pomegranate trail: dyeing

Showing posts with label dyeing. Show all posts

Monday, July 17, 2023

From "Can-See" to "Can't-See"

Early this morning, the sky was magnificent as I headed out...

And I came home to another beautiful gift, a postcard showing where my son's family had recently hiked, with words of a 3 year old sharing the experience on the back.

I had the idea to hanging it on the Bulletin Board Tea Towel with the dyed cloths that I'd only just hung this morning. The earthy goodness of the great big beautiful outdoors...right on my kitchen wall!

May you discover spontaneous gifts along your trail.

Sunday, July 16, 2023

Strange Humor, Art Making and More

Just dropping in...

LINK

...I dropped this video in the draft for a previous post and remembered it was there only when I saw the published post, and it showed up way at the bottom! While I was writing the post, as I added other items above it, there it sank - lower and lower on the screen...until I completely forgot it was there! Imagine my surprise as I scrolled down to respond to a comment and...Surprise! No explanation, no story, nothing. A bread video, all by its lonesome. Sigh.

Anyway, I saw this video and was reminded of the time I sewed together saltines 🙂 At first I thought it was going to be some football themed bread. Doesn't it look that way from the still shot? It brought me a little smile, so I hope it does that for you too. Humor helps.

~~~~~Laugh at the absurdity...or you'll cry at the tragedy of it all.

A recent visit to the VA, always an experience...

The TV was on for waiting patients, but was only a very dark blue screen of static, which could not be heard. I thought it odd that they just left it playing, as if to say: Yeah, here ya go, here's a TV to watch, good enough. I was insulted for the VET patients, who I thought deserved better. Much later, I heard one staff member talking to another about it..."You need to get your TV fixed"..."Yeah, we need to call "man's name" to come down." I was perplexed to consider that they knew about it...and yet let it continue to play, as is!

There was more...

A man wearing this: HOODIE & PANTS...I guess the answer is obvious if a doctor asks him what medicines/drugs he is using.

A man dangled a gold chain out in front of us as we walked down a hallway. When J. reached out for it (thinking it was being offered), the man snatched it back and let us know he was "selling it". Oh. Because I always buy my gold chains from random guys in the hall of the VA.

There were a wide variety of snappy or interestingly dressed gentlemen.

This sign made sense to me...

But, when I saw this one, I was scratching my head and instantly thinking of the book by Eric Carle, "From Head to Toe". Why are these in the same department?! These kinds of things make me laugh.

LINK

May we visit doctors as needed, but may we remain on The Wellness Trail always...

I finally unbundled the "mummies" (as J. called them). I had planned...no, considered unwrapping them with Orlo, but that didn't happen. This means they sat baking in the Summer Sun for a long time. I think that timing paid off!

I lucked out with cool photos today. These binding strings will be used in an upcoming weaving (she likes "brown").

Not all of the photos were great, but in the two above, I liked seeing the way the rust pattern traveled. I was reminded of Liz's Moon Myth book. So, I put them here.

I seem to put lots of photos here.

Cooler pics and the rust, markings, and organized wrinkles are so enchanting! Look at that lit up, white edging on the cloth!! I can see why just this part of the process has become the love affair for Marti.

Here is everything rinsed (not yet washed) and drying in the bathroom light. Look at those marks!! Magic. I had thrown in a bit of ground cayenne pepper, which was found in a box recently...a gift from Dear Peggy, so many years back. What a nice surprise! We are wondering if that helped give the cloth more color? An experiment is planned. I do think the length of time and the heat was a most powerful influence this time around.

The materials have been gathered (plus the binding string photographed above). Her colors are: Brown, Blue, Green and Purple. I'm not sure about the one very small ball of yarn (bottom, left), as it is a bit too pinkish. We'll see. I like the way these colors look together. Thanks go out to Hazel, Tina and Dee for their contributions to the yarn basket.

I heard this quote recently and spent some time with it. What if accepting that each love is completely unique in it's own right, eased one's expectations for particular levels of satisfaction? Mmmm... That whole idea of reframing seems to pop up a lot recently.

Lat night's WORDLE word was "crone". The timing of that made me smile.

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May you grab that Humor and hold on tight

May you be patient

May you consider things in your world

Sunday, June 18, 2023

Back Again

Back again to The Railroad Bridge...a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Rolling hills, trees past their prime...lizards and views from further off than ever before.

The mustard is so tall! The trees, so thick!

Today there were lots of bikes out, e-bikes.

And birds up in the nest again...thick growth and the scent of my childhood summer camp.

I love this bridge...the dark metal against the blue sky and green of the trees.

All 5 of the bracelets were gone, some ripped right off of their hanging strings! I threw the old strings in the the trash and secretly smiled to myself...a gleeful smile at the joy of surprising unknown folks.

But, I did come home with a found bit of a rusty, heavy old bolt. It's already added to the dye pot.

May you appreciate repetition that comes your way

May you enjoy every little treasure

May you breathe deep special memories

Thursday, May 25, 2023

A Walking I will Go

LINK

I discovered the You Tube channel of the video above after reading some of Grace's recent posts. I have delved into many of their videos over the past days. they are calming and beautiful and tell interesting stories. You can find more at their You Tube page, Green Renaissance. It has been a good place for me to land recently as the videos are not too long, but the words are thought provoking and the images so very lovely.

This will be my last dye pot for a while. I have more than enough dyed fabric...or fabric in general really. A lot of the water is gone, but I'm leaving it be for a while longer. The cloth you see on the top was thrown in at the end, purely because it was still left out and I didn't want to bother getting to the tub to put it away. In a way it is the biggest experiment, as I did not put any rusty bits within its folds and I did not bind it all. So, I'm interested to see what becomes.

So far, I've walked my neighborhood every day this week, taking my camera every other day. It is a different experience each way. When I have my camera I am framing shots, noticing through a photographer's eye. When I am empty handed, I am still closely noticing, but words are falling to the pictures in my mind. Today (Thursday) was a 'no camera' day and I saw a few beautiful flowers I had not yet noticed. I pondered why that was? Was it because, with the camera I am Only looking at the flowers I choose to photograph? My vision is so focused, that I don't 'see' outside of the frame? Or is it just that our eyes fall in different places, even in the same environment? At any rate, these photos are all from yesterday.

I take dozens of photos and then never know which to share, as I like most of them. This was me marveling at the size of this rose. Today as I scanned up the block, (which is a slight grade of a hill), I really noticed how many homes have roses around here. Most of them really.

I noticed these Tuesday, which is why I was camera in hand yesterday. Every one of these roses had a different color pattern. They looked like a party, so festive!

This one was also variegated and surrounded with darker, small blooms ready to open, all off of one stem. I wonder how they will look tomorrow or the next day?

Also filed under what we notice & what we miss: On Tuesday, I also noticed that the wall of leaves down the road, at the end of the sidewalk is really a fig (?) bush. There are actually several tucked in there. I discovered this as two fell off the wall of leaves, almost hitting me on their way down! Ha.

Sweet little flowers, spreading joy when we stop to look.

The detail, those centers...the way the edges of the petals look like the top part of a heart! 🩷

How wonderful is that?

Tuesday, I was enthralled with this tree and all of the tiny fruits of some kind growing on it. The shape of the leaves, the little nubs becoming caught my eye. Today, I noticed the many, many, many peach-colored fruits on the ground. After a quick search, I believe this to be a Loquat 'Japanese Plum' Tree. So, again with the what we see and what we don't!!

It really makes me wonder about how we go through life..what do we miss? This noticing due to my photography of the week ties in completely to a conversation I had recently with a dear friend, where she told me things that had me saying, "I didn't know that". How much do we miss knowing about our loved ones because that is Human Nature or because we are so busy or because they don't say & we don't ask or because we are so focused on what we, ourselves are doing?

It's funny how these two experiences came together, connected by days in a life.

I'll close for today with this beauty. The softness and the brilliant, yet also muted colors really held my heart. I paused for a long while. Just breathing.

May you notice or not, and may both ways be okay

May you catch your breath in beauty, still your breath in the moment

May you experiment, learn, and grow

Saturday, May 13, 2023

Dyed Cloth

Surprise discovery! I feel like the mouse in the children's book: "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie"...

In deciding to clean up the dyed muslin in the living room, to perhaps use in a quilt mending...I noticed many pieces not yet dyed...so, I decided to bundle them up and dye them too...

In digging through the little pot for the rusty bits, I discovered a bundle already in there - sitting in the dried up muck for months!

...I then bundled up all of the muslin with the rusty bits and placed it in the little pot with the very old, rather yucky looking, spent acorns and flower debris. This will have to do, as there are no acorns out back right now. I threw a slightly used tea bag in there and called it good enough, at least for now.

We'll see.

The photos today are sunshine views and rinsed out views of that bit of cloth.

Both sides in the sunshine. 90 degrees out there today!

I like the Rusty Moon 🙂

Okay, more rinsing is in order.

🌖

May you embrace delightful surprises

May you enjoy the rabbit holes you fall into

May you find yourself in your making

Saturday, January 21, 2023

Undone

~~~~~

I finally opened the bundle. I was only mildly please with it. Not really enough interesting marks or color. I could rewrap it again, but I didn't...I just made a couple of new ones.

The real win for me was standing out in the warm sunshine, talking back to a crow. while fiddling with cloth and rusty bits.

I have a plan for the dyed string.