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.