Initially paperback books, self-published and handbound by his wife using traditional Japanese binding, much of his work was consolidated into hardback by the Japan Publication Trading Co. in Tokyo.

The Sumi-e Society of America writes about itself and Mr. Oi:

The Society was created in New York in 1963 by Professor Motoi Oi to foster and encourage an appreciation of East Asian brush painting. For the initial fifteen years (1963-1978) its annual exhibitions were held in New York City. Over the years, the Society has grown and there are many chapters in the United States and a sister organization in Canada.When asked why he had started the Sumi-e Society, Mr. Oi answered, in part, “In the East, paintings reflect the great joy of culture. They are a reflection of an intense personal idiom. My idea was to provide a means through which the fresh, new spirit of American culture could be viewed in Sumi-e.”

Professor Oi was born in Japan and in 1958 he emigrated to the U.S.A. where he worked as a printmaker, painted, wrote books on Sumi-e painting and taught art at Queens College , New York City and the Brooklyn Institute of Art and Science.

In 1981, Mr. Oi was awarded the 6^th class of the Order of the Rising Sun for his work in US-Japan cultural relations.

Oi himself writes on the inside cover flap of this book:

What is sumi-e? Is is so simple an art form that a novice can literally pick up a brush and start painting right away. Yet, it intrigues even those whoc spend their lifetimes studying it. In this book, Mr. Oi introduces to the beginners the fundamental techniques of sumi-e and describes its spirit, which plays the most important part, in terms of … Zen Buddhism … a mystic religion of extreme self-discipline and concentration. The importance of its [sumi’e’s] spirit is, however, too often ignored, and the craze for this art is usually based on a complete misunderstanding, the result being a mere imitation of its superficial features.

Given this, I am not even going to approach the spirit behind Mr. Oi’s books; rather, that is up to the individual artist and reader to explore. Instead, I think it is interesting to read the book and consider what is said. For instance, in the above edition, concerning rough sketches, he writes, “in following a rough sketch, painting becomes a matter of technique and hence loses the fresh, spontaneous feeling. Therefore I do not recommend it.” What does this mean? To me, it says it is best to look at each subject as something totally new and unexperienced. It also says to consider the subject in advance – light, dark – and to consider the approach to the painting in terms of brush stroke, ink gradation, how the brush will be loaded. This, of course, comes through practice of lines, circles, and other techniques, such as illustrated below.

Mastery in any art or craft means mastery of its tools. Here, ink, brush, paper, water. It also means mastery of the self, in whatever way it means to you, the painter, the artist, the craftsman. I rather like these paragraphs from his “Notes on Sumi-e” found at the end of the book:

The ability to think is what produces a good Sumi-e. A dexterous hand may turn out a mechanically excellent picture but not a true Sumi-e in spirit.

Pick up a Fude with a deep sense of humility. Free your mind of arrogance and hostility. You are not out to conquer Sumi-e. Rather, you want to be one with it. There should be neither a victory nor a defeat. Complete union is the ultimate goal.

Sumi-e is a mirror to your mind. It, however, surpasses mere reflection by rendering an image free of frills and pretense. Only the bare truth is reproduced on a sheet of paper.

I wonder, myself, just how this might be judged by others. For me, I know when I have accomplished this, free of the monkey mind; I can look at my painting and know it is well done. But do others see it? I think we are all prejudiced by our moods, likes, dislikes, current preferences. Certainly what appears good today may seem like a horror the next. As we are not static, perhaps this undulation of appreciation – this seeming fickleness – is actually a very, very good thing.