pink and green

This planned conglomeration of pink and green fleece reminds me of a day when I hopped on a bus in Kyoto.

More flamingo photos here.

Colour way, sourced.

Here's the tail end of a scarf I put together recently. I've used both chemically and naturally dyed fibres (Procion MX, CIBA Acid dye, cedar bark and cochineal). It was a real step back in time to rainbow it up with all kinds of pink.

..and on a random note, I wonder if a my little pony brush could work as a hand carder in a jam.

what's for dinner?

I've been residing in the Northern Shuswap area of BC for the past two weeks and have encountered the following: 1 cougar, 1 eagle, 4 mule deer with big fluffy, flappy tails, three bears and two nephews. I get to drive a big truck, sometimes an atv, and I live with a cat named Jonah. It's one of those wild adventures I've always dreamed of.

A little interlude

I'd like to take a moment to interrupt the creative process to talk about a very useful read. Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky is an excellent resource for those of us dreamers who keep coming up with brilliant ideas and want a way to anchor them. It really helps with the action! side of things. I managed to borrow a brand spankin' new copy from the Vancouver Public Library recently and was charged by each chapter. I had requested it a while ago, and it seemed to fall into my lap at just the right time.

I've had two specific ideas in my head for a while now. This book helped me get the ball rolling - gathering more of the materials, acquiring the space to create, setting limitations and keeping myself constantly engaged with the process.

Bundles of joy

After dyeing the fabric, I chose coordinating fleece from my stash. I laid all the fibre out and made up colourful packages that I can open up and begin the felting process with. One package contains the ingredients for up to three scarves.

Excited!

immersed in colour

I've begun dyeing and felting some more scarves. It's exciting how it's all coming together. For this batch I used Procion mx, a fibre-reactive immersion dye. I dyed a couple others using Osage Orange and Cutch - two lovely natural dyes I picked up from Maiwa. I'll be posting more process shots as I go.

undersea rosegarden

A nuno-felted scarf I recently created using a cochineal-dyed canvas.

Lake Akan, Hokkaido

Little green felty balls in fishbowls pretending to be a species of filamentous green algae, also known as marimo in Hokkaido. Random.

Wee sprout

That autumn
where it was said
"For seventy-five years nothing will grow"
New buds sprouted
In the green that came back to life
Among the charred ruins

A photo I took of an old photo a couple of Julys ago. The idea of renewal and re-growth (in the face of what can sometimes feel like charred ruins) sparks motivation.