14 Sunday Apr 2019
Posted in Chit Chat, Latergrams, Photography
For a while my blog brain has been really, really silent, so I’m going to treat you to collections of Instagram posts for those of you who don’t use that platform. Who knows, maybe my words will be jumpstarted along the way.
Today, spring flowers! It’s pretty cold out still, and I don’t think my vine and hydrangea can get out of winter storage until next month. But it looks pretty and full of hope.
03 Monday Sep 2018
Posted in Garden, Painting, Pigment, Plant Dyeing, Show-and-tell
Tags
closetohome, colour, crafts, DIY, mordant, nature, plants, primitivepaints, scruffyartsupplies
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Now that I have a small first collection of pigments to play with before new plants can be tested next summer (I do have some old dried things I can try too), there are multiple ways to use them. They need some kind of binder, although I suppose you could just soak them in water. Alcohol? But even watercolours have binders added to add intensity to the colour as well as make it stick to your paper.
27 Monday Aug 2018
Posted in Painting, Pigment, Plant Dyeing, Show-and-tell
Tags
close to home, colour, crafts, DIY, garden, mordant, nature, plants, primitivepaints, scruffyartsupplies, summer
Five years ago I did a brief test of concentrated plant dye baths to see what they were like as watercolours. I didn’t add anything to it as I recall and I’m not sure where my sample is now!
13 Monday Aug 2018
Posted in Garden, Plant Dyeing, Show-and-tell
Tags
close to home, colour, country life, crafts, DIY, dyeing, mordant, nature, plants
During an investigation into using dry pigments and beeswax for painting rather than oilpaints, which I’m not enjoying, I’d been reading about making lake pigments and thought it would be fun to give it a try. These are pigments from plants as opposed to rock/earth/metal based colours, and since I already had some remedies as well as dried plant materials for dyeing wool, it wasn’t too much trouble to give it a try.
22 Tuesday Aug 2017
Posted in Show-and-tell, Spinning, Yarn and Fiber
Tags
crafts, fiber, fiber prep, nature, nettle-along, nettles, plants, yarn
The lack of interest last year allowed me to slack off on the subject, and the nettles I gathered are in fact still on the rafters in bundles. I partially blame blogging as a difficult forum for debates and sharing, as well as my lack of expertise obviously.
As luck would have it, I’m now off the hook – Motherowl invited me to a Facebook group a little while ago, created by Allan Brown who has considerably more experience in the matter as well as a lovely video describing his process. In a very short time thousands of people have enrolled from all over the world, quite a few Danes too! So the interest is clearly there and I look forward to learning more. (even though I detest FB)
12 Wednesday Oct 2016
Posted in Plant Dyeing, Yarn and Fiber
I’m about a month later than last time, but the leaves are still green, acorns have mostly fallen off or will in the strong wind which is now dominating our days.
Oak leaves are a bit pesky to harvest, they don’t let go if you rip at them, the tiny side twigs however are easily torn off. So you need to grab individual leaves and pull backwards to leave them undamaged, a test in patience. There are already buds at the base of each leaf, the tree surely doesn’t mind that I grab the old ones just weeks before they fall anyway. Continue reading
26 Monday Sep 2016
Posted in Chit Chat, Photography
Tags
autumn, CFS, colourways, determination, drive, fatigue, health, intention, life, longread, nature, plants, relax
I left you last Monday saying I wasn’t quite up to speed in the sleepiness department. Spent the afternoon trying peppy music (I usually prefer spending the day in silence) and preppy activities such as winding yarns for dyeing, and cutting up an old fiber board for taping papers onto while painting. Thank goodness for power tools, brrrrm, zoom, done.
Then I was extra careful not to vaccuum up any of my good pens with the saw dust, but proceeded to do just that of course, getting it stuck somewhere inside the machinery. That extrication process took longer than all the rest, but such happenings are just part of any normal day around here. Gets your pulse up. Continue reading
12 Friday Aug 2016
Posted in Show-and-tell, Spinning, Weaving, Yarn and Fiber
Tags
country life, crafts, mad science, nature, nettle-along, nettles, plants, ramie, video, weaving
Welcome to the next installment in our nettle-along.
This is what I managed to harvest in July, and it’s time for the next batch. I saved some of the leaves instead of feeding them to the horses, because while I don’t have time for a separate study of how to use the stalks for paper making, I do want to try to make paper and thought, why not add the dry leaves to my mixed materials bin? I’m drying my stalks inside because of the wet weather, I don’t know it that’s really necessary, but I didn’t want them to mold. Continue reading
27 Wednesday Jul 2016
Posted in Chit Chat, Farm Life, Photography
Came upon this beauty grazing my pasture, as I was wading through a patch of tall grass and weeds. No cropping!
At the cottage, holiday does not mean catching a plane to roast at the pool of some southern European hotel, it means prodding the big guy to do some maintenance on the wreck we call home. As a result, I also have to do some things of course, as well as assisting with comments etc, so nothing much is going on in the studio at all because of my aforementioned handicap when it comes to moving between brain halves.
13 Wednesday Jul 2016
Posted in Spinning, Yarn and Fiber
Tags
Welcome to the next installment in our nettle-along. This is mostly just a reminder, as I haven’t had the time or head for more research yet. Anyone else find interesting information they’d like to share?
MotherOwl beat me to it and wrote a nettle post yesterday.
I’m going to harvest my next batch one of these days if it will stop raining at odd times. Continue reading
Colour Cottage 