My Korak

 still playing with korak-style piecing

for now each square has a secret: 

its own raison d'etre

 

to say this technique fascinates me is to state the obvious:

i should be busily making holiday gifts for family

but here i sit:
bin of fragments

scissor, needle and thread

losing myself in the rhythm

auditioning

selecting

stitching

 

 korak patches

paired with hand-printed leaves

fabric naturally dyed

with color from my herb garden

We woke this morning to the first serious frost.  Fallen leaves are icy white.  Frost on the mums. A crispy early morning.  But we joyously anticipate temps in the mid- to high 50s by mid-day.

In search of yellows

i have not achieved an acceptable yellow this season
using marigold
gazania
goldenrod.
 each plant gave me washed-out pale-not so attractive-yellows.

in the past i did get quite bright yellows from marigold

and went back to my earlier processes as recorded in notebooks

 

 no scientist, i am too right-brained so my notes are not 'scientific'
but here they show that i used a one-pot method of natural dyeing with alum on marigold

so i picked a pot of marigold before the weekend rain started

to give it another go

A fruitful Saturday

a trip to our local farmer's market
yielded
Egyptian Eggplant
Italian Heirloom Lettuce
Japanese Edame
luscious white onion
all from River Lily Farm in Ogunquit
(just up the road a piece)

from our garden
one Black Crim --
an heirloom tomato

from my favorite produce guy
the very earliest macintosh apples

beautiful bouquet of heirloom lettuce

stunning yellow and orange
Marigolds in a pot
with yellow and orange Gazania
from the little garden by my door

for today's dyeing, i am using India's suggestion

of a pre-soak in diluted milk

So slowly I go

I'll be in the studio.
And hand-stitching on the deck.
But I am otherwise bereft of my computer.

Well, I won't have withdrawal symptoms after all. I have Larry's to use.

I noticed the computer was acting up. It was pokey and slow. Didn't want to load web pages. It didn't want me to upload images. My editor tool bar on blogger disappeared. And I could go on .......

So we took it to our bits and bites guy for servicing.
Result: the computer has a trojan and needs a major mid-summer cleaning.

All my images are on that hard drive. Earlier I'd purchased a flash drive for images.....but I kept procrastinating and procrastinating. And never did get that little task done. I am using Larry's spiffy new Dell laptop. A lovely machine. But it doesn't have my images.

When I am not thinking about sick computers:

I've been reading Cathy Culis' blog and trying her low impact natural dyeing experiments. I'll have photos from the process and results in a day or two.

The experiments are low on prep and resources and high on the magic of wonder and what if. Yesterday, I took a small piece of vintage cotton eyelet and submerged it into a dye bath of oregano ...... one tiny piece of cotton in a small glass jar to which the dye bath added. Today, another piece of the same cotton eyelet but using basil. So far, the first has pale yellow hue and the second has a hint of green.

It is a pretty experiment. The little glass jars twinkle in the sun during the day. The process relies on solar energy and patience. A slow slow process. I like slow.

Doing what comes naturally......

On this July day:

mid-70s temp

clear, dry air

bright blue sky

with lots of sunshine

A grand day altogether for doing what comes naturally.

Below are some images from my natural dyeing notebook:

Tansy for yellows

and also yarrow and dahlia

Rose Mallow gives a pale soft pink-y beige

Marigolds, of course

Flowers grown in my perennial border for

cutting, for dyeing, and visual enjoyment
My vegetable dyeing produced a soft palatte on cotton:

here are fabrics dyed with basil, woad, tansy, yarrow,

rose mallow, marigold and dahlia and more

These cottons are dyed from purchased dyestuffs:

here are

cochineal, logwood and indigo