- Love potion #9: Red onion and alum

Note: that wonky bit of weaving is from Jude's Considering Weave workshop

I'm thinking if I document my dyeing trials online I'll be less apt to open the canning jars before their time. So for the record, here's what I put into canning jar #9:

• 1 tsp. alum dissolved in hot tap water
• 4 used tea bags in the bottom
• 8 pieces of muddy dyed linen wrapped around slices of a tiny red onion
• 1 piece of muddy dyed linen wrapped around dry red onion skins
• 4 used tea bags in the top
• Boiling tap water to fill
• 1 limestone rock and 1 block of wood to compress
• Cap loosely and put in the sun

I can't possibly wait two whole weeks, so I'm scheduling this one to be opened in ten twelve days on November 9th.

Addendum: And what if I added a limestone rock and a block of wood to compress the contents? What alchemical magic might ensue?

- On the learning curve: More lessons in dyeing

I'm calling this a good first pass at dyeing experimentation since there were a lot of lessons learned, chief among them: save a piece of the original cloth for comparison (or look back at this post to see what the tan sheeting looked like ... or look at number 9, which did a whole lot of not much).

Photo taken mid-morning under an overcast sky
Note: the colors in the photos are somewhat less intense than in "real life"

The four cloths in the top row were wrapped in copper wire. I particularly liked the avocado pits, which almost look like they discharged the tan, leaving a pale lavender/pink in its wake ...

The red onion also did well with the copper, leaving soft greens and peaches ...

The cloths in the middle row were wrapped in fine steel wire, which left its mark along with the avocado peels ...

Likewise, the iron in the steel brought out stronger colors from both the yellow onion skins ...

and the red onion skins ...

The cloths in the bottom row were treated to a dose of grocery store alum, which did virtually nothing with the avocado pits and peels, but provided the most dramatic yellow onion skin results ...

and red onion skins results ...

I was less successful with my last minute stew of acorns, windfall lichens, tea bags, onion and avocado skins in a copper pot with a selection of vintage white cottons and linens ...

To my eye, they are a pretty unappealing lot, with the exception of a tiny patch of lichen orange ...

So it's back to the drawing board ...

- Dyeing to get home

As you may recall, I left 12 canning jars and a copper pot full of dyestuff before hitting the road two weeks ago.

2500 miles later (San Marcos to Lubbock to Santa Fe to Oklahoma City to St. Louis to Tulsa to Fort Worth and finally back to San Marcos), this is what was waiting for me ...

I learned a thing or two as I opened the jars: 

• rot happens (so point the jar away from you as you open it)
• stuff swells (so don't pack the jar too tight, especially if it has a narrow neck)
• numbering is helpful (so write numbers in permanent ink on cloth before dyeing)

As a reminder, here's what I put in each jar:

1. Dried avocado pits (unbroken) wrapped in copper wire
2. Broken avocado pits wrapped in steel wire
3. Dried avocado skins wrapped in copper wire
4. Dried avocado skins wrapped in steel wire
5. Yellow onion skins wrapped in copper wire
6. Yellow onion skins wrapped in steel wire
7. Red onion skins wrapped in copper wire
8. Red onion skins wrapped in steel wire
9. Dried avocado pits wrapped in twine, with 1 tsp grocery alum 
10. Dried avocado skins wrapped in twine, with 1 tsp grocery alum  
11. Yellow onion skins wrapped in twine, with 1 tsp grocery alum  
12. Red onion skins wrapped in twine, with 1 tsp grocery alum 

Too impatient to wait until they were fully washed and dried, I did take preliminary pictures of the cloth in jars 1-7 ... 

and 8-12 ...

They are now in the washer, so a fuller accounting will be made when they are a bit more presentable and the lighting a bit more consistent.

To be continued ...

- A little farther west: Music bridges Texas and the Netherlands

If you look in my Kindred Spirits link to the right, you will see Tales from the Birdhut ... Saskia being one of the connections I've made through Jude Hill's Considering Weave (see my October 7 post on Reworking a cotton blouse boro-style).

So when I wrote about another boro-style top called "it's only RAIN" and included a link to the Jimmy Davis song of the same name, Saskia commented that she liked his music. I told Don, who said, "I think I saw the Mystiqueros are going to be playing with Bart de Win in the Netherlands sometime soon." 

Sure enough, when I checked on Facebook, Jimmy Davis had an October 21 house concert scheduled at Bart's (side note: we've seen Bart play with the MQs in Texas 3 or 4 times). I made a comment on Saskia's blog that it would be so cool if she could go to the concert ... and she did! You can read all about it in today's post at Tales from the Birdhut.

By the way, about the same time Saskia and her husband were listening to the MQs in person, Don and I were listening to one of their CDs during our 966 mile drive from Santa Fe to St Louis ... a little farther west (which just happens to be one of my many Mystiqueros favorites).

I'm beaming as I write this ... feeling like the sun is shining from the inside out ... amazed at how the world can be so large and so small at the same time.

Leaving New Mexico

Color ...

Tucumcari ...

Going, going, gone ...

One last look

Liz

- Dark clouds on the horizon: A Santa Fe sunset

Fire on the Mountain: Sunset in Santa Fe at the Raven's Ridge

Sunset ...

Don

Sunrise ...

A sense of place

There is adobe everywhere ... as ubiquitous as limestone in Austin.

Also like Austin, the hills are green, which I didn't expect ...

And who knew there would be fall foliage?

But then again, that was in the foothills. The mountains are beyond words to tell ...

So it's no wonder Georgia O'Keeffe spent a lifetime trying to speak of them in pictures ...

After seeing her mountains at Ghost Ranch on Friday, we went to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum on Saturday. It's small, but I saw what I wanted to see ... how her early canvases were covered with the finest brush strokes ... how her technique changed over time ... 

And I couldn't help imagining how our own visions might change, a reflection of her sense of place ...

Georgia O'Keeffe as I look on