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 The Japanese indigo is flowering.

 I've been experimenting with the Japanese indigo in a few ways. I love the beautiful teals of an ice water blender bath, but a few days ago, decided to extract some pigment for later use, before the indigo content of the leaves decreases too much.

The temperature has been around 90. This is after 1 day.

After 2 days, here is the beautiful metallic sheen!

After beating and adding some lime.

Now to wait for the indigo the settle down to the bottom...

The finches love the sunflowers.  If you look closely, you'll see him.  Every spring I say there's not enough room for sunflowers, but a few plant themselves anyway.  They're great! I really have to plant some on purpose next year.

I've been working on dyeing more silk threads, though it's really too hot for much outdoor activity.

These madder roots were dug up last fall.

This is a very precious day.

 The whole garden is early this year. Usually, the catalpa trees are just starting to bloom and the feverfew is opening.

Every year is different.

One rainy morning we discovered this little guy in the kitchen. He was hiding in a corner, surrounded by the cats!  Luckily, they seemed pretty puzzled by him. We shooed the cats out of the room, and It was pretty easy to coax him into a cat carrier with nuts and peanut butter on bread.

I put the carrier outside under the cherry tree,  but he finished the rest of his trearts  before scampering up.

Spring arrived soon this year. Peonies, delphiniums and roses are blooming about 3 weeks early.

Milkweed pods and seeds ready to scatter  and plant themselves

Some of the old ornaments

 Madder roots

I dug up some of the madder roots that have been creeping toward the neighbor's yard. This part of the patch has been growing for over 10 years. 

These were very easy to chop with the garden clippers. I'll let them dry for a while, but it's hard to wait!

Beautiful cherry and redbud leaves.

Serviceberry leaves

Coreopsis and Bright Lights cosmos blossoms

Silk dyed with coreopsis and cosmos flowers

 The garden is so full of color!

Late delphiniums tiger lilys and coreopsis

 Dahlias

Madder root dye on wool yarn

 Wool yarn dyed with madder.

The variety of shades makes me wish I had much more yarn and madder!