Where do I even begin? It has been quite the month! These days find me overwhelmed with trying to stay on top of everything and feeling like I am accomplishing nothing. More times than I can count this month I have considering letting some things go as I feel I just do not have the time nor the energy for it all. This blog being on top of that list. I feel guilty when I cannot write a post on a regular basis like I like to and I just cannot seem to get to the blog these days. I keep reminding myself of all that has gone on in our lives recently. So many changes and adjustments. It really is no wonder I am exhausted. I feel as though I am walking a tightrope lately and am trying desperately to keep my balance- balance that seems way off right at this moment.

I worry about keeping up with my blog but am torn because my younger children need me so much. We are still going forward with homeschooling Ariella but that is proving to be so much harder than I imagined considering her autism. Gabriel is rapidly approaching two and boy does it show in his behavior! He is so full of the devil and wanting to assert his own mindedness. As I sit and type this I can hear him downstairs running my husband into the ground. The little man is unstoppable! Some days it feels as though all I do is chase that kid out of trouble. He has the sweet face of an angel but oh my goodness, don’t let that fool you!

We are (so far!) having a rather dry but chilly fall. Today we absolutely loved the sun streaming into our windows despite the quite chilly and even icy weather outside.

A few days ago I did some experimenting with some of the plants in our new garden. We have inherited a thornless hawthorn tree and it is dripping in berries right now. I decided to see what color of natural dye these berries might hold for me. I’m still testing them out but below you can see I did indeed achieve a nice color off of them.

I have been attempting to squeeze spare moments out of the day every chance I get for holiday gift crafting. I do hope to share some of that with you here very soon.

I  will try to be find my way back to this blog this week….

Until then,

xoxo

The blackberries growing in and around my garden are now way past their prime with all the heat we had last week. They are far too overripe for eating and preserving. Seeing that it seemed like such a waste I decided to go out the other day and pick all that was left. Extremely berry stained fingers later, I ended up with enough berries to dye 4 ounces of wool and one silk scarf and even freeze some for later use.

I had previously applied an alum mordant to both the wool yarn and the scarf.

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To make the dye, I first mashed up the berries before adding them to my pot of water. I then brought this berry mixture to just under a simmer for about 30 minutes. I was very careful to not get the dye bath too hot as this would make the berries a more tannish color due to the tannins being released. I allowed this berry stew-like mixture to cool overnight before I strained it and added it back to my dye pot.

I then added my wet fibers to the dye bath and turned the heat on slowly. As soon as the dye bath was just under a simmer I turned off the heat and allowed my fibers to stay in the dye pot for a full 24 hours before removing them and rinsing them.

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As you can see the silk scarf really took up the color of the blackberries. It is such a rich shade of plum. It amazes me how much it looks just like the blackberry juice stains you get on your hands from picking berries! The wool yarn is also a lovely shade of purple. It is not quite so vivid and maybe a tad bit more gray but still beautiful nonetheless.

All in all, I am very pleased with the results I achieved and will definitely be using blackberries to dye with again. This would even be great for children to attempt seeing that the berries are rather easy to gather and collect.

If you try this out yourself be sure to let me know (or better yet send me a picture!) I love to hear about everyone’s natural dye adventures.

I know I keep mentioning how much I am in love with my drop spindle but I need to mention it once again. I am so hooked on this spinning your own yarn and then knitting with it craze I am on! My only complaint is that I have not had enough time to devote to it lately.

The other day I decided to dye up some roving with my indigo vat and below is what I ended up with.

I love how in some places I purposely did not let the indigo seep in and now there are bits of white scattered all about.

It makes me think of a beautiful blue sky with a few white clouds floating by. I’m hoping it will remind me of the gloriously blue skies we get in the summer because sadly, the rains will be returning in just a few short weeks.

I cannot wait to start spinning this roving up. What am I going to make with it you might be asking? I have absolutely no idea! Perhaps I will be inspired as I spin it up.