Dyeing and Produce

Camp Joy Basket Week #2 - A cup of Loganberries, garlic, red potatoes, oak leaf lettuce, some kind of speckled red-leaf lettuce, carrots, rosemary, parsley, peas.

• The berries were instantly gone. Poof! Magick berries. We could eat pounds of berries a week if we could afford them! Is it the concentrated flavor? The beautiful intense colour? Or do we just instinctively know that they're terribly precious and oh so good for us?
• The garlic gets used as we go through the year as it keeps for quite a while. I use garlic in a lot of things (some critics say most things!) but Camp Joy gave us a recipe which I'll be trying for Skordozoumi (Greek Garlic Soup), which calls for a whole head of garlic! More on the success or failure of said recipe after I actually make it.
• The carrots were steamed and served with olive oil and cinnamon sugar. No one ever complains about those.
• The peas mostly were eaten raw but the few remainders were served up in stir fry form.
• The lettuce has been consumed in several salads.
• Still thinking of what to do with the red potatoes, maybe some type of potato salad without mayonaise. Now that I have two weeks' worth, there are enough to make a dish for four.
  

"I'll be dyeing in the laundry room, don't come in there for a while" I said to my son. His friend's mouth gaped open and his eyes were astonished. "no, no, no dyeing not dying!" Oops, those who aren't already trained don't know about this fine distinction!

Finally finally finally I cleaned up my dyeing space enough to get some things going. Mostly I worked on what has been soaking in the soda ash bucket. I keep a covered bucket of soda ash water going at all times, that way it is ready to soak the fabric or "items" to be dyed. For non-dyers the soda ash is what makes the dye decide to stick around on the fabric.

The things dyed here are just white square washcloths, you know the really cheapie ones that are 15 for a $1? Kind of loosely woven and very nubbly textured. I was curious to see what they would look like dyed. They were placed on top of the fabrics that I was dyed, so they soaked up the top part of the dye available. I like how they look, not sure what I'll use them for, maybe just as colorful washcloths?!
From left to right are the one yard fabric pieces that I also dyed, mostly with dye from DharmaTrading.

• I used some really old dye in Ecru to try to get some flesh tones for a self-portrait piece I'm working on. On one of the pieces I threw in some of the Chinese Red to get it a little pinker than brown. Those two are on the left.
• Next is Chinese Red which looks rather orange in this photo. It turned out nice and dark which was what I was going for.
• Chartreuse is next, I like how the mottled pattern shows the yellowy undertones.
• New Emerald Green looks kind of boring compared to the Chartreuse to my eyes, but it will be useful in the landscape-ish quilts I like to make.
• Cobalt Blue turned out super dark, but I think I may need to wash it out once more, this dye is getting weird on me, it isn't a superfine powder like it is supposed to be.
• Another old old container of Ice Blue, it still has enough punch to make a nice sky color.
• Finally, what is a dye session without some purple, in this case Grape?
  

I'm finally out of the bolt of white fabric I've been working with for more than a couple of years now, guess I better find some more so I'm ready to dye the next time the stars align and the mood strikes.