The cloth from yesterday. Yesterday"s Cloth. The Walnuts. From Dee and Grace. Into the tall brown crockpot. With water. It heated up. Stayed hot. It is a good pot. This cloth holds some texture and is fine. Perfectly okay as Grace would say. But...... I had hoped for more. I had wanted darkness. Was given light. Was given a dancing pattern across the surface. Tin can lines. And if I look quickly- there are faces. Eyes, for sure.
I have to think about this. Think about what I need to add to the walnut water. Like a food recipe. This walnut water needs some addition. And it might be as simple as my not mordanting the cloth before the walnut bath. I did not. I forgot. I wanted to just put something in with the walnuts.
My bag full of used tin cans has ......what? the cans crumbled into nothing at my touch. Still shiny. But they had decayed or composted since the last use. So strange. I had no other cans. I was thinking that this morning I would have to search thru my neighbors' recycling to find a can-- and then in a box, deep under the porch table- one can. One. Can. Thank you.
The crumbled rusting cans are going into the rust glass jar. To make more rust water. And I am mordanting cloth to wrap and fold around my one can. To try again today. Experiment.
And I had tossed a few stitched "components" into the walnut pot. To deaden the brightness of the colors. Interesting things happened. The bright yellows went dark brown. The other colors knocked back but not changed. One is now pinned to the cloth made of squares (wall above the ironing board) and may be appliqued to it. Feels like it belongs. Found- these things happen-- the pile of squares made for this cloth. And I auditioned some to make the left side work. It isn't playing well with others. More of the darker pinks. Was too light in that upper left corner. Then, I think, that cloth is done and I can begin to appliqué over the top and finish it. It doesn't need to be any larger.
I have to go into the attic. Looking for the Seed Starting pages for the class. Two signed up. G has added Pages back to my computer so I can write again. Type. Make information pages for my classes. I have the BIG class coming up in March. In front of many strangers at the Library.
So, up into the Attic. And I will see if I can dig out one of the tall black chairs. And bring it down the stairs carefully. Use that in my bedroom to hold the notebooks and pens. The phone charger. Use the chair as a bedside table. And I will water my daughter's zone 6 perennials overwintering in the bathtub up in the Attic. They are up about 6 inches and all have many leaves. Daughter is very pleased. They grow and have many many dark sapphire blue flowers. I am hoping she lets me keep one or two.
We sprayed Blossom something (used to get tomatoes to set fruit) on the Citrus Blossoms. The flowers have stayed on and dried but there is a swelling at the base of quite a few. The Botanist says it looks promising. Limes.
4 comments:
In my experience, dark takes time...days
Well I think this is a fine cloth Joanne but I understand your wanting a darker color. I agree with grace's comment about taking time to get darker walnut colors. When I have used walnuts, I take the whole nut, hulls and all and plunk them into a large pot, fill with water and leave outside to let the sun do its work. I'm kind of cheap in that I don't like to use my gas stove all that much for my dye work so I let the sun do the work for me. The longer you let the walnuts soak, the richer the color. When I get the desired color, I remove the nuts and place loads of cloth into the large pot and let the cloth sit for several days as well. Sometimes, I have gotten impatient and I plunk in cloth along with the walnuts; I do get good color but it can be splotchy so removing the walnuts after you get the desired brown color is a better idea.
You were right in not using a mordant on your cloth because it isn't necessary as walnuts act as mordants due to their tannin. I have gotten many shades of brown, even brownish black depending on the length of time in the pot. It has become somewhat harder for me to find walnuts on the ground here in New Mexico but in the fall, I always go on the hunt.
I love this cloth. But to my eyes I don't see faces or lines dancing. I see towers falling. A portent of things to come?
I saw the faces of animals while ironing. I don't see them in this picture above. Towers falling. That is darker than the darkest walnut dye. thank you Marti- I am checking on the cloth in the pot (heating for 24 hours) and will see how dark - or not so dark it has gotten. I wrapped the walnuts in cloth. I saw a comment from an India Flint class. The walnuts got heated till very soft and then were wrapped in cloth and tied with string. tomorrow I will show you what did or did not happen.
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