Oct. Full Moon

Here, with my husband in this tropical Paradise is where I was last week. We were on vacation in Florida, traveled around to the beaches on the Gulf and to the beaches on the Atlantic. Spent some time closing up my parents mobile home and putting it up for sale, went to Northern Florida and spent a few wonderful days with my brother.   

Every evening we went down to watch the critters and sunsets.

I brought wool fabric with me to soak in the salt water to use as a mordant. I'd seen this on India Flint's blog prophet-of-bloom.blogspot.com awhile ago and this was the perfect time to try it. As you all know I LOVE her Eco techniques of dye printing plants and flowers on fabric and wanted a few more for my quilt as souvenirs from Florida..  

I brought my dye pot with me, set it on the outdoor counter (where my dad had cleaned fish, boiled shells collected from the beach and other outdoor projects for the last 30 years). We've been bringing  our children here on vacation at least once a year for the past 30 years also. What a lot of wonderful memories.

After soaking the wool in the water overnight I laid out bright red and yellow leaves (not sure of their name), rolled them up
tight, steamed them, stored them in a plastic bag until I returned home.

After washing, I was left with theses blue/green leaf prints.They look like cute little fish swimming. I love that red leaves give me blue/green prints, and up here back in Michigan the trees are at their finest red. This weekend I hope to capture some of it for the boarders on my quilt.

Another plants leaves I used are these which gave me a wonderful

yellow Sunshine print.

The hibiscus flowers were beautiful,

wrapped in a silk scarf with a little sea weed gave me a beautiful

gray blue print.

This is called Passion Flower, it is such an exotic looking flower.

I didn't pick any but it is beautiful.

Back home in Michigan there was a full moon shinning over our autumn trees. This moon was know to the North Eastern Native Americans as the Hunters Moon- White Frost on Grass Moon- Falling Leaves Moon.
Hunters Moon because it was considered the best time of year to hunt.  Like the Harvest Moon, the Hunter's Moon was also especially bright and long in the sky, providing hunters the opportunity to stalk prey at night..
White Frost on Grass Moon- The first frost usually occurs in many parts of the Northeastern regions of the United Sates in October.  First and last frost dates have always been of great interest to farmers and gardeners. Many old timers believed there was a connection between full moons and frosts, hence the old adage "Clear moon, frost soon." Old weather lore suggests that an early killing frost is a sign of a bad winter.
According to woolly bear weather lore, a harsh winter is expected if many woolly bears are seen before the first frost and their black bands are wider than the rust-orange band separating the black bands. The Banded Woolly Worm is the official name of the woolly bear, the caterpillar stage of an Isabella Tiger Moth.

"Magical Moons and Seasonal Circles" by Susan Betz

Arriving home Saturday night left me with little time to plan my October moon, but last night after taking our grandsons on their "Full Moon" car ride to photograph the moon I appliqued this frosted leaf fabric onto my next moon block. I quilted through the sky with Sliver metallic thread by Sulky.

Herb Meeting

Last night was my Herb Society meeting, we met at one of our members home located on Lake Michigan. Her home was beautiful and the scenery was spectacular!!
The topic last night was making cinnamon/applesauce ornaments. Many of us had made these years ago but a lot of new members had never heard of them. If you haven't the following is the recipe:

1 1/2 c. applesauce
1 1/2 c. cinnamon
Mix ingredients together. If too moist add more cinnamon. if too dry add more applesauce. Dough should be about the consistency of pie dough.

Roll out and cut out with your favorite cookie cutters. (the type with no top work the best) Let air dry.

While Beverly worked mixing up the dough I went outside to photograph the sunset.

And it was beautiful. The sun just going below the horizon line,

the left side of the sunset,

and to the right of the sun. Beautiful!

OK, back inside they rolled out the dough and started cutting out the ornaments.

I made a gingerbread man 20 years ago and sewed it on a "cookie" quilt wall hanging. I also sewed on vintage metal mixing spoons that were my mother-in-laws.The ornament is still hard and firm. I hang the wall hanging every Christmas during cookie baking time.
These are also nice to use on the top of presents.

Chrissy brought her doll bed quilt she just finished hand-piecing. The pattern is called "postage stamp". I find most of the women in our group are either  artists, quilters, needle workers, knitters, weavers, and interior designers. A few of them have designed their own homes.

Including this member who loves color.

I took home one little star to set in my kitchen, this morning with the dishwasher heating up the room you could smell the cinnamon.

With the weather getting cooler I cut back all my scented geraniums and brought them to my office for the winter. When you rub their leaves on a cold snowy day you smell summer. This is my Attar of Rose geranium, they use this type in perfumes and scented oils, it smells like a rose bush.

Another variety of rose called Old Fashion Rose. Their are many different varieties of scented geraniums, some people collect them. I didn't plan on it but I do have quite of few now. They all have different shape leaves and tiny flowers.

This variety is Mint Beauty with a little flower left over from summer.

It's hard to see but this lemon scented one has teeny tiny leaves that have a very strong lemon scent.

My favorite when I come to work on a cold winter morning is coconut. Just rub a leaf between your fingers and your in the middle of summer rubbing on sun tan lotion :)
The leave of scented geraniums are used in cake baking, line the cake pan with the leaves, pour vanilla batter over the top, after baking flip the cake pan over and take off the leaves.

Their also used in punch recipes, ice cubes, to flavor sugar to use in cookies.

I do have a few more plants in my office. This is aloe vera, one of the herb members gave me a tiny baby years ago. This is always handy for the guys out in the shop when they get a small burn or cut. I take care of them (not that their excited about it!)

I finished designing the next row of my wool quilt.

One side,

the other side,

and the middle with my cute little fiddle head fern prints marching along.

This row will be in the middle of the quilt, the top half is all piece ready to ad to this bottom half.

Fishing

 

"The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man's heart away from nature becomes hard: he knew the lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to a lack of respect for humans too. So he kept his youth close to its softening influence."
 Luther Standing Bear, OGLALA SIOUX

We spent this past weekend camping with family on my husbands side. What a wonderful gathering we have every year. The twins spent the weekend fishing! All day Saturday and late into the night barely taking time to eat.
They were up very early Sunday morning ready to fish, I sleepily followed them down to the water, hot chai in one hand and my camera in the other trying to capture the Sunrise.

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.