Dharma Trading Co. has more copper Indonesian Batik Tjaps for sale! I went a little nuts and got two this time, Happy X-mas to me as it were.

To check out what they have left go here. They are going fast so don’t daddle!

Do you remember Captain Kangaroo? Even he got into Shibori/tie-dye.

Remember back in May when we did tie-dye for the WEF and I said we also dyed some fabric? Well here, finally, are the pictures! I am very happy with the way they turned out, the best part it they are so simple to do and a great way to use up the last bits of dye from bigger dye projects.  The fabric is scrap yardage of Kona Cotton which takes dye fantastically.

So, now that you are drooling, here is the best part. If you leave me a comment between now and next Tuesday you can have a chance to win some hunks of these fabrics plue one of the Blueprints that Libby and I made last weekend! The fabrics are all different sizes but they average somewhere around a 1/4 of a yard and 45 inches wide.

The winner will be picked at random and posted on Tuesday.  Good luck!

This weekend Libby and I had some fun with Cyanotype sun printing. We used Blueprints on Fabric squares and a dried sea fan I got a while ago from Urban Indigo. Rather appropriate for Ocean Day.

Some color for a Monday, these are the other tie-dyed shirts that we wore to the Whole Earth Festival.

My tank top. Raspberry, turquoise, golden yellow and avocado green.

Libby’s T-shirt. Golden yellow, avacado green and azure blue.

We started with the first cherries of the season at the farmer’s market.  We bought a big bag and munched on them all day in the warm sun.

There was music and dancing on the quad, we crashed on a blanket and ate more cherries and shared Carrie’s garlic fries.

There were booths with clothes of all kinds of patterns and fabrics and colors.

Patches of color and bikes (of course it IS Davis!)

We wore our Tie-Dye of course. There are more pictures of the low impact fun at my flickr.

This next Saturday is the Whole Earth Festival at UC Davis. It is a giant low impact festival with lots of craft vendors, live music, vegetarian food, drum circles, solar panels, improvisational dancing, and it is lots of fun; a mini Woodstock if you will. Of course there will be lots of tie-dye being sold and worn so of course we had to make some of our own to wear! But just to drive Libby a little crazy, I won’t post finished pics just yet. In the mean while here are some teaser photos:

In order to use up all the dye we also did a bunch of low immersion samples. Looks for pictures of those coming soon!

A few weeks ago I got some Henry’s Attic laceweight Alpaca and dyed it up with some madder. I promised folks pictures and now I finally got a decent one that isn’t too washed out. Pastels are hard to photograph!

I used an alum mordant and an extract that I made with about 4 oz (1/4 lb) of madder roots. I chopped up the roots, soaked them overnight and them simmered them for about an hour. This was then added to the pre-mordanted alpaca in my new dye pot.

Natural dyeing is not as hard as people make it out to be and while I used madder that I ordered you can dye with all kinds of stuff right out side your door or in your kitchen.

The violets are beginning to bloom again, they bloom generally all spring through the fall. They are not the most exotic of flowers but they win in my book because they were the first house plant I managed to not kill. Plants in a yard, no problem but for a long time house plants were not part of my green thumb, then my mom’s friend gave me violets and it has saved me from a life of only cut flowers inside.

Here are some new ones that Libby gave me to add to my collection. Happy Spring!

Another dye experiment in acid dye blues for Libby. She is keeping this one.

We played around with the drum carder that I rescued from my mom who hasn’t used it in years. We were pretty impressed how the random end bits of roving Libby had became nice fluffy batts. Can’t wait for Libby to try spinning some on her drop spindle.

Now I just need to get some of the fleece I have washed up and do some of my own carding, which is what the carder was rescued for in the first place.

1. One Love A Day: Day #40 – Fluids, 2. Hand-Dyed Sock Yarn, 3. dye run – spring 2006, 4. hey psst!, 5. Hand Dyed Fiber Buns, 6. Dyeing Success – Macro, 7. Selling colours, Pashupatinath, 8. Dye-ing leather, 9. Yellow Dye, 10. The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts., 11. Attack, 12. Tie Dye T-Shirts, 13. Untitled, 14. Dye studio shot , 15. Blue & Yellow Dye, 16. bundles of joy