August sunrise and madder


 


Early morning on the back porch . The sunrises seem different lately. The angle of the light is interesting.I guess this is always true, but I'm sure noticing it a lot these days.


Interesting morning sky


 


As usual lately, I'm still dyeing silk threads. Before dyeing the silk is exquisite.


 


Dyed with madder roots. I love the wide and surprising range of warm shades from madder.


 


The morning's work wound up.


 

July

 So far, July has been packed with projects and flowers



 Indigo and cochineal shibori scarves


 


Hand-spun silk yarn dyed with  woad


More Naturally dyed embroidery silks


 


Inspiration!


 

Warmth and inspiration!

bBloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)


 Suddenly it's warm! The garden is joyful and beautiful. The back-yard colors inspire natural dyeing.


These silks were dyed with walnut hulls, coreopsis flowers, weld and indigo


Crocus


Violet shades from madder, lac and indigo


King Alfred Daffodils


Greens, yellow and blues from weld, coreopsis flowers and indigo


The very brave Scilla


Indigo


Warm morning sky

I'm very grateful for this rare, lovely and warm Spring day.


 

December Silks

December has been filled with beauty and busy-ness. Happily, I've been able to squeeze in some of my favorite projects, including the dyeing of more silk threads.


After soaking in alum


Indigo


Indigo and weld

Cochineal, madder and indigo


Baby pastels (indgo, madder, weld, walnut)


More madder and cochineal

  Coreopsis flowers, weld and madder


Walnut hulls


Cochineal and madder


Walnut, cochineal and madder

Cochineal and snow

 

Wool Pot holders


Undyed wool loops


Years ago, a dear friend shared a huge 5 pound bag of pure wool pot holder loops with me.. Little did I know at the time just how valuable and hard to find these would become. I dyed the loops with natural colors, and made potholders for gifts and for sale.

June Inspiration

II've been dyeing silk threads in colors inspired by the velvety shades of  petunias


Combinations of lac, logwood, madder and indigo


 The milkweed flowers have begun to bloom. The air is filled  with their heavy sweetmess. The tender, muted pinks seemed like the perfect color for some handspun wool yarn I've been saving.


Milkweed  (Asclepias syriaca)


Handspun wool yarn soaked overnight in alum.

Summer

Officially Summer today, though to me summer really begins on June 1st.


Ripe!


The squirrels and blackbirds keep knocking them down.


Raspberries beginning to ripen


Milkweed


Madder stars

 


Milkweed and madder in a friendly competion for sunshine

Madder roots and silk

Madder patch May 2017 (rubia tinctorum)


I've used and re-used all of last years' home-grown madder roots so many times that now there's barely a whisper of pink left.  Although they still look rosy- red, I don't know if I can coax any more color from these roots. They're so pretty, I don't want to compost them yet. I might just dry them once more for a future experiment.



Old madder roots from last years' garden

May color reminders



To celebrate the beautiful rich shades of the May garden, I've started a little purple, pink and indigo dyeing project.Yesterday I mordanted some silk scarves and wool with alum. After soaking overnight, they were ready to drink up the colors. I'm using madder, lac and indigo.



Pansies


 This is my favorite weather for gardening and dyeing - fresh and damp without harsh sunlight.


Pink, purple,and indigo in layers of wet color

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