RIsing mycellium

LEt the fun begin...here is a cauliflower fungi one of three we found in our latest seach for dyer mushrooms, this isn't a dyer but tasty treat and hard to pass by even though we weren't looking for edibles.  fried up til crispy in olive oil and butter...yum

The dyers we found were, tapinell a atrtomentosus, (velvet pax)', these were  abundant and are supposedly able to give purples, but although i did get a lavender hued silver, I have yet to get a true lots of nice colours available in this one shroom...also found some hydnellus peccii,(bleeding tooth)  which i will process 

And some phaeolus schweinitizii (dyer's polypore) which made the yellow and the green mohair colours, the corals were made from my freshly dug up madder.....the season has begun and I am mordanting wool ready for the pots when the shrooms arrive.....love this season

'Time, time, time , see what becomes of me'

SPending days on the deck surrounded by nature and color and birds and silks flapping in the breeze...indigo dye bath happening and about to harvest some madder root, which is spreading all over the garden...and woad,not to mention all the food.....here are a few of the fresh from the pot scarves and I am in love with chestnut leaves, and bamboo, but do have some seeded  eucalyptus to work with also....the first is of the liquid amber leaves on the iron cotton cloth and have made hangings from this iron blanket, sometimes the blankets are the winner in the printing so it does pay to use nice blanket material..and for something completely different, some of my gourd carvings...then Two  more scarves which were alum mordanted, then dyed with carrot top, them laid leaves, a blanket and voila...they came out a very rich gold green which I love....my fav prints are mostly the latest I take out of the pot, they are very exciting to work on and my work isn't done yet.....

Seascape Stool and Flowers

JUst finished this 'seascape' stool for the chair auction to raise money for the Stephen Lewis Foundation 'Grandmothers for Grandmothers'..we have some incredibly hard working people, mostly women, who work year round to gather chairs and repair and paint them and pass them out to people who want to make one to contribute to the chair auction the end of July, here on Hornby...THey have had an auction every second year and this is my third project I have donated to....they are always  very inspiring to work on and to know you are raising money for some grandmothers in Africa makes it even more inspiring....The next piece is a large flower which was inspired  by Kristy Kun, although I Have done  something   totally different in the processing, I had been inspired by her flowers and it was fun to make, have four made and think i am done with the flowers for the moment..the next are three pieces where I have inlayed some eco printed silk pieces onto a base o f black chiffon and black merino....love how the silk is ruching  on these and have plans to make larger ones.  

the beat goes on...........

Return of the gourd

Ah, the return f the gourd, after a few years away this design has been in my head rattling around in my brain and finally manifested...long pine needles, waxed linen coiled onto a gourd which has been cut cleaned sanded, stained and drilled before starting the weaving..it was a bt of a slog gathering all the tools and putting it all to use again, but the hands have a cellular memory that just begins weaving like younever stopped...a little rusty but totally doable.  HAve finished twelve throws from mushroom dyed wool and mohair blends and this is a big switch from the soft comfort of wool to the prickly hard pine needles and gourds. But spring is here, and this makes it easy to prep the gourds outside, thus avoiding all the dust in the house, I plan to continue doing gourds until that creative highway moves me in a different road...for now  I am thrilled to be working with them again...

Throwing my life away

So these are the new mushroom dyed mohair throws that I had alluded to in previous blog..Now I have completed six of them and my goal was to make ten in twill and so I am thoroughly loving it...they are 40x75 and are so light and airy, and comforting..so I am very pleased...I have continued to dye more.  MoHair and mohair boucle as  to get more colours...the next batch will be indigo and mushroom dyed mohair.  The Picture on the beach is my son with a young  eagle who was needing medical attention and he was taken to the wildlife rescue on Vancouver Island....such a lovely photo...Spring has sprung, baby lambs in the field, crocii in the garden...life is sweet as the d ays get longer