Settling In

Over the weekend I made another nuno pre-felt and completed a bit of knitting, but mostly just slowed down, taking time to reflect. Today I stitched together a variety of fabrics and then dyed them with leaves, afterwards.

And I also sewed this, then dyed it with arbutus bark:

I like how the colour settles into the cracks of the stitching - I used white cotton thread.

Circling

Loving the Questions

I went back to stitching yesterday and answered some of my questions, as well. Could I nuno felt my Japanese Maple dyed scarf and maintain some of the prints? The leaf prints were faint to begin with and though I put very little wool and silk in the center and can see the marks, they are not really discernable. But I know they are there and will remember collecting the brilliant scarlet leaves from the lawn's green fringe and the excitement of later unrolling the scarf with the spent brownish leaves still beautiful, glistening and clinging to the silk. A scarf was quicker to nuno felt than a shawl because the area to design was smaller and I also put less materials on this one. I just love the delicate strength - and - the memory hidden in the folds.

And I wondered how this silk scarf would look overdyed with Japanese Maple - it had yellows and greens from other vegetation, previously. A surprise came with the black lines from a brown shoelace - which had never given colour before.

And when I was cleaning out my fridge, I found three shrivelled mushrooms with dark brown undersides and rather than just compost them, I wondered if they would make lovely rings. They did make black rings which washed out, leaving mostly browns from the peony leaves.

I will experiement with different mordants another time. And I made a black and white polka dotted nuno pre-felt, adding to my stash.