Plant Pounding

Supposed Vacation Day

I'm supposed to be having a vacation day, but things have gone awry. Disaster at work had me calling and e-mailing all day to try to straighten in out. This is when I hate my job the most. When I get that dreaded feeling that I have made a bad mistake and I'm going to get reamed for it. We'll see. Also, Kate asked me to get her at work because she felt sick.

In the mean time, I had a very productive weekend. I finished the new Doll Dress and just put it up on Etsy. I almost finished the other quilt I was working on, but ran out of the shell beads I am using. I don't know if I will use something else or search out more of the same.

On Saturday I dumped a load of fabric and feed sacks and other fabric things on the floor of the Living Room and started to play. I ended up with 3 new quilt tops: 2 ready to quilt and one nearly there. I find that what I really need time for is to figure out a design. Once I have the thing worked
out, then I can steal time here and there to work on it.

Sunday was such a fine day that Joe and I went for a motorcycle ride, most likely my last one of the year. It was so nice riding around the beautiful countryside and taking in all of the autumn color. When we were just about home I spied a big patch of pokeberry plants. I walked back with a bucket and picked a whole mess of them. I took some of them and smashed them directly onto some white fabric. Yo, that's purple!  I noted some different berries in the yard next door (The place is unoccupied right now) and helped myself, These were berries from a Lily of the Valley. I was amazed at how orange the fabric became.  I still need alum to properly dye things. I remember seeing it in the supermarket at some time in my life, but not anymore. I went to the drugstore and they ordered some for me.

Window Sill Dying

During the summer I was reading about small scale natural dying on Cathy Cullis' blog. I remember at the time I thought I needed to try that. I had previously taken out a library book on the subject, and it just seemed like too big of a deal, requiring bushels of plant material and complicated instruction. I thought, I'll never do this. Cathy makes it seem quite do-able, by just using plants in the garden and putting small quantities of plant materials, water and fabric in a jar by the windowsill.

I was cleaning out the garden Sunday afternoon, and came across a big poke-berry plant. At least this is what I call a plant like this. It has purple berries that stain anything. I thought of these berries when reading Cathy's posts, and here before me was a bumper crop! All I did was put them in a canning jar and smash 'em up a little. Poured on boiling water and added some cotton.. We'll see what happens.

Too bad I re read Cathy's blog entries after the cloth was in the jar. I forgot the alum, which she uses as a mordant. Well, we'll see what happens. Look at the jar, doesn't it look so pink?

Our dinner party happened on Saturday, and all went well. Except that I drank too much wine. I have recently lost 25 pounds. I don't make a fuss about this, because I gain and lose weight on a regular basis. What would really be remarkable is if I ever kept the weight off. Well, whatever. The point is, I keep thinking I can drink and I can't seem to any longer! By the time the last guest left I was ready to faint. I woke up the next day at 9:30 am. That is really late for me. I was none too energetic the rest of the day. Except for a big load of dishes, the place was really clean, so I treated myself to a sewing marathon. I finally stopped sewing in the afternoon, get this... because I was tired of it!  That never happens!  I have 2 projects almost finished, the scrimshaw guy and the doll dress, which is very cool. pictures soon.

Natural Dyeing: Not Gonna Happen

I picked up the book about Natural Plant Dyeing from the Library. Guess I won't be doing any of that. I once saw a video demonstration of someone dyeing cloth with onion skins. Looked easy and fun. Get yourself a big bowl of onion skins and boil some cloth with it. Bing! you are done. Interesting color. This book is maybe a bit more serious. One recipe calls for a peck of butternut hulls. Where am I getting a peck of butternut hulls? What is a peck anyway? A lot, right? All this to come out with tan fabric?

I just looked up "peck." A peck = 8 quarts and 4 pecks = a bushel. I thought several bushels = a peck, but that is wrong. So it isn't as many butternut hulls as I had first imagined. Still, it's plenty. And where does one get butternuts? There were some recipes with less exotic ingredients. Such as tulip tree leaves. I know where there are tulip trees right in town. But the dye doesn't work on cotton. Coffee doesn't work either. Of course you and I know that coffee definitely changes the color of cotton. My husband immediately pointed out that he has had more than one cotton shirt permanently dyed with coffee stains. But they say it doesn't work. Maybe they are looking for some kind of permanent non-blotchy standard?Most of the dyes in this book only worked on wool and silk.

I have an idea for a natural dye. Spaghetti sauce. Or wine. I should try it