Whittling a birch twig crochet hook

As post Christmas austerity set in, I found myself one evening whittling this crochet hook from a birch twig I found whilst scavenging for kindling.
 Rosie (Age 6) has been hassling for a rug for since the summer, when she moved in to her new room. I realised that all our "decorating budget" was more than gone. However, I did have an overly large stash of yarn and could just about crochet. I did however, need a larger crochet hook if I was going to make anything rug sized. Hence 40 minutes of whittling and sanding by the Morso one evening.
I have never made a crochet hook before. I don't even do much whittling. However, the nice thick birch twig was just asking to be a crochet hook. I found myself slowly shaping the tip, once I'd got most of the bark off, and had dealt slowly, but forcefully with a side twig's knot. The groove of the head was important to get right, as that is what keeps the yarn in place comfortably as you crochet. I didn't bother with sanding and finishing the far end of the hook, as I wasn't really planning on sliding any yarn along it, and that has worked out fine, so far. I spent ages, it seemed, in sanding the head and groove of the hook, but this was the place where the yarn would need to slip along most in the crocheting process. I have, in the the process of making the rug, needed to slightly resand the groove of the hook, as it has worn a little, leaving a "catchy" patch, which tugged the fibres out of the yarn slightly.
Turns out that birch is a good twig to use for a crocet hook as it has a relatively slender heart wood and is not hollow (like, say willow would be). It doesn't seem to matter (working at this scale, anyway) that the hook is rather bumpy and twig like. Perhaps straightness is not necessary in a crochet hook?
I used my little Opinel knife for the whittling process, and caught the shavings on the hearth, and put them in the fire...
My husband now believes we'll be okay when Armageddon comes. He believes I can whittle us a new life from birch twigs. Bless.

Woad, wonderful woad... growing and dyeing

So, the harvest has yielded!
This was my first year growing woad, and look at the lovely colour I got for my urine/ woad hot box combo ( see older posts for using this method ).
As blue is such a difficult natural dye colour to get, I decided to grow some this year from seed. I also know exactly where they came from (really local!) and there were no petrol transport miles involved in this process at all! I was donated the seed via a friend's mother, but also bought some on line.
One of the wonderful things about woad, is that you can harvest it in the first year of growth, in fact you need to, to get lovely blues, so the results are as quick as they can be!
I started growing these woad plants in February, as they really seem to need some frosty cold to germinate properly. Some seeds were sown directly into the ground, some were started off in little pots in my back yard. By the time it came to harvesting them ( any time from late August ), there was no difference in the size of either group of these plants, so either method is fine, but ofcourse, planting them in the ground first means , perhaps, one less process togo through ( although maybe more weeding?). Almost all the seeds germinated (hooray!), and a few leaves were a little munched here and there. In the end I had about 35 plants to harvest. One of them flowered, although woad is generally bienial in the UK (perhaps because some ants had decided to nest under it...). This plant is yet to bear fruit, so maybe might not this season, but an older plant I was donated has done, and I've harvested the black pendulous seeds from it, so hopefully can get a crop next year too.
It is the lovely lush green leaves you harvest, at a point in the year when they've had plenty of sun! Although this summer seemed very rainy, it was also rather sunny, and the proof is in this lovely blue I've obtained.
These leaves were harvested at the beginning of September, and brewed for two weeks in the warm urine vat. My harvest from the plants at this point was 1700 grams of leaves, and I used half of them for this brew, and reserved half of the dye liquid in (hopefully) airtight containers, for later use. This amount yielded about 300 grams of dyed fibres (mostly wool), from pale sky blues  (one dip, or when the vat was running out) to a rather dark blue (from as many as 4 dips).
The green in the picture was a lovely yellow from birch leaves on a young jacobs wool fibres, that I overdyed with one dip in the woad vat.
Wenslydale locks came out a more royal blue than the blue faced leicester and shetland wool fibres. The really deep jeans blue was on soya silk fibres, but bamboo fibres came out much paler ( top left hand corner, on second photo). I also dyed some naturally grey  and moorit shetland wool fibres: the blue only started to show after 3/4 dips, but I do like the effect too ( very top L hand corner, photo 2).
A month later, and I might be able to sneak one more harvest out of these plants before the cold darkness means they won't yield any more blue. If all turns out well, that might mean about 900 grams of fibres dyed from 35 plants.. We'll see how the saved dye liquid works out...

Finally, some photos of the lovely plants prior to harvest, they are about 6 inches in diameter...
 And woad in flower, not to be harvested for blues apparently!

pan modifying boring tan and yellows

Getting alot of uninspiring dye results? Try "modifying" your tans and anaemic banana dyeing . An easy process really, done after you've discovered your boring colour.
Well, when I say "pan" modifying, I really mean "rusty old collander", and "small copper bowl" which I put into my stainless steel pans with dyed wool in, usually with the already used dye liquor. In the case of using  copper, it's useful to reheat the dyedwool + dye liquor + copper (swabbed with vinegar for a few days previously) for about 20 minutes on a simmering heat, and best to leave it to all steep at least overnight, or if you're me, completely forget about it for a few days until you have to clean out the guinea pig and move that very interesting looking pan off her hutch... The really bright, deep copper colour (top left) was achieved this way, from an original boring, and pale looking tan from Pear tree leaves ( the locks on the left in the bottom picture).
The locks on the right are from some rose leaves, which with alum went a lovely golden yellow, on Wensleydale wool: These locks when modified with copper bowl, became the lovely grassy green locks in the bottom middle of the top photo.
The green tops on the bottom left are from privet leaves treated similarly. The more olivey tops are from birch leaves modified with copper as well.
The silver grey locks on the bottom right are rose leaves modified with the rusty iron collander, which you don't heat up. Just leave it in the dye liquor with the wool, until it's the right shade (but check it reguarly, as it can make the wool too brittle...) This was actually more accidental than my copper modifying, as I didn't realise the collander had got so rusty underneath...But you can also get a similar effect using a solution of steeped rusty nails, with water and vinegar. I don't often want a grey wool, as there's a wonderful array of lovely, naturally occuring (on the sheep) grey wools already, but it works well on Wensleydale locks as potential Crone's hair....
You can also get a very elfin silvery green modifying with the iron solution in or over yellows if you only leave the locks in for a minute or two, carefully watching them, so they don't go all the way into grey.