This and That

I am still learning how best to make and create here in the cottage.  This time I came prepared with some ideas and since I have been here, I have been doing lot of things, and in the end most of them are preparation.

I have been trying to dye threads using plants from here; as I won't be able to do that back in Australia.  I have tried to make brushes with materials from here and make marks on paper.  I will take the paper home, but won't be able to take the brushes - sheep's wool; horse's hair and feathers, all of which our quarantine folk would most likely want to keep, so I don't want to risk losing them into a bin.

So this week, I managed to get some more thread dyed and make some marks on papers.

I am retaining my serendipity is good kind of approach to things, but got caught out when I tried to replicate some colours.  This was stinging nettle.  I had had it turn the butteriest yellow before and then, as it started to die off I go a most gorgeous grey.  Being into grey I went and got heaps more in the hope it would go grey again.  This is what it did instead - absolutely nothing.

So I tossed the nettles out and started again with dead and dying nettle leaves. As ever, we shall see.

I had chatted with a neighbour one day about natural dyeing and she recalled some notes she had made from a book from South Uist (Outer Hebrides) about the old ways of dyeing.  She found them and copied them for me and we chatted about how water lily should give black.  I thought that was amazing, but where would I find waterlilies in Scotland I wondered?

As serendipity would have it, we came across a lochan (wee loch) with them growing and in an adventurous manner, with Barry leaning in, sleeve rolled up and me tethering him in the bog, we collected one wee root. And gave it a go.

It came out greyish. Not bad.

However I was chatting to a friend Lesley in Wales and she sent me through a book. It also spoke of water lilies but mentioned you should put copper and iron in to get the black.  We were a few days in by this stage, so I tossed a penny coin and some rusted washers in to see if that made a difference.  The brew is still in the pot, looking darker, so I shall report later.

Before adding copper and iron.

And so to brushes and marks and paper.

A previous bouquet became brushes with the addition of a goose feather gifted by a different neighbour.

I loved the soft ex-thistle flower - it held the ink well and moved smoothly.  The tight flower/seed head also worked well; but the open one didn't.  The feather gave really tiny fine lines.

The ex-thistle flower circles.

This is the short horse hair brush with Payne's Grey diluted.

This is wispy wool.

This is wispy horse hair

More wispy wool.

A few pages ready to pack and take back, cut up and use somehow.

Its very different to making and completing, but I know the investment is important.

Its also very therapeutic just experimenting and exploring and not really being in control!