In less than 24 hours I’ll be on my way to California! I’m taking another workshop with John Marshall and look forward to new learning, and to seeing Sacramento, Covelo, Eureka, the Pacific and the winding roads! Hopefully this will also mean a break from the heat and humidity 
Last weekend in Loring Park – 90 degrees both days, humidity about the same — very uncomfortable! Here are a few pics:
Friends -- do we look cool? It's still early in the day...
View out the back of my booth, with Basilica in background
I met another fiber artist working with natural dyes — Dawnette Davis of Grand Rapid’s Minnesota (no website yet….). I bought a beautiful silk scarf from her dyed with iron-modified cochineal and imprinted with rusted objects….the iron modifier created a beautiful grayish violet/blue. Here’s a photo. Beautiful work!
naturally dyed (cochineal, iron) silk scarf by Dawnette Davis
I’m busy in the kitchen in between trip preparation tasks trying to put away some of the veggie garden harvest. Yesterday it was two big batches of pesto. Today it’s salsa and cutting up oodles of zucchini for the freezer. My husband planted many Gladiola bulbs and so we have them all over the house as well as garden. Trimming bouquets and deadheading in the garden today it occurred to me to freeze some blossoms and then try India Flint‘s ice flower dyeing technique when I return. Don’t you think freezing flower blossoms for dye is a brilliant idea? I really look forward to seeing what kind of color these yield …
Glad blossoms for freezing
I am not bringing the computer so expect more on the blog after August 23rd when I return!
This week I bought a piece of handmade Japanese Kozo, cut it up into 10 pieces and then made my own momigami, or “strong paper.” This is done by coating the sheets with konnyaku starch, which comes from the Devil’s Tongue root. It’s a powder you mix with water, brush on both sides of the paper and then crumple the paper into a loose ball.
kozo coated with konnyaku and scrunched
While the paper is still damp you crumple it more and work the surfaces together. The more you work with it, the more like cloth it becomes. Then spread each sheet out to dry flat on a table.
kozo wet with konnyaku starch
This treatment makes it receptive to dyes, and easy to stitch. I get my kozo and konnyaku from Wet Paint Art in St. Paul, and they get it from the Japanese Paper Place in Toronto. (Check my Resources Links.)
dry momigami
I wanted it flat (not perfectly) so I could mount my silk pieces to it, so I ironed it. I really like the wrinkled surface and the color of the kozo. And it’s a dream to hand stitch.
katazome dove on silk broadcloth, natural pigments, hand-stitched to momigami
This Saturday and Sunday I’ll be at Loring Park Art Festival.
Gardeners & art lovers enjoyed good weather for last Saturday’s Art and Garden tour. I was situated in a garden in front of an historic (1910) St. Paul home, one of several Peace Garden sites in the Twin Cities. The gardens and plants were the stars of the tour. This garden was all about the rich textures and colors of leaves, and the structures of plants and shrubs. Here is just one example.
wow! leaf color and variety
I set my runners and hangings on trellises, and placed my pillows on the brick stairs leading to the massive front porch. I really enjoyed them as garden decoration!
Garden view with katazome work in place
I got back to the studio yesterday as I have a couple of weeks left to prepare for the Loring Park Art Festival. This morning I discovered that I accidentally recycled one of my smallest stencils along with the newsprint used to blot and flatten it after use. This is something John Marshall warned us about, and now I have learned the lesson! The stencils are soaked before and after use, blotted with newspaper, and flattened under books before storing them away for the next use. So if you layer a bunch of stencils between newsprint under a pile of books, tossing one away is a bit of a risk when you are ready to put them away a day or two later. On the up side, it forces you to improvise a little. Instead of pasting my usual minnow symbol on the back of this batch of pillows, I’ll be pasting a little Egret, which has also become one of my symbols!
Here are today’s stencils soaking in a tub of water before pasting.
katazome stencils soaking
