Thursday, July 27, 2017

dyed and dried




Late July. Early August. Something comes over me this time of year and I have a hard time putting that something into words but I want to try. It's the thickness of the air and how it looks and feels green to me now. It's about the pace and intensity of insect sounds and bird songs and kids playing outside at dusk. It's the way my bare feet seem to spring roots that sink into the ground with each step, how I am drawn to lie down on the grass to be pulled oh so close to the mother. And for some reason, I just seem to quit caring about all the things I thought needed doing. Instead, I wander.

The dye and mordant pots have been in use. With a mixture of fibers, the gray results are from red basil aerial parts and the golds/rusts are from dyer's coreopsis aerial parts, with a pup to match. My favorite pieces are the two doilies. This growing season one small bed in the Buddha garden was dedicated to just dye plants and it's done so well. Soon the Japanese indigo will be ready, maybe using some simple shibori.

I stitched a likeness of a tarot card from The Herbal Tarot and decided to pin-storm (pinning up a storm) it to the black linen journal cover as a sort of preview. I like it -- and can use the journal to record tarot/oracle cards and layouts and aha moments that I always think I'll remember forever but never do. The misty star patch is from Spirit Cloth's ThreadCrumbs Shop and the moon was cut from my handwritten Rumi cloth.

The first green pepper from plants grown from seed was eaten. A bowl of bindweed blossoms was picked to dry and burn and a big pot of bindweed vines is on the stove right now making dye.

That's about it. Thanks for visiting and happy weekending.

xo


5 comments:

  1. I come here for peacefulness and am rewarded each time. The 'green' of your garden, the drying rack with dog and all of those dyed cloths fill me. The top photo had me singing: "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the others gold".
    Enjoy your green time of year. xo

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  2. I've been wandering most of this month, a moody month to be sure with great variations in temperature. I'm feeling endings pulling forward, reading about new beginnings over at Windthread and walking around Gramercy park late at night when the city sometimes comes close to silence. The cicadas and Katydids have not yet made a showing but it won't be long. I'm longing for Massachusetts, writing and have just begun the process of working on a piece of Satin for MoCrows wedding dress transformation by slipping it into an old mixed berry dye container that has not been strained. There it will sit for a month...then...we shall see.

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  3. I love the soft grays you pulled ... like a warm morning fog

    But I especially appreciate the link to the Rumi word cloth, which led me on a wonderful journey through related links. I'll be back to explore further ...

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  4. What beautiful results...... From your dying..... Happy sigh...

    Oh how lovely, the way late July early August, effect you! Simply lovely. How lucky you are.

    But then, you cultivate such, all year long. So you should enjoy, the fruits of your vision.

    Gentle hugs,
    Luna Crone

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  5. Oh and!!!! A use for binder vine!!!

    It is a bane to our growing, having come over from next door. -sigh-sigh-sigh- I should cut some and boil it up. May not use the dye, but it would feel good, to "get back at" this constant horror. >,-))))

    I know. That isn't the 'correct' attitude. I know.

    But it has be-deviled us, for so long, that our attitude is quite set-in-stone. Grrrrr....

    You can delete this comment, if you want to.

    Luna Crone

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