Natural dyeing weekend

I had some friends over for a "natural dyeing weekend". Windi and Becky camped in my back yard, and the others went home at night to sleep. Friday night we mordanted the wool. Saturday morning we began. First cochineal....

great raspberry colors.

Pam did a nice graduated color scheme.

I believe this was onion skins.

All of natures colors go together.

While the dye pots brewed hand work was done. Pam working on a appliqued quilt block.

Becky with the beginning of her "Fairy tale" quilt.

She's hand embroidering and appliqueing the story on different wool blocks. The first is the castle.

She had a lot of light blue wool that she played around with over dying. They took pretty well. They will be the back ground blocks in her quilt.

While Windi's fabric simmered she played around with natural henna on t-shirts.

Great turtle designs.

On Sunday we played with indigo. What a fascinating dye. This is the color in the pot, yellow/green.

As I carefully pulled it out of the pot so no air bubbles got in, the fabric began changing to blue.

Jody dyed 6 pairs of cotton socks (bundled up) for gifts. We kept dipping and then hanging a few minutes then back in the pot until the desired blue was reached.

Becky's hand spun wool yarn.

And Pam's wonderful collection of blues.

Becky tie-dyed some light red wool with indigo. This will be the middle of Windi's quilt, with henna designed blocks pieced around it. Beautiful.

Pam over dyed some cochineal to a beautiful plum/purple.

And yellows over dyed with indigo make green.

There was a lot more, here's a picture of Pam's dyed collection packed to go home. Isn't this beautiful?

By Sunday evening everyone was exhausted.
Windi and Becky loaded up their tent, tied the poles on top of the car and headed home, or should I say back to the real world.

And the party's over!

Herb Society Picnic

Last Tuesday night we had our Herb Society summer picnic at one of our member's house, (Kathy S). We gathered in her beautiful back yard. Herb people are such great cooks, I guess that's why they love their herb gardens.

I wandered around taking pictures of some of her garden accents. There were so many to choose from. The following are a few.

She has 4 of these antique chairs painted with herb words and pictures.

This is a great outdoor stone mosaic clock. I think she may have made the mosaic pieces throughout the garden.

A glass beaded sculpture.

Paths leading to other gardens.

A little rusted doll chair tucked in the flowers.

Sea shells strung on a rope to remind her of time spent at the ocean and a rusted gate.

Another rusty gate with a vine growing up it.

A mermaid.

A gargoyle watching it all.

Bottle bush with vintage bottles.

She had several bird baths throughout the gardens with this wonderful little spinner in them, it keeps the water moving so no mosquito larvae settle in.

A great piece with North, South, East and West each on a different side.

A beautiful bird cage hanging in the flowers.

This weekend I'm having a natural dying class in my dye studio, stay tuned next week I should have some wonderful pictures to share with you.

Dyeing with cosmos

My cosmos are blooming like crazy and I've been using them as fast as I can, and drying those that I don't have time for to use later.

Last week I placed them on this wool, rolled it up tight and steamed it for a hour. Then I put it in a zip lock bag and left it in the sun for 4 days. Look at it after it's been washed! I love it. The flower prints turned out wonderful, they have so much detail.

Up close it looks like I outlined the flowers with pen. They almost look like red poppies.
Double click on the picture to see the detail.

I think this would make a beautiful winter scarf. Tonight, I think I will do just that with a larger piece of wool (scarf size).

I wrapped one of my vintage linen napkins in eucalyptus and steamed it. I was expecting a wonderful rusty red but instead got dull yellow prints (4Th napkin on right). The orange spots on the side was from the cosmos touching it while they steamed.
Well this is my napkin collection so far, cosmos, rose leaf prints, daffodil and the eucalyptus, with more to come.

Our July Herb Society meeting was touring a few local gardens, I thought I'd share with you a few of their ideas. This was a great recycled brick path winding through different garden areas.

I wish I had a chandelier in my garden, the candles are great in it.

I also love these Lace Cap hydrangeas.

I really don't believe in having quilts out in the elements but this quilt was completely worn out, so OK, it works for this back porch. There is a roof over it.

This was a beautiful piece tucked in amongst the plants.

And back to my house, I loved picking this bouquet of Queen Ann's Lace along the road side. The stems and leaves are used for dyeing, getting a light yellow.

Gardens and Dyeing

The wild flowers are blooming, I wanted to try this flower, I believe it's called tick seed, I was suppose to get a orange

but I got a nice yellow gold.

My daughter sent me some sweet gum leaves from down South, some I simmered in a pot with wool, linen and cotton and some I wrapped up in wool fabric and steamed. The little balls are the seed pods.

They took wonderfully on wool (cotton and linen not so good).

I love the detail on this piece. This will go in the quilt I'm making, well actually all these pieces will.

I also wrapped wool fabric with mullein leaves, steamed them and left them wrapped for a week. One piece I placed them running in a straight line and the other like a flower or sun.

They are a beautiful bright yellow.

Some of my dye garden plants are starting to bloom, on the left are orange cosmos, the right is madder root I planted this year. It is not a beautiful plant, with little yellow flowers and sticky, picky stems and leaves. The roots must be 3 years old to be of use for the dye pot.

Close up of the Cosmo.

I didn't have a lot of flowers but they are full of dye. I love the color. From left to right wool fabric, next wool fabric thrown in at the end with a little dye left, next an vintage linen napkin, and a piece of cotton fabric. The color of the linen and cotton are much peacher in real life. I love this dye and I have a lot more flowers coming.

A few skeins of yarn I dyed awhile ago and finally washed out, chamomile, dill, carrot top in iron pot, and black walnut. I think they are so pretty hanging there, I hated to put them away.

A few more pictures from Dow Children's' garden. This was a wonderful rain barrel with a spout at the bottom to hook a hose to.

The raised beds are part of a community garden, you pay $25.00 a year, you take care of it and enjoy all of the veges. Each family makes their own scare crows for their garden.

Another part of the children's garden with a great straw scare crow. I felt like I was in Peter Rabbit's garden.

Along the sidewalk was this tunnel with grape vines growing up it.

And from the inside you can see all the grapes.

This was the cutest "green" turtle in one of their ponds.

Update

Ok, as you can see I'm trying to change my blogs heading so it's not so boring, Deb's been helping me. Were still working on it. This picture though doesn't show the rich colors of the quilt.
Tomorrow I'll update my blog with some wonderful peachy, orange fabric from cosmo flowers. My dye garden is starting to bloom and the wild flowers in the fields are ready to play with!
Also a few more pictures from the Dow's children's garden.