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91 ~Morning~

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in her Joy of finding herself actually here in New Mexico,  Marti, the quintessential Ultimata of natural dye experiments…put some cloth in with chile powder she'd gotten for food.  the coloUr she achieved is magnificant, a strong red/amber/orange…just amazing.  i never thought it would work.  lo and behold.  but then it began to fade.  no mordant? we wondered?  maybe use whole pods? we wondered?  so…this morning i stuck some chile pods wrapped in muslin into this jar with a little alum dissolved in boiling water.  will watch what happens with Sun today and late in the day dump it in one of the pots.  not sure which?  aluminum?  cast iron? 

and while out there, just looking around…

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the striation on this rock was not evident before.  many of the rocks/stones have new appearances this year.

 

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~Afternoon~

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seeing if i can bleach a scrap that i really didn't know i had

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the Nighthawks came.  will they stay????

 

~EVENING….SUN SPILLING TOWARD THE RIM…..

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Down in the low right…in case you don't notice… is a complete Surprise.

Jude is talking about personal symbols over in the Diaries of Spirit Cloth…Windows, particularly, in the moment…   and ok.  quite out of nowhere came the urge to kantha this corner.  and to kantha it in RED thread.  well, none of the reds are the right red, like "scab red" as my kids used to call it.  no scab red.  so…this and i will go back with a different thread and maybe between the two they might get closer to the red that is Good to me.  so i guess here are two personal symbols.  the first, kantha stitching,  has GREAT energy to me.  what?, tho?  well…that Spirit is on the Move.  and you can interpret that any way you want.  and then, RED.  i have been moving closer and closer to Red.   I have come to WANT oranges,  oranges of amber, with ochre, oranges burnished like copper and corroded like rust.  them.  i really want them now.  interesting.

 

 

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29 responses to “91 ~Morning~”

  1. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Well if nothing else, our little casita has been properly christened with the Hatch New Mexican chile powder cloth; sort of like doing a sage burning when you first come into a home. Will be so excited to see how your chile pod dyeing goes because I think it is a grand idea; it it works with the alum mordant, etc. then I know what I need to do. Used to use alum but when I ran out, started using soy milk but haven’t gotten any here yet.
    I’m working on another cloth, combining cloth from our previous home in TN, a few pieces of the TN bundled teri cloth rode all the way to New Mexico with us and some recent cloths that I have just made from local windfall. I like to name my cloths so this one is called, “Land Steps to New Mexico.” It will replace the fading chile powder cloth in my nicho. The chile cloth holds great meaning, as the first New Mexican cloth that I sttiched and when all the bits of powder are gone, it will still be an important cloth only now it will be relocated and affixed to one of the fence posts out in the back. As I go about my local dyeing discoveries, it would be a good cloth to hold snippets of dye samples sort of a mini horizontal prayer flag to send gratitude for the blessings of this land plus it would be a great focal point for my early morning outdoor rituals…

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  2. jude Avatar
    jude

    chile party!

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  3. Christi ~ Sweetpea Path Avatar
    Christi ~ Sweetpea Path

    MARTI ! I am seeing a zillion visitor hits on my blog from someone in “Rio Rancho, NM” … is that YOU?!? You are no longer in TN??? Goodness sakes, gal, when you gonna bite the bullet and start writing your own blog ~ you have so much to share.

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  4. Christi ~ Sweetpea Path Avatar
    Christi ~ Sweetpea Path

    And gosh, Grace … you have so much SUN over here ~ I need to stop by more often and BASK ;>]]

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  5. kaite Avatar
    kaite

    your garden is looking beautifully verdant now in the Spring
    hoo roo, kaite

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  6. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Yes Christi, it’s me but I don’t know about a zillion hits…I’ll go to your blog and answer you more fully.

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  7. grace Avatar
    grace

    a horizontal prayer flag…yes
    horizon tal so much here is horizon. this is good.
    BUT if that Colour could be understood…and Stay, oh
    How Great Would THAT be!!!! it was just stunning.
    and i haven’t given up yet, but as of about an hour ago
    there was nothing of that dramatic color in my jar. i
    only put in 2 pods, so…maybe it needs more. and you
    do boil for a while…i just used hot water to fill the
    jar. but i’ll go out after this and put it all in the
    cast iron pot to ferment a day or two. then we’ll see.
    But i might just need to rely on your “touch” for the
    depth of color and character.

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  8. grace Avatar
    grace

    hoo Hoo!!!!!

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  9. grace Avatar
    grace

    well..yes. that’s what we do have here. SUN.

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  10. grace Avatar
    grace

    Kaite…it will continue in it’s verdancy for a couple more
    months and then begin the decline of the Other side of Ripened.
    This is MY time of the Years. I love it, love the HEAT, love
    the lethargic swoon of mid day and then the vigor of evening.
    Oh, JOY. yup.
    and i see that your blog is invite only again.
    LOVE to you

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  11. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Well the Chile cloth is now a horizontal flag tied to some limbs of one of the pear trees in the backyard. A few snippets of cloth are stitched, not down but just on the top because I want the wind to make them dance and the dental floss that I used for one of my Spanish broom dyed cloths is affixed as well. And no, I didn’t boil the cloth, in fact because I have no idea how much gas, electricity and water will cost here in NM, the most I have cooked any cloth so far on the gas stove is 5 minutes cause I’m a frugal sort…I just added hot water to the clear chile bag, put in a piece of cotton cloth, stapled the bag shut, shook the cloth several times, then opened the bag and poured it out into a glass jar where I added another maybe 2 T of chile powder, left it out in the sun for 2 days, shaking it every once in a while…going to try it again when I get a good mordant and see. I think we will need lots of chile pods to get that original color.

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  12. grace Avatar
    grace

    bueno, then. what ever it takes. Your original color
    DID happen and so it can happen again, and stay. i will
    rely on you to figure it out. You will.
    and i love that you affixed the dental floss

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  13. Michelle in NYC Avatar
    Michelle in NYC

    Wheeyowie–now that’s a sublime phrase–“the lethargic swoon of mid day and then the vigor of evening.” Mmmmf…all that heat and energy is bound to transfer to cloth somehow.
    Hope those nighthawks continue on their circular way to the next cloth (ha)…you ARE kantha kicking that corner and it makes it pop.
    I think the powdered pepper might just be stronger than the pods, but who knows–not me.

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  14. jude Avatar
    jude

    the red kantha, like red pepper flakes.

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  15. patricia Avatar
    patricia

    last year i had some interesting results dyeing with flowers/avocados/bark/indigo etc. but for some reason i’m feeling very insecure about starting again. maybe knowing just a tad is worse than knowing nothing, which was the condition last year. now i’m getting all tangled up in wondering what mordant with what fiber–before or after dyeing–what pot, what liquid medium–oh it’s just going on and on and i’m feeling paralyzed. usually i just throw caution to the wind and say “what the hey” but today, right now, i’m really stuck.

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  16. grace Avatar
    grace

    just in this VERY MOMENT i was writing email to Marti
    about creating a blog.
    She is UNDAUNTED and JOYFULL in her just going with dye…
    and if for whatever reason, she still won’t blog
    well, we’ll just have to figure out something. what she
    does is amazing.

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  17. deb Avatar
    deb

    What IS it about that chair that charms me so?
    And is that a barely revealed geode sitting in her lap!? This chair is the Green Lady…she left the Green Man because of his temper. She speaks french, smokes dope, drinks champagne and basks in the sun without ever burning.

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  18. grace Avatar
    grace

    you make me want to buy her a bus ticket and send
    her over for a visit

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  19. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    grace, with your permission I’m gong to give a lengthy reply here to Patricia:
    Dear Patricia, let those feelings of paralysis fly out the window because I’ve seen your work on your blog and you get it; you create lovely cloths. I’m pretty fearless about dyeing as grace would say but it has to do more with an insatiable curiosity about the gifts of the land. Used to collect those gifts and bring them home as my decorations but now, it’s all about seeing what I can bring forth in terms of color. My vulnerability is stitching, I envy those who kantha, whose stitches disappear but I go on, self taught because for me the process is a journey that often is far more important than the results.
    I’ve read India Flint’s marvelous book, Eco Colour and gleaned from her, not recipes or step by step instructions but a basic knowledge base of plants, color, cloth and the whole way of eco dyeing. The greatest gift though from India’s book is the respect that she gives her readers to follow their own instincts and that is such a freeing and marvelous gift…you get the basic premises and ideas but are free to fearlessly go and explore and it follows then, to quote an old adage, “the world is your oyster”…hmmm, wonder what color an oyster would give!
    I’m very basic in that I either use alum, when I have it or soy milk to mordant my cloth which is primarily thrift store recycled 100% cotton as silk is expensive and I don’t often have access to it. Don’t worry about how much or how long, just lay cloths in soymilk for 24 hrs, then drain and let dry. The cloths get all cardboardish but I iron them before dyeing…and that’s it, that’s basically what I do. I’ve used tea for its tannin fix cloth and of course, when I had a batch of walnuts, they became the base of many of my dyed wall hangings…
    My tools are quite simple and sparse: a tiny little copper pot,a beat up old aluminum pot fondly called my cauldron, a few iron bits, files and rusty bolts pilfered from my husband’s tool chest, lots of jute string and dental floss to wrap bundles and chopsticks for pushing down cloth in the many glass jars that I use because I primarily love to make cloth bundles of whatever I can get my hands on and just solar dye in glass jars.
    And that’s it:
    So here’s my hand, let me pull you up from the unstuck place because as I said, I’ve seen your work and this stuck place is only a tiny blip and soon, we’ll go dancing about, waving our cloths in the sunlight, in the moonlight and I may even hold up a needle and thread to be blessed by the sky for those moments when I feel my own stuckness; the thing is it’s ok to stand still sometimes as long as we can move beyond the stationary to the dance and magic of color, cloth, needle and thread.

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  20. patricia Avatar
    patricia

    oh, that image. your hand extended to pull me through my stuckness. i’ve teared up–second time today–this is a good thing. i’m off to get some soy milk. much love, dear Marti. and i listed my email address on my blog. feel free. xox

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  21. deb Avatar
    deb

    It’s enough to know that come winter, you might find room for her inside the house.

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  22. grace Avatar
    grace

    i promise.

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  23. kat Avatar
    kat

    Love the blackbirds in the sky – and the swath of clouds sailing in the air. This is becoming something to be treasured ~

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  24. saskia Avatar
    saskia

    there is so much movement now in the cloth, with the strip of white, the black birds and the way she is shaped, brought to a halt by the kantha stitching, offering respite, grounding the piece

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  25. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    Whoa, Grace, this cloth really sings to me… and I love seeing around and about your place.

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  26. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    they are really the same..the pods and powder. well,
    same substance. i use the pods when i make a pot of
    beans. use the powder when i make chili for enchiladas, on eggs and rice, etc…like gravy…
    i haven’t checked the cast iron pot…am sure it’s all
    dried out…eee.

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  27. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    yes…every cloth has that point of Total Love.
    this one Julie spoke for…in the very beginning

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  28. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    that is still a surprise to me, the kantha

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  29. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i love that you come here

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