New Piece

Irrigation Fields 1. 8.5 x 11.0 inches. Compost Dyed cotton dots on black cotton fabric backing. Machine stitched, timtex core.

Irrigation Fields 1 

Silk Noil Cotswold Blend 

Firey Fall Foliage 

Oh Dear

I think it's official, I have the flu, and it's not going to be pretty either. Who knows where I picked this up at, I've been out a lot this past week, and around enough people to pick it up.

It looks like we might get snow tomorrow! I'm so excited, I love snow. It's pretty brisk outside right now, I wouldn't want to be stuck outside tonight. It's been so warm here I think a lot of people are going to have a hard time acclimating to the temperature change. Like they might have to put clothes on.

Bittersweet

I'm really enthralled with my bittersweet, that I bought at the farmer's market. So it's no wonder that I bought beads in that colorway. I showed them to John and he asked me if I was going to make a bittersweet bracelet. Yep, yah betcha! I have some more beads, rounds that'll go nicely with the colors.

Glass beads for my Bittersweet Bracelet. Hubby gave it that name, he's a real sweetie. 

New Store Front?

Well it looks as if The Prairie Fibers Company will finally have a place to call home - that's not living in my home! I'm hoping we will be open in about two to three weeks, I may have to live a week without a bathroom, good thing the gas station is catty cornered across the street from me huh. Aside from more lights, furnace and a bathroom, and a serious cleaning it's move in ready.

The back half where the classes will be held needs to be finished but that's minor, mainly hte ceiling which is way the heck up there, needs to be painted, the tin ceiling has been stripped and primed already.

The store has lighting, but it desperately needs more. So I will be going shopping for lights here real quick like. Good thing my hubby is handy with this sort of thing. The woman won't rent the entire building out to me, she will only rent half of it, if I want the whole building I will need to buy the building. So buy the building I will.

My friend Brenda Backman went with me, she was pretty helpful in looking the place over, sometimes it's really hard to do this when your also trying to talk to the owner. I have so much work to do to get ready for move in it's unbelievable. I'm still questioning my sanity.

More later.

The future store front! 

One view, looking towards the front of the store. 

My friend Brenda and I thought this sign - a country cemetary - was rather humorous. After all why would anyone want to dig in a cemetary??? 

More watch parts, this time stop watches. The guy made a mistake when he started talking about the watch club! There's a club??? I'll have to get all of my female friends to go with me now. Somehow I'm starting to think I missed my calling in life, I'm not sure what the fascination with watches and clocks are but I have one. I guess I should have known this sooner, if you look around my house what do I collect? Clocks! An interesting collection for a person who doesn't wear a watch or cares about time. 

Buttons Buttons and More Buttons! 

The last hold outs of summer. 

Thunder Thighs

I'm trying to figure out how I managed to gain twenty pounds in the past two weeks. Maybe it was those two boxes of Hostess Ding Dongs I don't know, but gain weight I did.

Red Maple  

Its Gourd Season! 

Wayward posts

I finally figured out why my picture would not upload, I had saved the pics in a CMYK format instead of RGBY or whatever it is. I can't remember right now and don't want to take the time to open photoshop again to fin out. But I did discover that the format of the picture would help, some what.

I"m off to nurse a sinus headache now, I think it's from being in front of the computer too much today. I did get another bobbin of yarn spun up though, I'll have to take pics. I have about a half pound of the orange cotsworth silk noil blend left to spin. One half pound yeilds about three bobbins worth, so I should end up with six bobbins. I'm planning on a two ply yarn when all is said and done. I'm hoping to knit it up into a shawl for myself.

Finally! I've been having a hard time getting this picture to upload. 

Sunrise. Actually this is a test post. 

Something to Crow About 

To Crow About

Mark Making with Nature: Surface Design with Natural Dyes

I'm not sure why the image isn't loading. I'll try again, maybe I need to look at the coding or something???

Yellow

When I ask students which colors they think will be the easiest to get, when dyeing with natural dyes, invariably they always say Yellow or Brown.

Oh how I wish this were true. Want red, blue or purple? I'm your dyer then, want yellow or a deep deep brown, better find someone else to do your dyeing for you! I don't know why but I always get a dingy yellow, it doesn't seem to matter what techniques I use, how clean the pot, the perfect temps for the perscribed period of time it always comes out blahhh. I'm thinking it HAS to be the water then. I'm going to try yellow with some distilled water to see what happends, who knows maybe i"ll get a strikining golden yellow.

I'll keep and probably use these quills for something, but dingy yellow wasn't want I was aiming for this weekend.

A failed attempt at yellow quills. 

Bittersweet 

Yellow, Finally!

I finally got a yellow on the quills. So being inspired this afternoon I'm going to dye some quills with indigo and overdye with the Osage, to see if I can get a green or teal color. The replacement batch of quills is working wonderfully.

Quills have an almost magical property to them. You can pull quills out of the same exact location on a hide and the quills for one side will dye beautifully, the quills from the other side dyes marginally - if they take color at all. I have about 5 ounce of quills that flat out refused to take any dye at all. So I need to come up with a project that uses a lot of white quills1
Now to figure out how to store these once sorted by size.

Finally yellow gold quills. Three - four day soak in alum. Then a soak in a highly concentrated Osage Orange bath. I soaked the quills overnight. 

I'm not sure which dog wants to die today, I can only guess - probably my sheltie - Angel the deamon dog - But there was my beloved Cotswald Silk Noil blend top all chewed and strung out on the floor. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr 

More evidence, she - Angel the deamon sheltie- must have stood on her hind legs, the chewed sock was still on the chair! 

Another view of yesterdays sunrise. Who knows maybe I'll get out of the house today to take some of the sunset. Right now it's pouring though, and it's deliciously cold! 

Some collage assemblege materials. I'm in a cigar box swap, it was due last week, better get busy! 

It's Party Time!!! Time to create some beautiful fabrics and papers.  

Some party equipment, a girl is gotta have fun and if color isn't involved then how can it be fun? 

Some fabrics I've surfaced and now will either stitch, or sacrifice to the dye pots again.