Long story short; a dye bath for fabric or fibre is dependant on having either fabric or fibre ready to dye which makes it not worth doing when you don't have fabric or fibre you want to dye. Further complication is that when you are dyeing cellulose fibres with plant based dyes you may end up with nothing other than boiled cotton fabric which has steadfastly refused to take up even a smidgeon of colour from the dye bath !
 
Make Ink A Foragers Guide to Natural Ink making by Jason Logan had been mentioned on Instagram & as it piqued my interest but wasn't available in NZ, I requested it through our local library & waited patiently for it to arrive. I knew it would be full of plant references which are pretty much useless in NZ & especially useless for me as I'm still far more curious about the potential of what we have available here, particularly in our own native plants.
That's ok. I'm used to that.

I was not expecting magic.
I was expecting a very beautiful book with a few tidbits of useful information.
It is indeed a very beautiful book.  
It is an absolute pleasure to read & it does contain magic.

The magic it gave me is freedom.
It gave me a reason to make colour for the sake of making colour.
It gave me a water based process which, for the plant based explorations, has it's origin in natural dyeing.
A process that is very familiar to me.
This particular ink making process removes the stumbling block.
It reduces the colour making to it's simplest form & the end point is when YOU get the colour YOU want.

"What distinguishes ink from other art supplies is its use as a tool for communication."
I could go on & on about how much I love this sentence.  

I'm going to add to it.
​
Making ink is about communication. 
Foraging is about observation.
Observation is about being attentive to your surroundings.
Being attentive to your surroundings is about developing a relationship with place.
It's about the unspoken dialogue you have with your surroundings which informs you of the health & well being of place.
It's about sharing. 
It's about reciprocity.
It's about acknowledging & honouring place through the language we use as writers, artists, stitchers, weavers, or spinners.

Now off you go.
Make Ink my friends & let's get this conversation started.

Sal xx

there's no getting away from the fact that my creative practice is driven by botanicals.
i see no reason to not accept that & go with it.
i've decided the best approach for 2019 is to follow my whims & see where i end up in 52 weeks time.

April has been a good month & I don't usually do this but today I went looking for autumn.

Things are definitely changing in an autumnal way.
The signs are the usual ones.

​The sunset tonight was almost directly west, we’ve harvested feijoa & pumpkins, the leeks are ready & the tomatoes are ending, the days are noticeably shorter, the sun rises later, the late afternoon & nights are cooler, the angle of the sun is now low enough that the light reaches right to the back of the room & we’ve had the 1st snowfall on the mountain.

In autumn, the harakeke seed pods are empty of seed & almost threadbare, the rengarenga still hold seed but that may be only because of the cobwebs, the corokia has beautiful little yellow berries, the seed heads on the hebe are chaff & the Tawa has new growth.

In our native forest, which is evergreen, the changes are less obvious - in fact some of them, like the new growth on the Tawa seem incongruous & I’ve realised I have been overlooking many.

Every morning the grass is quite wet underfoot but the sun is consistently shining & the winds are minimal.