Kleas

autumn color inspirations

All these brilliant autumn colors.  Makes me feel almost dizzy at times.  Mostly it makes me want to capture the colors and hold on to them just a wee bit longer.  I dug out an old wool blanket and dyed it the color of autumn...thinking perhaps a wool leaf mobile.  The wool turned out beautifully...spotted and mottled like the leaves have been.   But then we got our first taste of winter this afternoon and the flakes came down hard for a brief spell.  Suddenly it doesn't feel quite like autumn anymore.

easter wishes

We decorated eggs mish mash style.  A little bees wax drawing on some, rubber bands on others, olive oil in some of the dye bath and some got all three treatments.  It was glorious!  The boys had so much fun experimenting and I had fun taking part in their joy.

I always like to try something new (like I did two years ago here with the silk ties...a side note on dyeing eggs with silk ties...I noticed someone pinned my eggs with a caption saying they are not food safe-anyone know why?  We ate ours with no side effects, but it's the first I have heard of this).

Anyway...back to something new.  I wanted to try a natural dye with flowers for the eggs like these from Ulicam. With slim pickings in the garden, I went with feathers, but only had a handful to play with so only dyed four eggs this way.

Can you see the feather prints?  So pretty.  These were dyed using purple onion skin.

I've got a little felting and stuffing to do on these two guys that I fully intend to have ready for the boys baskets in the morning...so I'd better get busy.

Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate!!  xx

dyeing experiments

I boiled beets for dinner shortly after reading Lisa's post on dyeing with black beans, and before tossing the thick red water out, I thought...why not?  I had some white silk left over from my preschool dyeing project, so torn a piece off, pushed it into a jar, poured the beet juice on top of it, added salt for good measure, sealed the jar and set it on my windowsill.  

The next day, with great anticipation, I rinsed the water out of the silk and was quite surprised at the result...pale pink?  I don't know why I expected something deeper...perhaps because when I peel beets, the juice always stains my hands a deep crimson.  Then I spotted the (almost empty) bottle of red wine. Again...why not?  Another piece of silk gets pushed into the jar, wine (Malbec) and salt added, and back to the windowsill.  This time when I rinsed it out the next day, I got the deeper red I was expecting with the beets.  Both shades are quite beautiful.

Wanting to play with the silk I cut quarter inch slices into the ends and tore off several strips of each color to get this nice batch of silk ribbon.

And now...I'm playing.  

Not sure where I will go with this but it sure has been a fun experiment.

spring festival

We celebrated May Day with my preschool yesterday.  There were actually flurries of snow and it only reached thirty-three degrees, but we had a wonderful time.  We met at a nearby nature center, bundled in our winter coats and hats.  I set up a small table outside to do a craft, we hiked the trails, went in the nature center to warm up, the children did circle for their parents, then we ended with a delicious pot-luck (fresh figs dipped in dark chocolate and rolled in crushed almonds...yummmm).  I did not get one photo yesterday...my hands were too busy reining in my own children and keeping us all warm.  The beautiful image of the children walking up the path with their silk and wood wands raised high in hand will remain with me.

My initial idea for this craft was to get parents involved in volunteering last week to help dye the silk and sand the wood wands, but our unusually cold temperatures did not allow for this.  Maybe another year.  So I dyed and sanded solo at home on Sunday.

My silk order from Dharma.

 
Into the pot...call me crazy, but I dyed these in my kitchen in a twelve inch sauce pan.
With the wicked wind and cold temperatures the silks dried quickly on a leafless shrub in front of my house.
Dowels were cut and sanded.
Holes drilled into the ends.
As each child came to make their wand, they were able to choose three of the six colors to feed through the hole.  Three ribbons were folded in half and the loop pushed through the hole, then the ribbon knotted through the loops.
At school today, some of the children played with them so I could get a photo...as you can see the sun is shining beautifully today!
It's kind of like having a maypole!

Here’s a branch of snowy may

A branch the fairies gave to me

Who would like to dance today

With the branch the fairies gave me?

Dance away, dance away

Holding high the branch of may

Dance away, dance away