The next leg

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Interior motives

The best laid plans, as they say...except when it comes to mark making with plants

and other sundry items,

it might be best to put ones expectations aside.

Here is the outcome from  last week's science experiment...

Things were going along quite swimmingly with my idea to stuff two pieces of cloth

~ one, 100% silk, and the other 100% ramie ~

with identical ingredients:  red cabbage, fresh young bracken leaves, a spiral coil of copper wire.

The wrapped bundles looked promising when they first came out of their simmered cabbage "soup"...

that is, until I got the not-so-bright idea of dribbling a tiny amount of full-strength vinegar onto Bundle #1

(shown in its "before" state on the left, HERE)

aaaarrrrgggghhhh,  the whole thing immediately went  P I N K

and worse still,

bleached out every mark except for the copper spiral.

Since you never learn anything the second time you're kicked by a mule,

I decided to leave well enough alone...

Bundle #2 was put up to dry

and Bundle #1 was, well, put out to pasture?

In the meantime, a potful of gorgeous darkblueypurpley dye was still sitting there

and I couldn't bear to throw it away...what if...

so I tore the sleeve from a silky thrift store blouse, wrapped it around a chunk of driftwood 

with some rusty metal bits

and after a good stew overnight and five days rest,

the binding came off...

time, oh yes, time is your friend.

These are priceless words from a wise, wandering alchemist.

The driftwood soaked up quite a lot of color.  In fact, the cloth felt quite dry as I peeled it open

while the wood was still heavy from the moisture.

And it smelled like a big boiled cabbage, tah boot!

Dry down knocked that pink back to a pale lavender, but the blues stayed quite true.

The next thing that happened

reminded me of school days.  Ever try to use that line,

"Sorry teacher, but my dog ate my homework"?

True to her nature, Quinn ate my bundler.

But the "homework" was safe.

: : : :

Special thanks goes out to Dianne, who recently posted a series of photographs

from her time in San Francisco...all processed with the Snapseed app.

They are glorious and she inspired me bigtime ~ I used the app for this post.

Please go see her images HERE.

: : : :

To everyone stateside celebrating the 4th this week, Happy Independence Day all!

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Full of beans

No reason to not use your best china for everyday events.

This bowl may not look like your typical "fine china" but believe me,

that's what it is around my digs.  

I needed to soak the Borlotti seeds overnight, you see....

since they're hard-shelled and all that...and since one of the raised beds has a new trellis

destined to be filled with beans.

Constructed the  sucker  trellis all by myself.

Sometimes you just have to build something when you don't think you can.

This one is heftier than the first ~ these bamboo poles are a whopping 1.5 inches thick.  Thankfully,

 not the bear I was expecting when it came to assembling...amazingly light, albeit a tad unwieldy...
all eight feet of them.

Borlotti beans are commonly called cranberry beans in the states.  Considered heirlooms,
they came over with the colonists from England around 1825.  The seeds

are red-speckled just like their pods.

Can't wait to see those pods!

Kaite, although you're heading into winter where you are, my growing season is starting

with this bean inspiration from your blog.  Thanks again.

I purchased organic seeds from these great folks

and found a whole bunch of interesting information and yummy sounding recipes over here.

I'm not sure any potter could have created better glazes to show off this bean gathering...

Here's a show off.  She is ALWAYS *full of beans*...'specially if you bring out her friz.

S'cuse the brief digression.  She has that effect on me...pretty much all the time.

Now, I have a question for all you bean-growing peeps who come a'wandering here...

got a minute?

I still have room on the other side of this trellis to sow another variety.  Thought it might be fun to

grow a 2nd, somewhat different type of bean....oooh, but there are so many choices...which one to choose???

I'd be so pleased to have you tell me one of your favorites...send me in a direction, puh-leeez...

shall I go with a yellow wax, some kind of gourmet Frenchie variety, perhaps something with Cherokee ancestry?

There's even a pole bean called 'Lazy Housewife.'

That one seems appropriate.

I've got six and 1/2 feet of space looking for a purpose.

Thank you.

: : :

All photos from my iPhone, processed with ScratchCam

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Just add water...

Somewhere in the back of my mind I had been harboring the idea of

sketching again with watercolors.

Too many uncountable years ago, I attempted this painting technique in art college

 and quickly put the judgement on myself that I'd failed miserably

(why do we do that to ourselves?)

so when I learned that Jane Voorhees was coming to visit our island locale

and

was going to offer a workshop on small format watercolor painting,

I knew that's where I wanted to be...

All those technical terms I'd forgotten!

Washes, wet in wet, dry brush, lifting off, dropping in color...

back again like old friends.

Made this little sampler (above) for future reference, added some marks

and remembered what I so loved about this medium of painting...

transparency.

I mentioned to Jane that these days, while working mainly with stitching and beads, 

I'd taken to the layering of silks - sheer silk - to achieve a similar transparency with cloth.

It was a definite "ah hah" kind of moment.

Jane has a killer smile...

and a very patient teaching style.

It was challenging to work directly from photographs...

how do you make the paint express what you're trying to say?

You have all the tools:  a selection of brushes, an extensive color palette for mixing,

the texture of good paper...

and the single most important ingredient,

water...

which seems to have a mind of its own.

What didn't I do in school that I want to do now?

LET

IT

FLOW

Thank you, Jane, for the very inspiring day...come back soon!

###

To learn more about Jane and see her paintings, click here

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Directional flow...

Sometimes, you just have to roll with it...

drop everything and try something you've never done before.

It's one of best things about the Web (for me),

this inspiration that comes from people so openly sharing their handiwork...

I've been following the beauteous progress of Karen's circle work over on Stitching Life. 

When she stitched this one,

I was upstairs within five minutes pulling out materials to give it a go.

It just happens that way sometimes.

My couched spiral didn't end up quite as solid...in fact, it went quite cattywampus.

It's not symmetrical, nor tidy, and all the couching is very uneven.

But this is who I am with cloth.

One of the most appealing aspects of the couching technique is the wide range

of materials one can use/re-use to "couch."   This spiral is recycled sari ribbon but think of the possibilities

for upcycling old clothes, worn linens...

Go over here to see Judy Martin's eleven months of couching obsession.

She even stitches in her car.

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This little ditty

Punchneedle embroidery has been referred to as thread painting because of

its ability to create intricate designs...

...the concept is simple ~ thread or yarn is punched through a fabric with a pencil-shaped hollow needle,

leaving tufted loops on the top of the fabric.

Viewed this close, don't the loops look large, akin to a hooked rug?

They're not.  They're itty-bitty.  And I wish you could feel the texture of

this.

So fine!

It is embroidery thread...masses and masses of embroidery thread
and much softer than I had imagined...

A thousand  THANK YOUs  to Penny for creating this little ditty bag
and for hosting such a delightful Spring Giveaway over on her blog, Art Journey
(where my name jumped out of the winner's hat.)

Truth be told, I couldn't wait to pull out the contents to see what Penny
had hidden inside...

...that's when I discovered how meticulously lined it was,

with delicate hand stitches all around the top edge

and circumnavigating the entire wee handle.

One awesome ditty bag, wouldn't you say?

Penny has been working on punchneedle pieces for some time now.

I have been fascinated by her blog posts describing her process

and progress through experimentation with loop heights, design choices and color mixing of threads.

If you'd like to see more of what she's up to, hop on over to Art Journey

and do a keyword search on "punchneedle."

Two of my very faves are this one (love the button)

and this (love this button even more!)

With much gratitude,

this little ditty has found a good home...

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Waiting for calm...

Had a lot of words about this once, but I am feeling more quiet at this moment.  I first spoke about this story cloth in a July post when I was working on a raggedy fabric collage for a workshop that Jude Hill of Spirit Cloth was teaching...now it is September and like the season, "Waiting for calm..."  has come to fruition.  Finished for now...words in place, beading done. 

I am grateful for teachers that encourage by their own doing/making/marking.  While I stepped out of anything comfortable for me on this one...pastels, PINKS!, newly learned stitches and soft combinations...it is exactly where I needed to be.  Calm was there.  So I followed it.

Started here...

journeyed this (other continent) direction...

ended here...

Hesitation can be an enemy.  It certainly is for me (let me count the ways).  I'm thinking we shouldn't underestimate the POWER of teachers to inspire!  At the risk of sounding trite, follow those pure notes (they give) that can make your heart sing.  Those notes have stories yet to be told...

Tell them.

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