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a labor of Love

20221026_175031

 


20221026_143140

 

i worked at this post for 2 hours off and on.   Typepad being touchy again,  and even now,  finally,  only giving 1/2 size pic.  BUT

1/2 is ok.   I worked at the block all morning and it just wouldn't happen.  I got to  Six and  just could not find a way to go further.  Nothing worked.   I tried a thousand things.   Gave up.    Went to give water to Garden  and then looking over,  as i squated to turn the water off…to that huge broken Tree

i thought to go there and sit a while.  Just BE WITH it,   in its brokenness.   There are energy feelings there.  not  "human",  but a kind of vibration or slow pulse.  I  thought about taking pics so you could understand better but it wasn't right to do    so i went on back into and over and came upon yet one more fallen,  broken Pine.   Same break,  maybed 20,  30 ft up the trunk.  Just broken but this one fell fully.  upon Earth.     Went further and saw the one i already knew had fallen but had not gone to see.  This is 4.   Very Very Large Very Very OLD  Trees.    All Green.   Alive.   

Came back and sat at this little impromptu bench Jenny made for Emrie and Brinley,   they call it the music bench and i made a song on the steel tongue drum.   For the Trees.   Me.   this Hill.  Our Earth.

Did the thing to take all the walnuts and liquid out so i could again start up the Camp Oven burners and put them all back and fired it up  for 3 more hours of steeping today.  Brought the block OutSide and it all looked different.   I found pieces.  One at a time.   And it might just be one of my most favorite.   

I thought all day…i wished Marti was here.   Marti,  the Master Bundler.    Tomorrow i will bundle the sheet.   it's really big and i don't know how i will be able to do it.   There's no space here to work.   No table space  outSide big enough.   But something needs to happen.

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16 responses to “a labor of Love”

  1. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    Are comments working?

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  2. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    O!

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  3. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Finally, comments are working, I could not get on to make a comment earlier in the day: I sent this reply to grace in an email but I thought I would put it here in case any of you have other suggestions for how she can dye her sheet in the walnut bath:
    My note: I’ve been reading with interest about your walnuts and dyeing the sheet…what a wonderful huge copper pot but how heavy it must be to lift onto your camping stove. You seem to be getting good color from the dryer walnuts, I always had greener ones when I used walnuts. Thing is I’ve never dyed anything as large as you are doing, so I have pondered as to how you will do it. To get a solid, smooth color you need lots of room for the cloth to swirl around and even though the copper pot is big, the sheet is even bigger…if it doesn’t matter if you get a smooth, solid color, then I would do my kind of “shibori folding”, and fold it in half, and again, and again, taking a a stitch here and there so the sheet doesn’t fall apart in the pot, until it fits in the pot, then swirl it around a bit and let it soak for a long time. When I worked with walnut, I usually left if from 3 to 7 days depending on the intensity of the color I wanted.
    Addendum to my note: I have never put walnut dye on the heat, relying solely on having my pot out in the sun.
    Do you have a makeshift clothes line to hang the dyed sheet? OR/ a clothes rack that you can put outside OR/can you simply lay the sheet on tree branches OR/put a tarp on top of your car and then lay the dyed sheet on the tarp OR/ lay the sheet on top of some of the goat pen fencing or would that be a hassle with the goats?

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  4. LaceLady Avatar
    LaceLady

    To Marti, and Grace. I was just now able to comment, and Marti – these are all such wonderful suggestions. With great respect to you, I am adding your ideas to my Eco Dye journal of collected tips and techniques. As well, you’ve covered all, plus more, of the ideas that I had come up with.
    Even if you aren’t available to be with Grace “in person”, this is being with her in a sense, made visible through “virtual reality”. Just what Grace was hoping for, I think! Blessings to you, and to all the fine makers who gather here.

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  5. Deb G Avatar
    Deb G

    I think with typepad right now it’s just that you have to keep trying…sometimes it works and sometimes not. I hope they sort it out soon. Like Marti some of the bigger yardage I’ve dyed without being on a heat source, just using solar or time. I have a piece of fabric I will probably post about tomorrow. Some people might think it looks like patches of mold, I love it…it reminds me of raku pottery.

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  6. Peggy McG Avatar
    Peggy McG

    Tonight I get a chance, because finally in a town with internet, to read back in your blog for the last week. I only so far have read todays and must comment before I read back. This cloth, I am so glad you gave up then resumed with it. It is earth and sky colors moving around the central sun. So stunning! I love Marti’s ideas.. I thought of ripping it to fit but then that defeats the whole cloth background.. folding makes much more sense. Today at Trust time I was driving and whispering to all here that we are one of and with this earth and universe. Now I read of your trees falling and think how they offered so much alive but continue as they decompose.. this process takes maybe as long as it took for them to grow.

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  7. Liz A Avatar
    Liz A

    I love the color in #10 … and how it is echoed in the colors of the steel tongue drum …
    when I did pecan dyeing last year, I let them soak in the sun for a week (or two?) … strained the shells out with harem cloth, then dunked everything into the five-gallon bucket and spread the pieces out on the grass to dry in the sun … the color was quite blotchy and I very much liked that

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  8. deb Avatar
    deb

    When I first started making big bed things, I also had no space. The school let me use the gym floor after 3, but squatting doesn’t work for me. I went to the library and they let me use a conference room table. It was nice, sitting at the huge table, basting it all together, a magazine protecting the table from my needle.

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  9. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    (((Grace))) such a beautiful cloth, there is so much depth in it!

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  10. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    everytime i let the pot cool i have to take them all out, dip out all the liquid Into buckets. so i CAN lift the pot off the burners and then put it back on…at which time i
    use that sauce pan to put all the walnuts BACK in and then the liquid. Labor intensive. But for sure, i couldn’t lift it and the Oven instructions say NOT to light the burners with anything on top.
    today is Friday. All along i have beem imagining i might get the marks on the cloth that i did in New Mexico…which was best with the cast iron pot but then also the aluminum.
    i didn’t use copper for Walnut. I also have never used this pot before. Never had the need.
    i wanted the marks.
    I bundled that household cloth “dress” tied with string and left it 3 hours on the heat then to cool overnight and in morning. It dyed Through. NO marks. no marks where the string was. And i think….i think i actually might WANT
    that. I want to WRITE around the borders, all 4, with pen and Ink. I think i actually WANT the solid dye. But not
    sure. It won’t matter anyway because the cast iron is so small in comparison as is the aluminum.
    Also with the cast iron, i would leave the cloths and liquid would evaporate and leave what my mind tells me is Oxidized marks…black marks. Again…what i thought i wanted, but maybe not?
    Copper changes everything…but also, we are talking about New Mexico Earth/California Earth, two different kinds of Walnut Trees and…water. Water makes a difference.
    I love so much how all your Cloths are so beauty Fully imprinted but i think it can’t happen here…. with something so large. Unless i had a BIG surface, i could
    never place and fold all the delicate leaves, twigs, blossoms that you do
    I’ll reserve the liquid when it’s all said and done and put a few small things into the cast iron. I don’t plan on repeating any of this, so it’s all just veryy OK.
    Thank you so much for all your thought and words…i love you

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  11. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    yes…Blessings Upon Us
    All

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  12. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i was so excited…patches of MOLD!!!!!!!!!
    but not today
    i don’t know about Typepad. This is the worst yet. Usually if i keep trying, sooner or later it does…but it’s been
    2 days now?
    i filled out a Help Ticket.

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  13. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    Peggy…i LOVE that your are OUT THERE, traveling and
    TRUSTING
    and this Thought that maybe as long as it took to grow
    LOVE this

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  14. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    once again…me….am late to the Work. Early this next
    week it becomes cold, well, in the 50’s and the Rain
    begins.
    Have written it all on the calendar to be brought Forward
    on the New Years transfer. Maybe i’ll do better next time?

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  15. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    this is a Beauty Full little MOVIE in my mind

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  16. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    how they create ThemSelves

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