Beautiful Sunshine

This weekend will be the official start of the dye seasons activities. The indigo (Japanese) are about an inch tall right now. I'm planning on putting together the green house, moving them outside, and getting some of the other dye plants started. Ditto for the garden plot. I just need a few days of dry weather (Its rained so much these past few weeks that they have to announce the road closures on a daily basis.

Our house is on the market and I have a little time now. I was shown a new way to keep track of colors generated by the various natural dyes by Pallas from Ravelry. She makes cards of plastic. Then punches one hole for each type of mordant she is going to use. Alum, Alum + COT, iron, tin, copper and rhubarb. These are all along the bottom of the card. (About the size of a 4x6 index card). Center left, she uses an unmordanted control and top right a hole for the ring that she uses to bind the cards together and keep them managable.

Info on the plants, which mordant is which, and pertinant dye info (such as process, parts of plants used, ...) are written in sharpie or some other indelible marker. Then she mordants a skein in each of the dye baths. After she unwinds a length (say a couple feet) and makes a mini skein through the proper hole. She makes a bunch of these in advance and with each new dye experiment she puts one of these cards into the pot. That way, she knows the colors possible with each of the mordants with out having to do an entire skein.

So, thats what I'll be doing this weekend. Mordanting the skeins and making the cards so as my plants start to flower and grow and I'm doing my dying I'll have them all ready to go, THANKS PALLAS!!!

Despite the rampant flooding in our area, I'm pleased to announce the appearance of forsythia , daffodils, and some other flowers in my gardens. This is a small garden year. Only a few food plants, and my dye plants. I want to chart where things are located in the existing gardens before I start doing a lot of planting.

Thanks for the listen.
Live well and dye happy.
Leah

Rain Rain Go Away, Leah wants to go out and play

I have seeds sitting in soil, hopefully germnating even as we sleep. I have bulbs that are secreaming to get to the soil. I have strawberry sets, and small grape vines trying to get throught the screens of the door to reach the sunshine. So what am I doing? I'm sitting in the studio on a computer. Fussing because its rained for 3 days and I can't get to the soil and plant them.

The house we bought lives at the bottom of a hill, so I can't get the beds ready yet. Still, the woods invite me. There will be mushrooms for eating and dyeing soon. Chantarelles can do both I've heard. Lichels are growing so thickly on some of the trees that They are beginning to create small waving curtains of seafoam green. I'm excited to see if any will yield the coveted fuscias and purples I've seen on ravelry.

Lots of flowers are making their way to the top of the soil, I'm starting to think that my predicessor was a gardener!

Enjoy the rain and hope for it to stop soon!

Live well and dye happy,

Leah