Intervention is apparently needed...serious addiction

There is just no end to the possibilities except death.....that is the decision I have come to, so I am continuing to try everything that comes in my path, and apparently some things I seek out that aren't obviously in my path...lol...
Bundles of "botany and rust" have been opened and surprises have happened like ORANGE////////
the seeking of orange from eucs has evaded me, and now I can see a little goes a long way, but it has arrived at least...the larger leaves are from a type of dogwood tree and they are dynamite...a wonderful green ..so welcoming visually....now I must take some serious notes, as alchemy happens and I have a tendency to not follow it logically with notetaking and ability to duplicate...I tend to work very loosely, and don't generally try to do anything but surrender to the way of the materials....
so keeping track does not come naturally....so onward and upward, more bundling and question I have is, do the leaves have the colour making ability there all the time, or only when they are changing like in the fall, and what is that colouring...and why some have it and some don/t....some leaves leave great imprints by their non-colour ability which I love but would love to know ahead of time which ones these are...today gathered some phaeolus schwenitizi (dyer's polypore ) and will use it to colour the water I put the next set of bundles in....so many ideas so few hours in the day to have them all manifest....but a walk in the woods was soothing, inspiring, and refreshing....nearing of september and we have yet to have to light a fire...sweet...and we have been able to sit out on the deck til dark and watch the stars arrive just after the bats arrive....feel so blessed.

Feeling kelpish

Definitely feeling the kelp...took me quite awhile to get the kelp looking kelpish, but finally I liked the result, when I jumbled it on the workbench it almost looked like it washed ashore. These were for our fall fair event, theme of
the Salish Sea, which is where I live...and there truly is kelp, although not as much around the island as there was 38 years ago when I moved here.\
So a success with the kelp, but those orange euc prints are escaping me at every try...get great "botany and rust" prints but just can't pull that orange out of the eucs...so illusive to me...today I opened a few and there were definite outlines of the eucs and it was lovely but it wasn't orange..think I will try on felt instead of the silk which is mostly what I have been using, perhaps?

so to appease my disappointment I picked more indigo and will do more dyeing with it tomorrow....here is a pic of the indigo flower

Got the blues

I am delighted with all the blues I was able to get from my freshly harvested indigo....the plants did really well and have even begun to flower which is huge, as I will bring one pot into the house for seed next year.  It is polygonum tinctoria and it was generous with one dip..I was able to do about
l0 skeins of l00 gm each and still get vivid blues with one dip each....I will harvest more next week and do multi dips and see how dark I can get but loved the colour with the one dip so stopped there..
the vat was able to continue without any freshening through the whole process, and I followed Jenny Deans recipe in Wild Colour.  One of the improvements from the past was her suggestion to dip in clear water the same temp as the bath, right after pulling out of the bath and before oxygenating....this seems to help a lot with regularity in colour, as all the flocking indigo falls away and does not leave splotches of dark blue on the fibre....great tip there.
Fall is falling, starlings chattering, and indigo flowering and still no fire in the woodstove, which is saving a lot of wood....we are still able to have morning coffees outside, and we practically live on our deck in the warm weather so we are stalling going inside as long as possible, even moved the
hot barbeque over to our table after dinner and were able to sit out until 7:30 last night spinning and
staying warm....it was like a wee fire...a bit less aesthetic perhaps....lol

Bull Kelp

Some artist license, but spent the morning making kelp, and thinking "kelpish" thoughts...not too difficult, living on a small island in the Salish Sea...surrounded by kelp and other gifts...made some undulating kelp scarves and some cordage with bull kelp heads to wear, and now thinking installation thoughts...all very juicy and energetic, the kelp looks simple but is full of process, and took longer than the morning as I had several component parts made previously.  I love the small detail work, always have, and with felt it fits in so well.  Slow making, slow thinking...now to keep some notes before I forget completely what I did.  I now keep copious notes on the process, as I realize that there are too many processes in my head to keep track of and so the journal comes in handy.  I used to use it more as a sketch book, now it has become instructional and is very handy when doing something that I have incorporated before, I don't have to start at square one every time.  This is a good thing.
The first rains are here and it smells wonderful, that rain on parched earth smell and my freshly washed icelandic fleece, which was island grown, had to be saved from the rain.  I hardly recognized the sound until it was partially wetted whereupon I had to bring it indoors.  I am going to felt with it, and it is a beautiful fleece...so between experimenting with the icelandic locks, and harvesting my indigo plants...life is busy, not to mention a million plums drying and other food happening for winter storage. 
The indigo plants did very well this year, the ones in pots especially, and they are beginning to flower..so I will bring one in and collect seeds from it.  so excited...