I missed Ostara...

...so I'm celebrating today while everyone else is Eastering.

I should have taken this outside for better exposure, buts it's drizzling and I've lost the tent cover over the dye deck to rot and old age.

The fun part was trying to read the labels on the powdered dyes. 90% have faded away which doesn't speak well to the way I stored them.

Only time will tell if this batch of dye stock will be valid.

I stuck to the twelve. I'm particularly happy with what looks to be a very neutral black. No more cheesy plastic squeeze bottles. I invested in a dozen 16oz. mason jars which rack up nicely on the bottom shelf of the fridge.

No more fooling with this stuff today, although I'm tempted. I have a writing project with a deadline. These will keep until we get some sunshine. And I'm happy with this salvage job:

the provenance of twine

One of the prototype cusspots.

This one was made from 12 strand cotton string that came from the first post office that my mother worked at in Goldens Bridge. They used to tie bundles of mail and magazines with this stuff. In a pinch, they could have used in a hanging. When the old PO was closed, they were going to throw four giant cones of this in the trash. I was twelve and I knew it was wrong. This was the very last of it.

This is about the size of a baseball and was covered car grime. A soak in laundry detergent, no bleach and it looks like the day I made it and will go back to catching coins in the console of his car.

All this whiteness has me itching to stoke up the dye deck this weekend. I feel the need for color.

sweetness

There's nothing sweeter than unexpected company on a Sunday morning.

(My camera needs its eyes checked)

the Sordid Tale continues...

"The Error of Her Ways"  (cont.)

Picking everything out wasn't as bad as I anticipated.  Music helped. The base cloth is a sturdy, service weight damask, not too vintage, so it can take a little punishment without falling apart.

But..web research is telling me I am well and truly screwed for using an indelible (hello!) metallic gold ballpoint ink to so arrogantly lay out the lettering. Such chutzpah!

The solution I'm too familiar with is laying in a needle-turned patch of the same base material with the tiniest, most invisible, made by blind Bavarian nuns, stitching and then, getting the damn words right, bless you Beatles.

Relax baby, it's gonna be OK.

ugh and shit

That little badge I've been working on? It took me a week of mulling to decide on the text. Another few days of drawing the letters with my finger before I committed to the gold metallic pen. I was pretty smug about how nicely I fit the words around the perimeter of the design. That should have been a warning.

And in the end, the love you make is equal to the love 

you take.

Did you see the error? Neither did I until I was finished stitching. Sigh.