indigo, sourdough, milkweed and mint

Blue yarn—

— and fresh bread—

—are generally more appealing (at least visually), than jars of fermenting glop or buckets of soaking fiber.

Could you remind me of this next time I’m captivated by color in the midst of an active mess?¹

For it seems I’m a danger to myself. (And future Gusset photos).

Smitten by hue on the hoof while hovering over a vat—

—it is apparently all too easy for me to neglect to consider the consequences of a camera/phone plunge into the glorious blue-green depths (gorgeously colored device notwithstanding).²

Ditto, hand washing and my bread dough.³

Best, indeed, to keep my attention on the processes as they unfold and leave the recording till later—at least until after late lunch and a lie-down.⁴

And honestly, if a person really is going to make everything blue—

— she might as well give her photographic love to the later, intoxicating (and safely dry), fully-oxidized colors—

Intoxicating love in the eye of the dyer at any rate—if not her camera.

For coaxing this point and shoot to record the blues I believe I see rather than the weird grayish hues the device thinks I’ve made (or should have made), is another thing altogether, and I have to re-learn it every time. Adding other colors helps.

White for instance.

Something like fresh milkweed (just in case a person happens to have a bit lying around). And camera or no camera, the juxtaposition of glossy strands and a newly-blue-cordage-twisting-cloth is irresistible.

So irresistible that a person might stop marveling at the myriad variations her camera can conjure, plop her butt in a chair and twist herself into a trance from which she only emerges hours later—

— bleary-eyed and serene, once again feeling astonishingly fortunate—

— to be so simply—

— and thoroughly—

—beguiled.⁵

1. FYI— I used the MAIWA workhorse vat this time as I had the ingredients in my drawer (at least close enough approximations). I hope to try a fruit vat later this fall when overripe fruit is easily gleaned from the ground.

BTW, in honor of their 20th anniversary, the online workshops at the MAIWA School of Textiles are currently 20% off and open for registration right now. I’ve no affiliation with them and haven’t taken any of the workshops, but have heard from reliable friends who have signed up for several (including the indigo one(s) that they are fantastic.

2. I didn’t drop my phone into the dye bath while trying to record the yellow swath slipping into the blue-green murk—but it was a very close thing…

3. If a person were were sufficiently distracted it could come to pass that she might not be as thorough as she might when scrubbing her hands between this swish in the blue pot and that stretch and fold in the dough bowl—in which case she might, indeed, then wish that she’d chosen to make an organic vat, local rotting pears or no local rotting pears….

4. Indigo and sourdough are both on-your-feet-to-continually-tend kinds of processes, and of course I’d had the mad idea to go for both at once while on our madrugadorial walk—which means I’d not sat down for many hours and was just a teensy bit tired and distracted. Multi-tasking is not my forte….

5. Katherine May: Why Awe Matters (ten ways to coax it back into your life) from The Clearing

Mike Sowden: What are you feeling hopeful about? from Everything is Amazing