100% wool yarn, natural/ecru, no mordant (lichen is a substantive dye). Cameo by indigo fingers 😅
I've done this at 10% WOF before and got a pretty OK tan, kind of a paper bag color. Who knew this was hiding in the higher percentages??
I’m looking for some help identifying two different lichen species I encountered today on stone walls just south of Boston, MA. The first is a crustose little guy, close up of a piece that has flaked off the wall.
The second, the foliose one, I THINK is common greenshield (flavoparmelia baltimorensis or whatever the f. caperata equivalent on stone is, I’m better with lichen on wood), but I’ve never seen such prominent dark apothecia or that odd powdery texture.
Pretty branch from the UK as a thanks for looking!!
Vanilla cake filled with homemade strawberry jam and clotted cream, then frosted with earl grey swiss meringue buttercream. The teacup and saucer are white chocolate, painted with oil-based food coloring, and the "tea" is brewed earl grey, lemon juice, and a little elderflower syrup set with unflavored gelatin.
Turned out great! I used Sugar Geek Show's reverse-creaming cake recipe, which was tasty but stuck really badly to the pan and the middle tier was in chunks. 😅 For the earl grey buttercream i just whizzed up the contents of a teabag in my spice grinder before adding it to my usual swiss meringue buttercream recipe.
Overall: a success :D
I'm tannining a batch of cotton with avocado pits in preparation for dyeing them in cochineal (I'll also mordant them with alum).
When I strain the tannin bath — is there any further use for the pits? does a several-hour soak in hot water extract all the tannins, or can I reuse them?
And actually, while I'm here: I usually use gallnut powder to tannin my cellulose fibers, and I always feel SO wasteful tossing the exhaust. Has anyone found good uses for it? I hesitate to reuse the bath to tannin more fiber, because I don't want my dye to not stick to it! But I just hate throwing things out before they're truly exhausted.
Would love to hear what your dye practices look like!
I've had the linework forever, but I'm FINALLY getting my ass in gear to get the color done! I'm absolutely in love with my pokeberries. 😍
The cross bar lifts (hinged at the left in the first image, fulcrum in the center in the second), and the bar would smash an object into metal blades — in a cross shape in image one, parallel in image two. The blades are dull and don’t seem like they were ever super sharp, but who knows.
They were in with flax tools like brakes and scutching boards, but the small target area feels wrong for flax processing. (Fiber and textiles is my area of expertise, such as it is, but I’m certainly still learning.)
Any ideas?
My scour pot overflowed all over my glass cooktop. Synthrapol and soda ash. Am I cooked, or is there any way to undo this damage?
PSA: don’t try to do dyeing tasks with a migraine!!
This would definitely be a plot point. Hidden under a lip, not visible once construction was complete.
Here she is! It’s been just over 2 years since the newest part was finished, and the big peony and snapdragons on my bicep are 5 years old. I love the way she’s settled into my skin! She still makes me grin every time I look down.
I found this beautiful table at a yard sale for $5 and I desperately want to return her to her former glory. So far my plans are: clean thoroughly with soap and water, sand her top down, do any filling that might need done, sand, finish. She’s got cast iron feet with little glass balls so I’ll take them off and clean them separately before reattaching.
Am I missing anything? Are there pitfalls I should look out for? Should I use a chemical stripper instead of sanding so I can get the legs and details?
Tex. __________ Paisley 144. It looks to me like it might be National but I can't get any actual meaning from that. Anyone have any better ideas?
It's a tag on a historical paisley vest (probably early 20th c., accessioned in the '60s).
