Dirt Dyeing

While on a 'Girls' Weekend' at the ranch we did some Bengala dyeing.

Rose and Kerry tie stones into a tea towel.

Norma kneads a white t-shirt she is overdyeing.

Rose, Gail and Norma hard at work.

Rose taking out the stones.

The results

French Bucol Fabrics

A friend gave me 2 lengths of lame-type fabric. One had this label. A search of the name revealed Bucol has been a famous silk house in Lyon since 1920.

I needed to test the fabrics to find out if they were silk, or not. Out came the burn chart.

The silver one burned briefly then self extinguished. It melted giving off an odor of sweet chemicals and formed a hard black round bead.

It is polyester.

The gold one burned and melted. It was not self extinguishing. A hard black irregular bead formed. 

It is an Orlon or Acrilan acrylic.

I am a little disappointed they are not some vintage French silk from the 1920s but their melting properties will be something to take advantage of when working with them. And they are very pretty and shiny.

Projects' Progress

The Fairy Ring mushrooms, lichens and bark had been wrapped in a wool blanket for over month.

It was time to take the bundle down to the pond and unwrap it.

Looking good but rather smelly.

It needed a good wash.

Some interesting marks I could work with.

My Garden Tower after a week.

We will be eating the arugula and celery next week.

My garden partner planted his tower this week.

He opted to plant mostly seeds.

Garden Towers

Around our house the only place deer and rabbits can't reach is the balcony where we have taken off the stairs. 

We bought a Garden Tower, gardentowerproject.com, each, to grow edibles in.

It is like a large strawberry planter with a wormery/compost maker down the centre.

After a pleasant  morning at the nursery we each bought home our favourite edibles.

Ingredients for the soil mix.

A mix of the compost we made during our Organic Master Gardener class, Gaia College, info@gaiacollege.ca, and all the additives to make a rich growing medium.

It was getting dark by the time I had planted my tower.

Now to keep up the water and to enjoy watching it grow.

Andy Goldsworthy

Here is a Tate Studio Visit video of Andy Goldsworthy.
I found it on Rachel's great blog.
i.art.rachel: Andy Goldsworthy
Do visit her blog for lots of interesting posts about art, artists and music clips.

Pattern Design Course Progress

One of the morning exercises was to analyse different patterns and to find examples of different types of patterns to put in our Pattern Dictionaries.

Elisha is working out how this pattern was made.

Elisha working with a new stamp she carved.

See below the resulting pattern.

Charlotte's new carved stamp produces a number of appealing repeating patterns.

Another pattern Charlotte produced with her new stamp.

Connie made several stamps using hot glue. They make a distinctive mark.