finds and escapes

A view of cloth dyed with walnut and onion skins.... As mentioned yesterday, I am currently busy at work creating new abstract dye cloths.....


So I went outside this morning looking for fallen bark and acorns etc... as you do on a bright Friday morning.... I live in a suburban area with a good number of trees around, I suppose it's what you call a leafy suburb, but there is definitely a pattern to the planting, with willow, oak, ash and hawthorn being the most common - oh and crab apple too.... I was going to collect some rather mushy looking crab apples but stopped myself because there will be more for another day.... these things are all for dye pots. The larger cloths that I am working on require nothing less than the most interesting things I can find.... the bark will either get boiled up or burned for ash, not sure yet... at the moment I am going to enjoy looking at them and will allow time for any little creatures to find their way out.... Note: I only pick up fallen bark and never peel it from the trees....

I have also picked lady's mantle that grows in our tiny garden (one of my favourite dyes) and as I was laying out leaves upon a long strip of wet cotton, so a large pale moth came out, from beneath the stack of leaves, so beautifully desperate to escape and I could not get my camera in time to capture the moment, but she soon made an exit and is now somewhere around my desk..... or perhaps she has already eaten her way through, found another portal, another place to flutter.....


and I picked dahlias today.... these have been growing in pots outside our kitchen door..... they are for the dye pot also, once they start to fade just a tiny bit. Dahlias do not dye fabric pink and red. If you boil them you get browns, if you are careful with them you get madder-like shades (orangey). Some books will say dahlia dyes wool best but I like their colour on cotton also.

As I was placing the dahlia flowers in a vase, a whole three earwigs came bustling out.... ooh earwigs are not my favourite small creatures it has to be said, maybe it is the name rather than the attitude.... So it is, when picking things, finding things for the dye pot - best to wait a while and let the little ones find their way out. As a vegetarian I really don't want to be simmering anything alive, even an earwig or two.....

I have several fabrics dyeing right now and am looking forward to sharing their colours...

- have a very good weekend x