Blue Moon

This past Friday's full moon to the Native Americans was known as the Harvest moon. Native Americans planted corn, beans, squash and sunflowers which we're ready for harvest during this moon month.
 The Lenni Lenape (Native American tribe) called this moon Grasshoppers Moon because these insects were easy to see and hear in late summer and early fall singing, hopping and crawling in the grassy fields.
From the book Magical Moons and Seasonal Circles by Susan Betz

My harvest moon includes a pumpkin, two apples and a pear which our local farmers are now harvesting.

This moon being the second one in the month is also called the Blue Moon, I guess from the saying "Once in a Blue Moon".  Friday after work my girlfriend and I played around with my indigo dye creating Blue Moons on fabric. First I crushed the indigo with my mortar and pestle from Mexico.

My girlfriend had a great idea to transfer our designs on to silk scarves, we drew our design with white crayons onto sand paper then ironed them on the silk scarf transferring the wax on to the scarf. (batiking with crayons!)
I made a crescent moon shape.

                                                 Windi made the moon phases for hers.
Be careful with technique because the crayon does melt easily in the warm water.

A little fabric manipulation to create some stars.

                                                    
                                                               After the first dip.

A few years ago I saw on this idea on shiborigirl.wordpress.com . This lady is a master at creating a full moon on fabric, I'm not quite sure how she does it, but working with my wool fabric, two silver dollar coins and clamps I got two (out of five) to turn out pretty good. I didn't want just a bright white spot in the fabric I wanted some shading.

Windi made a moon with stars and a tie-dye back for a medicine bag she will make out of the fabric.

                                      My scarf as it was pulled out of the dye pot drying (less stars than originally tied).

With the indigo drying on the line it was time to go see the moon. First we had to have Blue Moon ice cream,

 load up in the car and go search for the moon. It was a very, very cloudy night and the moon was hard to find.

After driving around in the country we found it, back home in our own back yard peaking through the clouds.

My blue moons washed and dried. The one on the left with all the cloud cover was perfect! It will go in my Earth/Moon quilt.

My silk scarf I stitched an out line around the moon with white metallic thread and filled in the stars with crystal beads. The scarf is hung over white twinkle lights by my dye plants in my studio.

The goldenrod was ready and calling, so Saturday morning off we went to pick a pot full.

It doesn't take long with helpers.

The color was a deep rich yellow.

I put my fabric in dry so I get a mottled look. I only left this in a few minutes, I didn't want it too bright.

A few days before I rolled up some red Japanese maple leaves in wool fabric, steamed them and left it covered for a few days.

The red leaves left a wonderful green, yellow pattern.

I'm thinking boarders for my wool quilt, narrow yellow first and then the tumbling leaves.

The cosmos keep coming,

another option for boarders, first narrow pale peachy, orange boarder then the leaf boarder.  We'll see, first I need a lot more of the leaf fabric.

My new wool fabrics I bought at the quilt show, at least somebody using them.