Mud Dyeing?

Mud painting isn't like it was when I was little and painted my shirt, hair and face in the backyard ditch after a rainstorm. Instead I played with mud at a great place in Colorado called Table Rock Llama and Fiber Arts Studio. With Donna Brown's guidance, I dyed fabric, yarn and myself with mud! She taught our group to use oxide dyes and natural pigments - all earth friendly. Once they were mixed with soymilk and gum tragacanth - well, we had mud. Take a look at the results.

Washday for a Fiber Artist: When it looks like rain - bring out the wool!

First Autumn Breeze

I woke up this morning to the first rejuvenating breeze of autumn. My farm cats, which live in my rabbit barn, scampered out of their confinement with abounding joy. They seemed to be laughing at me when I tried to catch them with no success. Even my long haired Angora rabbits appeared to laugh at my attempts. 

 I am anticipating shawl weather because it facilitates the return of fiber arts and the end of garden weeding. I love my garden, but not the endless weeds that sprout up on the hot, dry, windswept plains of Eastern Colorado.

When not caring for my little fiber farm and garden, I’ve been hiding in my cool basement all summer with double pointed knitting needles as my companions. Baby Booties, in their tiny nature, do not generate much heat.  My Loom Room, however is upstairs where I can gaze out the windows, but unfortunately, the heat gazes back.

The weather man promises two days of cooler weather, maybe even a chance of rain.  Labor Day weekend will now be filled with my labor of love – weaving.

Remembering Days of Our Youth

Warm radiant mornings...

Blissful play in the garden...

Delight of Spring...

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Feline and Friend

The Desolate Cabin

Lonely and abandoned, forsaken,

A woeful ruin of the past;

Isolated from the rest, in disrepair and deserted,

Solitary in its quiet desolation.

As summer flowers bloom

And the warm winds blow,

Through the trees and the meadows,

Memories of friends arrive once more;

Longing for the beautiful sound of laughter.

Choices

Never judge a book when your tired!

At the beginning of the year I decided to make a sampler quilt. For this quilt I wanted to make a block every month. In April, while tired, I started on the fourth block late at night. This was a very bad idea. I became frustrated and I decided to set it aside for another day. Over the days and weeks to follow, I began to think the block was too hard to try again. I let one block stop my progress.


Today I decided to tackle the block again. As I worked with the block, I realized it was not as hard as I thought it would be. My frustration  all those months ago was from fatigue, and not a BAD block.


 So - never judge a book when your tired - or in this case a quilt block.