Wonderful Show

While on my trip to the Northwest, I visited a show in Astoria, Oregon of original works by Katherine Dunn, of Apifera Farm.  Her blog is always intriguing; her lively and kindly imagination sees deeply into life, so I was very glad to be able to see her work in person again. These are some of my very favorites... The Riversea Gallery website shows more...

I wish the photo quality were better but perhaps you can catch a glimpse of her rare vision and love of creatures and the stories they embody...

A class with India

Hello everyone. I've relatively recently returned from my first solo camping trip to the beautiful Northwest, with a destination of Lopez Island and three magical days at my second workshop with India Flint. We made wayfarers' wonder jackets using bits and pieces of other clothing items which we reassembled to make our unique garments! What fun, and challenging too.  I loved stretching my mind to embrace the concepts of sleeves becoming pockets and shirts being transformed into pinafores.

This is the beginning of my jacket.

And this is how it's been progressing since coming home. I will dye it once construction is done.

It was so much fun to do communal dyeing again:

India is very patient and full of interesting ideas and poems. It was a most congenial group of women who gathered to work in Patsy's beautiful garden studio. Christi did a first rate job of organizing everything so all went smoothly.  Patsy, Christi and India created the most delicious lunches for us.  Oh goodness...that's what it all was: Goodness. Great Goodness.

There also was opportunity to be gastronomically delighted by... guess what...wild mushrooms.  I was a bit nervous but ultimately trusted the experts and found these "shaggy manes" to be delicious!

I visited two friends from the workshop in Seattle on the way home. We watched the eclipse together and opened some more more bundles from the workshop. Magic. 

So now I'm home and have been gathering leaves from our parched environment and have bundled them up and dyed this old shirt.  I used marigolds, eucalyptus, rose leaves and apple leaves in a stainless steel pot, with some iron bits and a little bit of copper.  Some of the marigold petals are still on there.  The cloth is still wet so looks a bit brighter than it will later.  I've never gotten such golden hues before.  I wonder if it could be due to the drought somehow.

Gilly meanwhile has found a pair of pink sunglasses, kind of like mine, except they are more edible!

Next I am going to tell you about a wonderful show I visited on the way to the workshop, so stay tuned. xoxo, ~s.