The Passage of Time!!

I can hardly believe that it is now 4 years since I learned to dye naturally and to Eco Print on fabric & paper.  If you had told me in 2009 that over 10200 people would read a blog that I posted,  or that it would have 66 people who followed it, I would have said you were crazy.  But that , my dear friends, is exactly what happened.  I have had a wild and crazy time with Mother Nature, and she was generous in rewarding me with wonderful results.

I have added many friends along the way, and that is probably the best thing of all.  I have received help from so many generous people, and I hope I can return the favor many times over.

Please feel free to comment on my blog, the feedback from you is very important to me.  If you have questions, don't be bashful.  I will answer them as best I can or refer you to someone who I know can answer them.  Have a great time, and visit often!

Oh, Nuts!

Here I am again.  Finally.  I apologize for being absent from my blog for so long, but due to family illnesses and my own, plus a very active teaching schedule, I just haven't had the time.  I am about to get caught up and back to my dyeing, so I thought I would show my latest efforts.  I have just  opened a Silk Crepe de Chine scarf, 22" x 90", that I dyed Shibori style using small green hickory nuts and a dye bath that had copper scrap in it. I had used the dye bath previously to print on paper using sea grape leaves, Boston fern, hickory leaves, oak leaves and the leaves from a red passion flower vine.  The container was a galvanized trash can.  I boiled the prints between two ceramic tiles for one hour and left them in the dye bath overnight to cool.  I will post a couple of the resulting prints and the scarf photos after I write this entry.  I hope I can encourage you to experiment fearlessly.  Use whatever fabrics you can and keep good notes.  Natural fibers seem to work the best, but I have printed on cotton polyester blends when the dye bath was very acidic.  I love the prints I get on watercolor paper, and it is rather an inexpensive medium, so feel free to experiment.,