Stitch Rabbit

The Dye Shop ( a work in progress )

 

 

It ain't pretty, but it's workable.

 

I've moved into the shop in our backyard. I couldn't wait till the interior walls were done. Also, the dye pots and plants and mordants were taking over my kitchen, and staining the walls and floors. So, I moved in early!

 

There's still a lot to do to make the space workable as well as (ahem) pretty. And there's a lot of room and possibility for more. This concrete sink came up from the basement and will one day house an indigo vat.

In the meantime, I've been clamping and dipping and playing with cottons and linens. I'm pretty happy with my new space. Can't wait to spend the summer with the shop doors wide open and my hands covered in color.

 

Railway Spikes and Cherry Trees

 

On my last trip to Yale I scavenged for some old rusty railway parts along the tracks and came home with a nice collection. Using one part vinegar, two parts water and a few rusty old railway spikes from the Fraser Canyon, I made an iron mordant a few weeks ago and has let it ferment till now. And it worked!

 

 

This week I harvested the suckers from the cherry trees in my yard and used the bark and leaves to make a new dye. I boiled both bark and leaves separately and came out with similar shades from both.

 

 

Playing with swatches I got a really good look and learn from comparing how the different mordants react to the cherry dye. A teaspoon of the homemade iron solution into the pink dye and suddenly we've got blues and purples! Amazing.

 

The far left is cherry bark with alum. Then, with some copper pennies I was able to pull the second shade. The blueish grey in the middle was made with my homemade iron mordant and the last with a store-bought iron from the supply shop, Maiwa. I'm especially pleased with the shade I got with my homemade iron mordant.

 

 

My Daughter And The World.

 

She will be seven next month. On the cusp of some kind of girlhood that is racing through childhood and not yet adolescence. On the brink of bigger things, a sureness of herself is stirring and showing itself in tiny glimpses as she makes her own breakfast and ties her own shoes and chooses her own things and makes up her own mind. She knows more of what she wants. She knows more of the world, she knows more than just the things I have taught her.

 

 My daughter is finding her way. She is careful and thoughtful. She is also daring and unafraid. She switches back and forth from big girl to my little baby as she reads novels in the bathtub with her feet propped up and yet still crawls into my bed to find me in the night. She snuggles a stuffie and paints her toenails. I can hardly pick her up. She can lift me off the ground.

 

 

My daughter is growing, and I guess that means so am I. Learning about her... it is impossible to know everything. Every day I am learning about her, as she discovers more and more about herself. Understanding more complex thoughts and coming to her own conclusions. Disagreeing with opinions. Feeling empathy for others. Thinking first about her planet before she thinks about what she'd like. She is seeing things on a bigger scale, she is part of a community. She is more aware of the people in her life. And she loves them fiercely.

 

My daughter is competitive and trying to understand it. She is learning tools that will guide her in so many ways in her life. She is gaining the confidence she ought to have - that every girl ought to have in a world so intent on exploiting women. I do everything I can to teach her how to be strong and powerful, and then she's got to do it for herself.

 

She is turning seven and I am watching her with eyes wide open, astonished by the wild and the love and the heart that comes beaming out of this child.

 

And then, each night, I tuck her in to bed so she can lose herself in worlds of fantasy and story and tall tales and beautiful endings... and it's the end of the day and she simply doesn't want it to end.

And I am filled with her hunger for life, for learning, for knowing, for caring, for loving...and it inspires me to do the same.

A Steady Constant.

 

It seems to me that there are not often times in my life when things stop, for even a moment. And there are times when I cannot find a room in my house where there is not something perched on a table or shelf or armchair waiting for me to return to.

And I like it that way. Idle hands I have not.

 Frankie's long-awaited quilt will be finished in time for her birthday. I am only a few stitches away from the hand-quilting being finished before I bind it for her seventh year. I can't believe she's about to be another year from the moment I laid eyes on her.

 A growing collection of buckets and pails of dye and yarn and linen and cotton are finding their way to the shop outside, recently emptied and ready to become my garden and dye studio. Scrap and salvaged wood is collecting as well, ready to become the interior walls of the shop. I can't hardly wait to have such a great space for all the mess and glory.

The garden grows and grows, and so do the trays of seedlings in all the windows. Perhaps it's time to build a greenhouse.

It seems that every space available there is something going on. It is spring. It is change, it is growth. It is making and creating. It is doing. It's how I like it.

It is a steady constant, and it is love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While We Were Away

 

 

While we were away I got some serious work done on my knitting. A trip away from all the other work aroud the studio and yard gave me some good dedicated time to knitting projects and the last quarter of Book Three of Game of Thrones. (hooked, but it's an exhausting read, and often the last on my to do list)

 

While we were away it seems the garden was busying itself as well. I love going away for a few days and upon returning finding tiny surprises everywhere. After a good few days of a real sunny blast of weather, I came home with the kids today to discover a multitude of true spring miracles. It doesn't cease to amaze me every spring, that while I'm not looking the earth sprouts new life for yet another year.

 

Outside, the welcome of spring warmth had done it's job in coaxing tiny sprouts out of the ground. I had been worrying over my sugar peas drowning in the rain, but today they were here, and I was so pleased I dropped our bags at the door and grabbed a pack of seeds and planted another row.

 

Trillium! I love these little white tri-petal beauties, a precious little flower that never stays long enough.

The raspberries survived a transplant, and the peonies as well. Soon enough we will have hearty vines and big red blossoms.

Inside the house a few more discoveries lay in waiting. A skein of cotton that had been soaking in a dye bath, and a yard of cotton I had dip-dyed and left to dry. Both greys were made with cutch and iron and the yellow with turmeric.

 

The indoor seedlings survived and really took off while I was away. Pumpkins, squash, tomatoes and broccoli, as well as a few herbs and dye plants.

 

And of course the long-awaited arrival of the pepper plants.

 We also brought home our own signs of spring... pussy willows from the top of Myra Canyon, picked in the bright sun with snow under our feet.

Find Me Here

 

 

When I need to breathe a little deeper, you'll find me here.

 

When I am looking for something, you'll find me here.

 

                            When I want to show them that there is so much more, you'll find me here.

 

When I want to look a little closer, you'll find me here.

 

When I need to move my legs and pump my arms and climb and jump and feel breathless again,

you'll find me here.

 

When I need understanding, you'll find me here.

 

When I need a new perspective you'll find me here.

 

When I need to remember, when I need to believe, when it all feels so small and I need it to all be so big, and beautiful, and perfect all on it's own,

You'll find me here.

 

Oh Brilliant Nature.

 

I've finished the top to my first completely plant-dyed cotton quilt project. I've been foraging, saving, cooking and dyeing with plants over the last few months, and the outcomes are a perfect example of the brilliance of nature, the surprising discovery of color, and the satisfying ability to make it yourself in a sustainable way.

 

 

Using walnut husks, ivy, pomegranate, cutch, avocado skins and onion skins I dyed unbleached cotton about a half metre at a time. I used alum and iron as mordants.

The fabric came out beautifully, and I think all the inconsistencies and surprises in the dye give it a really nice texture and depth. I am so amazed by the colors you can pull from a few leaves and skins. All the exhausted plant materials went straight into the compost. Nothing was wasted.

 

 

 

 

 

Collecting

 

Trying and failing. Fallen birch bark hasn't made me soft pinks yet. But hovering underneath trees picking up curled pieces of bark has named me the new weirdo at the park.

 

Some dyes are becoming my old faithfuls. And still they surprise me.

 

Twisting and folding and dipping and dyeing and opening and discovering.

 

Collecting enough to call a quilt or two.

 

The sun warm on my back, the season's first flowers cast shadows in my windows,

and my hands are busy in all of this spring.

Tiny Seeds, Tiny Hands, Tiny Victories

 

 

Our seeds are in! This year my most curious helper is Charlie. I remember Frankie at just over three completely engrossed in the wonders of the garden, and now it's Charlie's turn and I couldn't be happier. We've been spending our days together in and out of the house when the sun comes out, poking holes in the dirt and dropping seeds in with careful little fingers.

 

 

I'm planning the garden carefully this year, as our tiny yard simply can't hold my big dreams and I'm now trying a better hand at succession planting, hoping to gain full spring, summer and then fall crops from the same boxes and beds.

 

The windows are once again filled with gathering trays of tiny seedlings, and while I am still not that technical of a gardener, I do believe I am ready for a few simple grow lights. Still, the early spring sun has coaxed a few trays of wonders from the dirt, much to the delight of my little boy. Every morning I find him perched on a chair, peeking at the tiny victories he had planted.

 

 

Teaching him about the cycle of the seasonal vegetable, flower and herb and seeing him really listen, really ask, and really observe is one of my favorite parenting moments. I knew it was truly sinking in when I found him outside on his hands and knees looking curiously at the garden. He had found the very beginnings of our peonies before I had even discovered them myself.

It's going to be a good spring. I can see it in his smile.

 

 

 

Golden Moments

 

I love those moments when you feel like you really got it right in a "cool mom" move.

I don't often come across as "cool" with anybody, let alone my kids. I'm pretty socially awkward and I'm fairly strict, and though I'm really open and accepting of a lot of things, I'm also that Mom that doesn't do PG movies, Top 40 or video games. It's simply my personal parenting choices. I'm working on it all.... as my kids seem to be getting older and older before I'm ever really ready for it.

So tonight, being Friday and the end of a long week, we were all feeling the need to shake it up a little. The music was cranked (The Ramones) and the kids were jumping around on the bed and Frankie was asking about this song that she heard, that I know (unfortunately) and asked for me to find it. So onto "YouTube" I go and soon enough we were getting down to the likes of "Call Me Maybe" and some other poppy jams the kids are into these days. PS, Justin Beiber, how old is that kid seriously and what is it about him that people like.

So this song comes on, and maybe some of you know it, I know I did from grocery shopping and elevators and where ever else this crap gets played.. I never knew who it was by, but I do know the words to the chorus and apparently my kids do too. It's kind of a catchy jam.

And so, here's the part, the part that I will remember as one of those "cool mom" memories. Jumping on the bed, doing sweet 360's, the three of us, singing at the top of our lungs:

 

"Cause we belong together now, yeah

Forever united here somehow, yeah

You got a piece of me - And honestly,

"My life, (my life) Would suck, (would suck) withouuuuuut yoooouuuu!!"

 

So good, right! We were jamming pretty hard, the kids laughing hysterically in between split jumps and shimmies and god knows what other moves they were possibly mirroring from their mother. I couldn't stop smiling and I started thinking, "Man, my life would suck without these guys."

And that's when I lost it. The cool moment ended because now, instead of cool mom rocking out, yelling out the lyrics like a total star with my band (the kids), I was suddenly, and uncontrollably cry-singing, like really, truly not able to hold it together, voice-wavering "Withouuut Yooouuu" and the kids looked at me like maybe this was a joke and then Nope, nope, Mom is definitely having a moment here and the song ended and it was all quiet except for me sniffling and the kids breathing hard from rocking out and you know what, maybe those Top 40 songs really know what's up after all.

Because it's true.

 

It would totally suck without them..

 

 

The Process.

I was talking with a friend over a beer about the importance of documenting your process. Not only for personal reference, but as part of your public outreach in whatever platform you choose. Whether you blog or instagram or tumblr or facebook your personal hobbies, art and business, I think it's just as important to present your process, your tools, your systems, your space as it is to present your finished work.

 

For me, if I didn't document my process, you wouldn't see very much.

That is because the finished product doesn't come as often as the times you are in your studio or in your shop. The hours that go on behind your own works of art are such a beautiful part of the story. I find it so interesting getting a chance to peek at how other people are spending their precious "work time", when it's something that they do for love.

 

 

Many of my photos are of my materials in use because I find them beautiful on their own. A skein of yarn or a pair of shears, a length of fabric that has been dyed and waiting for possibility.

 

 

It's within that process that you will find people being exactly who they are. I am happy to finally be in the stages of styling a finished product to shoot a photo, but it is actually here, peeking in my studio, in my garden, in my baskets upon baskets of projects, that you will find me, exactly the way I want to be. Never finished, always wanting more.

 

 

Come In Like a Lion

 

 

After what seemed like an entire river rained down on us this week, waking up to the sun and bluebird sky on Sunday was the perfect remedy to this cabin-fever Mama.

Our yard has been a construction site for weeks as we rebuild and relocate most parts of the garden, transplanting perennials to new corners, building beds and our very lovely new patchwork deck. All this plus pouring rain plus mud plus kids and dog has equalled a very trying time keeping all of the outside from tracking through all of the inside.

So this very sunny, very dry day was precisely what I needed to warm my back as I dug in the yard and warm the earth that is really truly almost ready for planting.

The seeds have been ordered, the tables are covered in garden books and pots of tulips and narcissus and seedling trays and pots are growing in numbers in my south-facing windows, ready to begin again.

Bring on spring.

 

Patterns and Color and Taking Breaks

 

I'm trying to get out more, be more social. It's hard for me, when I've got so much going on at home and in the studio that I'm happy and excited about, but I am also recognizing in myself how isolated I can become - even when it's for something I love to do.

 

 

When you have these tiny kids and you are choosing to be at home with them, you are also making this choice that your daily life contains a very tiny group of human beings in comparison to the rest of the world. I remember days when I felt like the only mother alive with two kids and a dirty kitchen and a pile of clothes I never got to wear anymore because the stay-at-home uniform was jeans, gumboots and an apron.

 

 

For me, knitting and sewing came as a need for sanity, a need to be doing something other than hanging diapers on a line and cleaning up sparkle glue. I started to get creative with the small pieces of time I could get to myself and it gave me a huge sense of satisfaction, that I was contributing in some way that felt artistic... it was like I was contributing to myself. 

 

 

And now with kids bigger and busier and more independent.. I find more time to do the things I love, the anticipation of thinking about how I want to do something, or how this might look cool motivates me to get downstairs and work on these things...

 

 

 

And I get lost in it in such a fantastic way. Quilting and dyeing and knitting gives me this stuff to think about, to use my brain and work things out and discover - and LEARN, constantly. Getting busy with materials has saved me from boredom and given me a lot to think about.

 

 

 I'm on this edge of seeing another side to things, finding patterns and colors in different ways and different places than I'd expected to. And that's exciting. But like everything, like someone who works too much or overloads themselves with classes and homework or simply doesn't ever come up for air, I too have to remember to balance my act. Get out. Like out of the backyard and into conversations with people. See my friends and go to shows and do different things. I'm proud of the work that I do, but I need to remind myself to put down the work sometimes, it will be there when I get back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More From The Dye Pot

 

I'm in love with this process! Using metres at a time, I've been dyeing cotton with different plants and flowers and getting really satisfying results.

I moved all my dyeing equipment from a big tupperware container into a cabinet in the kitchen, though I am looking forward to the redo of the shop in the yard... I have big dreams for a dyeing and gardening studio back there... in the meantime, this should suffice.

 

 

My most recent shades, using walnut husks, cutch, plum tree bark and iron and alum.

 

Progress and Sunshine

 

Litt bits of encouragement in the form of finished fences and boxes, and plenty of worms.

 

Satisfaction and reward comes in the form of a cold beer and garden catalogues, and a hot, hot bath every single night. Planning out my seeds and spaces for the coming spring. Dreaming of all the green.