I entered a contest

I entered a contest with one of my images and would love it if you would go check it out and vote for me thru your Facebook or Twitter (you don't have to be "friends" with me to vote):

www.talenthouse.com

Its for the song:

Florence and The Machine - Only If For A Night

You can see all the entries here:

All Applicants:

My Music Recommendations

I love Lisa Hannigan and she has a new album out:

This is Evan McHugh and I am just discovering him. You can sign up for a free album here if you want. http://noisetrade.com/evanmchugh highly recomend it.

Snow Patrol is about to release their 6th album 'Fallen Empires' in the UK and I think the release date for America is in January. It's a wonderful album and you can hear some of it here.

Marigolds

So, I picked the last of my marigolds today - the weather is just right for this time of year and I almost think its still October with its bright blue sky, crisp mornings & sunny days. The birds are scurrying around the bird feeders and the squirrels are burying nuts in the garden soil (which I will have to dig out later in the spring when they don't find them all). I might have to go around and see if I can pick the last of the goldenrod today - it was a very bad year for this flower, wonder if it had anything to do with all the wet weather we had in early Fall? Most of the leaves are down and I can just feel everything starting to shut down for the winter. I will be happy with my spinning wheel and wool that I got at the festival and will hunker down myself.

Wonderful Sheep

Great animals and you can tell the owners really care for them. Such beautiful animals that give us wool so generously.

Rhinebeck Wool Festival 2011

As my pots of wool sit and simmer in alum/CoT I would love to show you more of the images I took at Rhinebeck.

This woman & her colors in particular has caught my eye for years now but I only just looked her up. She hails from Maine and uses sea water & the sun for dyeing and the colors are spectacular - www.getwool.com - I would love to dye with sea water but the only natural water I have access to is stream and lake water, which I will never take for granted.

There were many natural dyers at the festival and I was thrilled to see all of them. I replenished my stock of Osage Orange and Alkanet & white wool. The white wool would seem boring to some but I can see its potential and I cant wait to get started.

On Saturday it was a madhouse - Filenes Basement Sale (which I have been to in Boston long ago) has nothing on women who love wool. As I saw civilized women being gracious but also have the wild look in their eyes and had to giggle. I knew from experience to just look on Saturday and I dare not even bring my camera out. I did snatch up a few goodies but I saved most of my buying and close browsing for Sunday. The weather held out for the most part - with a wild shower that lasted only 20 minutes on Sunday that had people running for the tents. Luckily I was already in one and stayed dry the whole time. It was cool enough to ware all our hand made wool sweaters and wraps and we all complimented ourselves with smiles and quick hellos. I always have grand ideas of selling there but I never have the quantities needed to handle that much traffic. Some day I might take the chance?

Rhinebeck Wool Festival - is there any other?

I think not! Wool in all its glory and colors that are heaven.

I took my two boys on a wild ride in the camper and saw the festival for two days. It was delightful and the boys had their fun too. Wool by day fires by night (and a little arcade games) thats what memories are made from. The textures and colors were in full glory this year. There were new ideas and wonderful people that were not afraid of sharing.

more later...

Wool Roving

Just put up a bunch of new rovings and yarn on my etsy site. Its never too early to knit for the holidays :)

and more to come...(click here)

Apple Of My Eye

An Apple is a wondrous fruit.

Sweet, kids consider it a desert.

comes in its own stunning packaging

& most times you can pick it roadside for free.

I hope you can enjoy an apple pie too.

Natural Dye Day 2011

Dye Day 2011

What a wonderful day this was - color, beautiful weather, good friends.

Cochineal and Indigo

These are great bamboo socks from Dharma Trading Company - they soak up the color beautifully.

Henna (yellow) and Indigo. tied with rubber bands like a tie dye.

Henna and Cochineal pink :)

Eye candy

This was my stuff after everybody left. I can never seem to get to my stuff while everybody is there. I had a lot of things already dyed and these were waiting for the second layer. I got beautiful purples and greens.

The Day Before

Ok so I have my final list of pot colors for tomorrow.

* Indigo - blue , 2 - because the freeze dried Indigo oxidizes too quickly so I will switch off pots as one re-deoxidizes.

* Alkanet - blue/purple - if I mixed it properly, we will see tomorrow. I am currently soaking the roots in rubbing alcohol and will boil up first thing tomorrow with a full pot of water. Its my first time doing this one so I am excited

* Henna - yellow

* Flower heads - yellow , lots of different flower heads ( Marigold, black eyes susan's, some mystery yellow flower head that looks like queen anns lace, and then I have "booster" yellows. Small jars of color that I will pour into the pot as the day goes on.

1 small pot of yellow onion skins and 1 small pot of calendula

* Madder - orange red, a very strong pot that I use the coffee grinder to chop up small roots that I purchased last year. Sadly my patch of madder I started last year did not come up this Spring.

* Cochineal - red/pink, I might add madder to this and some soda too to make it a deeper red.

They will get a variety of greens and purples when they overdye with two colors.

I have my tent all ready to go up and I will have out my spinning wheel & of corse all my dye books. Unfortunately I think I will be the most excited one there tomorrow so I might look like a freak but that is ok with me. I love color.

Plant Dyeing Day

Cooking up new dye for my Natural Plant Dyeing Day this Saturday. This is Madder on the left and te now highly covetted Brazilwood. I have to admit this pot is for me only. The last of the real Brazilwood that I have - it is now on the endangered list - but you can get a version of this tree's bark that is not endangered, so that is good. I will have to get some to compare. I have a bag of Alkanet in my hands ready for the pot and I have two yellows planned - Henna and yellow flowers, mostly marigolds. Cutch - which I just found out is the same thing as Wattle (go figure) & indigo I will save till Saturday morning to mix up - its the freeze dried crystals and they just make it too easy now a days (gosh I sound old when I say that!) Might mix up one or two more. More pictures coming.

Cookies

Welsh Cookies, Grandmother on my Fathers side - her recipe.

They are a delightful biscuit/cookie that I grew up with. They were always round and came out of a clear plastic sleeve with a green twist tie, and were always made by church ladies. One of those elusive cookies that you never found in the grocery store, but had to wait for a fundraiser or fair. I have had my Grandmother's recipe since she died, but never made them in fear that they just wouldn't be good enough. Well, I dusted off the recipe, took out Frammy's rolling pin, and sighed a big sigh. Imagine that, it was easy. I needed to make them first with no shortcuts or substitutions - just for posterity mind you. Mixing by hand, currents (not raisins) and using an iron skillet were very important.

As you can see my skillet isnt as even-cooking as I would like. You want them to look like the pale side of these cookies. I had also used canola oil in the pan to fry them up. Cooked them all and they were deeeeelish! I then proceeded to cook up a batch that is a bit more "less butter and oil" which in fact makes it taste better. Here is the receipt for you.

Frammy's Welsh Cookies

4 Cups Flour

1 Cup Sugar

1.5 tsp Baking Powder

.5 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp coarse salt

2 tsp fresh ground nutmeg

14 TBS of butter (could even go with 13?)

1 scant cup of dried currents

2 eggs

6 TBS Milk

Sift the dry ingredients and then cut in the butter. Add the currents. Beat the eggs and milk together and then add that to mix. Mixing well but don't blend the butter.

Roll out to 1/4" thick - cut with cookie cutter - place these on a plate and stick them in the refrigerator until you get the skillet ready (to harden up the butter again).

I'm sure the iron skillet works well for most but since I have an uneven pan I decided to use my electric rectangle nonstick pan set at 310 degrees and cooked each side about 4 minutes. Oh what heaven, it only 2 rounds of cooking with that big of a pan and it was much more even. You might have to play around with your settings. Slow cooking is the key and you don't want them to burn, they puff like pancakes when you flip them over. No oil on the frying pan needed.

Cheers to all the "church ladies" bakers - Enjoy!

May Day Celebration

Art Imitating Life Imitating Art

Where as I celebrated May Day with my family in a round about way last weekend - hard work of stacking firewood and then a pit fire with smoors late into the evening - there will also be a typical May Day at the Ithaca Waldorf School this Saturday.

I was there last year and here are some views.

We did a cute scavenger hunt for the children. I painted egg cartons different colors and sent them off into the wood to find an item that color. Coming out of a drab winter It was amazing the small little stems and rocks and leaves that had all the colors of the rainbow. I think it amazed them too. Weaving the May pole is such an earth awaking and invigorating community affair. I do beleive it lives well within the children and gives them a firm base to carry throughout thier lives. A steady rhythm, comfort, they can always count on. Ritual - its a welcoming feeling, but many of todays rituals are lost (so that we are Politically correct with every religion and belive) so I hope that you can find a way with your family and community to find a safe and happy May Day.