End of Winter Dyeing

I had a quick weekend away to visit DGC. It was part of my surprise birthday present. The best gift any grandmother can ask for. It was great to be with them again. It was wonderful to see DGS walking. He gets into everything now of course, but he is much happier now that he can walk. 

My son is renovating his shed, he has been doing that for a while now. There was a pile of unwated materials in his yard. I am always on the look out for something. I spotted the old copper pipes he had to replace. For me it was like discovering gold. They are perfect for dyeing. I measured them and got them cut in lengths. I was worried about bringing them home on the flight, but there was no problem, I got them all home okay!

While I was still there I put together a bundle using Japanese Quince (Rosaceae) in my son's garden. I used a piece of copper to wrap it with. It will be interesting to see what colour I get. We will see.

I found a bundle of almost dried daffodils in a trash can this morning when I got to my work.  Last Friday was Daffodil Day, a charity event for the Cancer Council. I took the discarded daffodils to add to my dye bundles I was planning to do this week.

I almost forgot to take a photo of it before I rolled it up. I cut the stems of the daffodil off and only used the flowers. This is the first time I have used them. Let's hope it gives some colour. By the way I'm using silk for these bundles.

Altogether I got six bundles. I picked some eucalyptus leaves on my drive home and some other dried flowers I already have here. The rich liquid I'm steaming the bundles in was made of dried eucalyptus leaves soaked in rain water for about a month. When I was ready to use the mixture, I boiled it for about an hour. I removed all the leaves before I put the bundles in and steamed it. I feel good about how this batch will turn out, especially if I leave them over two weeks while I'm away in Thailand. I am going on a short visit to see my family and to get a bit of warm weather. 

I hope to put up a couple of posts while I'm away. I'm taking my iPad with me in the hope that Google and Mac will communicate nicely! I have been blogging with my iPad lately with the help of the Blogsy App. After I upload the images using  Blogsy app, I edit them in the Blogger application itself. It's an improvement, thank goodness...! 

Until next time

Nat