lots of pics today...

First I must show you the beautiful Amaryllis sitting on my kitchen table. It sat outside all winter and I brought it in the first week of February. So far, one bud has produced 4 huge blooms. Each bloom is 7" in diameter and such a soft pink.

click on the images...

Amaryllis ... each bloom is 7" in diameter

I did finish that crocheted headband I showed you last week and my knitting/crochet teacher says it is the 'SAND STITCH'. I'm sure google has lots of instructions for the stitch, if you want to play with it.

crocheted headband using the sand stitch

I played a bit with watercolors this week and then embellished them with some pen doodles...

watercolors and pen doodles

....and I did say I was going to do some dyeing with black walnuts...I soaked a mesh bag holding about 15 black walnuts in water overnight. I then boiled it all for about 2 hours. I filled 2 glass jars with the prepared cloth and poured in the boiled liquid. I left it in the jars for about 3 days....not really necessary....a shorter period will give you a lighter shade. I then opened all the bundles and washed the cloth in hot, soapy water a couple of times....rinsed and hung to dry. All the cloth I started out with was a light beige or white in color.

soaking some rose and chinese tallow leaves that were saved from last year

preparing some cotton with shibori stitching

using a strong thread for the shibori stitching

all the bundles in 2 medium sized glass jars

bundles ready to be opened

subtle markings on the shibori cotton

this one was pleated and stitched down both sides. that yellow is turmeric that was sprinkled on the cloth.

a cotton bundle wrapped with old rusty keys

a silk cloth with a tone on tone design wrapped with leaves and sprinkled with turmeric and paprika

silk with imprint of the rose leaves and the string wrapped markings

top is silk with an embroidered design....bottom is a piece of linen where i had done some free motion embroidery

and here they are all together. that yellow one, 3rd from the top, is silk velvet. i used too much turmeric on that one.

Some of these pieces will be redyed because I don't like that strong yellow color. I need to use the turmeric sparingly as a little bit goes a long way. Silk always seems to give the best results but it's nice that the black walnuts easily dyes cotton. Hope some of you who have access to black walnuts will try this. There is lots more info online and different methods. Google is a wonderful thing.

Today was a most glorious Spring-like day....sunny and in the 70s. I did do some planting....parsley, swiss chard and a lavender plant and some radish seeds. It looks like two snap pea plants are coming up from seeds planted in the Fall. They probably will not survive as it gets hot real fast here and we usually don't have much of a Spring.

Hope the weather is settling down for everyone and that all the snow will soon be gone. Have a great weekend and see you next time.