Tisha

This year we're reading several "homesteading" books, in place of watching movies where plants are the stars. These books tie into this year's "homesteading in the city" theme, and celebrate how resourceful and innovative people are, whether they are living off the land, pioneering something new, or choosing an alternative way to live. Plants may not be the stars in these books, but I'm pretty they're in the background!

This time our book is Tisha, As Told to Robert Specht (Bantam Books, New York 1984). In 1927, nineteen year old Anne Hobbs travels from Eagle to Chicken, Alaska via a pack train in the last run of the season. Anne had been hired as a teacher in Chicken. Jack Strong has the contract to deliver mail and supplies to Chicken, and delivers Anne along with everything else. Anne goes to work preparing her one-room schoolhouse for the school year, and getting to know the residents of the small mining community.

Social life revolves around Mr. Strong's general store, Friday night dances at Maggie's Roadhouse, and events at the schoolhouse. During the year Anne adopts two orphaned indigenous children, Chuck and Ethyl, and develops strong feelings for a young native man, Fred Purdy. Both rile up community sentiments against her. Anne stubbornly faces their racism and the harsh conditions of the subarctic climate. When Mr. Vaughn kidnaps the two children to take them to Indian Village, Fred and Anne head out by dog sled to stop him, and end up facing an unexpected challenge to rescue a couple and their baby who have fallen through the ice.

I read this book during the pandemic, and enjoyed it completely. Anne is an intriguing person, and her story is engaging and compelling. My family and I traveled in Fortymile Country on a camping trip back in the 1970s, and we visited both Eagle and Chicken. It was late summer, with the trees all leafed out and the sun shining through them. As I recall, my folks had coffee with one of the residents in Chicken and came away with some produce from their garden and several paperback mysteries. The setting was lovely, and it was hard to imagine the contrast of the subarctic winter to come. I recommend this book for anyone interested in a young school teacher's experience in interior Alaska a hundred years ago.

Learn more:

• Anne Hobbs Purdy, by DM Shepard, August 12, 2019. Blog includes photos of Chicken, Alaska, including the school house, Anne's personal living quarters, Jack Strong's warehouse, Maggie's Roadhouse, and other original structures.

• Chicken, Alaska 

• Eagle, Alaska

• Fortymile National Wild and Scenic River

Landscaping Site Visit

This week we had a site visit with a landscaping company that specializes in ecologically sustainable gardens, conservation, restoration and native plant horticulture. My husband and I have been kicking around ideas for years, but have come to the conclusion that we need help implementing them! During the site visit we "walked the land" with two designers and talked about ideas, dreams, and goals. 

Site visit

Our lot is complicated - a triangular piece of land that is surrounded with green electrical boxes, buried cables, two power poles and their guy wires, and ground-level metal access plates to underground utilities. So far I haven't been able to locate any surveyor markers, but we do have an original blueprint of the property.

The site visit went well. I really appreciated hearing ideas from the designers as we looked at the property from all angles, noted its merits and tossed around ideas for its improvement. This is a busy time for landscaping companies, so we are on a wait-list. This gives us some time to complete a few assignments in preparation, and the usual end-of-winter clean up and oak patrol.   

  

Studio Updates: New Fiber

 In this video I’m sharing more updates to my studio, with the spotlight on new fabric and fibers. In another video we reviewed new products and equipment (see Studio Updates: New Gear). It’s always fun to try new ideas and new techniques. I may not use everything this year, but I like to be “tooled up” and ready.

Mercerized Cotton Fabric

One acquisition is two yards of bleached, 100% mercerized cotton print cloth (CPC) from Dharma Trading Company. The fabric is used by quilters, sewers, beginning dyers, and fabric painters. Mercerization is a process applied to plant fibers to increase luster. It is applied to fabric after weaving, or to yarns and threads after spinning. Mercerized fibers absorb more water, and therefore more dye, making the color of the dyed cloth brighter and deeper (sometimes by as much as 25%). The process gives cloth better color resistance over multiple washings, increased strength, smoothness, resistance to mildew, and reduced lint.

Mercerized Cotton Fabric (note the luster)
Photo Credit: Dharma Trading Company

Linen Fabric (Plant-based)

Another acquisition is one yard of bleached, 100% linen fabric, also from Dharma Trading. Linen is durable, breathes, and is good for dyeing. It maintains density during use, and does not lose color.

Linen Fabric (medium weight)
Photo Credit: Dharma Trading Company

Linen Party Napkins (Plant-based)

These small 100% linen napkins are carried by Amazon. They are described as being soft, with a heavyweight feel, 6" x 6", with elegant ladder hem-stitching and mitered corners. I’ve never dyed with linen, so am interested to see how well it absorbs color.

Linen Party Napkins
Photo Credit: Amazon

Silk Satin Scarves (Protein-based)

These silk satin scarves are also a departure since I’ve never dyed protein-based fiber. They are 8" x 54", though many other shapes and sizes are available from Dharma Trading Company. The hems are hand rolled with 100% silk thread, and the scarves are ready to dye and paint. I plan to use the silk for eco-dying – the direct transfer of color from plant to fiber, with the right mordant.

Silk Satin Scarves with Rolled Hems
Photo Credit: Dharma Trading Company

Peruvian Highland Wool Yarn (Protein-based)

This Peruvian Highland 100% wool yarn is also a departure into protein-based fiber. The sturdy, all-purpose yarn is distributed by Amazon. I’m not a knitter, but the description says the yarn is used for cable stitch patterns, intricate winter sweaters, textured stitches, and everyday accessories. It also felts beautifully. I purposefully purchased this lovely Mink Heather color, to try overdyeing. Overdyeing is the process of dyeing previously dyed fiber, with the intent to further change the color. I have 100 yards.

Peruvian Highland Wool Yarn
Photo Credit: Amazon

Cotton Dish Towels

These cotton dish towels are an old favorite and always in my arsenal of fabric. We’ve been dyeing them since the beginning, and they remain a standard.

Cotton Dish Towels
Photo Credit: Target (Made by Design)

Leftovers from Last Year

We also have some leftovers from last year, including large and small cotton handkerchiefs, and cotton dinner napkins. Some have never been dyed. Others have been dyed, and I plan to overdye them.

Recycle Dyeing

Finally, I’ve been combing thrift shops and my own wardrobe for items to dye. Old T-shirts perk up nicely in the dye bath, and fabric from various sources may wind up in a quilting project. Very sustainable!

Reuse and repurpose old fabric

Well, that is it for now. As you can see, I have lots of plans, but may run out of time. Whatever I decide to do, I’m tooled up with various fabric and fiber types and ready to dye!

Rainy Winter Night

Here in Northern California (and the Southwestern United States in general) we're very attuned to snowpack in the mountains, water storage levels, and water usage. We're frequently heading into a drought, in a drought, or just coming out of one. Our climate here in the San Francisco Bay Area is "summer dry", meaning that we get most of our rain in the winter months. Many of us try to conserve water using various strategies both inside and outside the house.

Winter rain is cause for celebration!

This year we received a lot of rain in November and December, thanks to several atmospheric rivers that traveled through our area. And then it stopped, except for a few brief evening showers in January and February. The clay soil hangs on to water at the molecular level for the summer months ahead, but we always hope for more. Finally, it rained last night!

Studio Updates: New Gear

In this video I’m sharing some updates to my studio, with the spotlight on new products and equipment. In another video we’ll showcase fabrics. It’s always fun to try different ideas and methods. I may not use everything this year, but I like to be “tooled up” and ready.

Digital Scale

One new acquisition is a digital kitchen scale, used to weigh fabric and material for dye projects. This replaces my trusty kitchen scale that is limited to one pound. This affordable Beurer scale weighs up to 33 pounds (15 kilograms), and informs you if an item is “over limit”. You can configure different units, including pounds and ounces, ounces, grams, and kilograms. And you can retain a measurement, which is ideal when trying to weigh materials and record the results at the same time.

Digital kitchen scale for weighing fabric and dye material

Convection Cooktop

Another acquisition is an electric convection burner. I resisted going this route because convection cooktops require flat-bottomed, magnetic pans, which are more expensive and harder to find at thrift stores. But I was eager to move away from propane canisters, which require special disposal. This affordable Ovente Induction Cooktop offers a range of preset temperature levels, from 140 to 465 degrees Fahrenheit. Five timer levels are preset from 1 minute to 3 hours. Safety features shut down the burner when not in use. My camp stove worked well, but it was difficult to regulate temperature (it was either on or off). Luckily one of my thrifted stainless-steel pans works with the new cooktop.

Convection burner

Low-suds Detergent

I ran out of Synthrapol scouring soap at the end of last season, so this year I’m trying a low suds Professional Textile Detergent distributed by Dharma Trading Company. Here in the West, we must conserve water, so I’m hoping a low-suds detergent will reduce the quantity of water needed for rinsing.

Jars, Cans and Containers

I’m always on the lookout for good jars, cans, and containers. Last year I purchased a 3-liter canning jar at a thrift store, which works great for solar dyeing. Jars are also handy for storing used dye, collecting plant material, and mixing additives. Cans are also useful for mixing and extracting dye. Meat and vegetable trays can be used to collect and dry plant material. They are often high quality and in a variety of sizes.

Cans, jars, and containers are great for storing, drying and preparing dye material

Ferrous Sulfate

Last year I added ferrous sulfate powder to a red camelia dye bath. Iron darkens or “saddens” the dye bath, producing darker colors. This year I’d like to experiment more with using iron in the dye bath as a modifier to produce additional colors. You can make your own iron mordant solution by soaking iron in vinegar water and use it as an alternative to ferrous sulfate.

Make your own iron solution

Exhaust Dyeing

This year I also plan to experiment with exhaust dyeing, which means reusing dyes. Over the last several years I’ve collected quite a few left-over dyes. They have been used once, which is the first exhaust. Each use of a dye is an exhaust. With each exhaust, the color becomes lighter and lighter. Modifiers, such as washing soda and iron, change the pH of the dye bath and further modify the dye color. I’m curious to see the range of colors that can be produced from a single dye bath.

Each reuse of a dye is an exhaust

Solar and Eco-Dyeing

This year we’ll try more solar dyeing, which uses the sun or time to dye. And we may try "eco-dyeing", which is the direct transfer of color from plants. I’ve seen some interesting projects online.

Well, that’s it for now. As you can see, I have lots of plans, but may run out of time. Whatever I decide to do, I’m tooled up and ready to dye!