The dye studio has been busy. The last dye I showed you was a 12 step rainbow. The steps seemed to take too much of a jump in color so I thought I'd try a 24 step rainbow.



That worked so I thought I'd try different dye colors in another 24 step rainbow.



That worked so I thought I'd try putting some of these colors onto one piece of fabric. These are the ones I thought worked up the best.





Then I thought I'd better tackle gradations of a color so I could get some sparkle into the multi-color fabrics. And while I was doing gradations, I thought I should add a little black to some of them to see what would happen.



In the mean time, some old quilt ideas surfaced, so I've been working on designs and have two ready to go. The problem is to figure out what colors to pick. It would be fun to use some of these hand dyes but now that I've got the rainbow to work with, I'm not sure what to use and I'm looking for inspiration. Maybe something will pop-up on my visit to mom this weekend.

Critter Report

We've had lots of critters sniffing about lately.

The wolves have been at the door again. We heard them a week ago in the middle of the night. They were far away a barking and a yapping. Then an hour later, they were howling in our neighborhood, VERY VERY close by. Jim switched on the light (we were staying in the loft above the garage) and spooked a wolf at the base of the stairs. An hour later they were still about, barking and yapping again a short ways down the driveway.

Then Saturday night a small black wolf cruised by the big garage door while I was sitting there watching a little TV. I watched him a while. Then the neighbor's sheltie dog named Sadie started barking and went into the woods. They were growling at each other and I think Sadie would have been a little wolfie appetizer had the owners and I not started to call her name. She did chase the wolf a bit as he took off into the woods.

A small black bear cruised by the garage door in the same manner as the wolf a week ago when Jim was working out on his exercise bike (the bike makes a lot of noise). The blueberry crop was a bust this year because it has been dry. They may come around more often looking for food. We'll have to keep the cabin closed up while we are gone.

A family of five grouse picked and ate their way past me as I drank coffee outside on the front porch. They didn't mind me as long as I didn't move too quickly.

Mr. woodchuck was eating all the leaves in our watermelon patch. He also likes cucumber leaves, parsley, and fennell, but not hot habeneros peppers. He spit those out.

We are not expert gardeners but we are learning. We learned that chipmunks love tomatoes and can detect exactly when they are about to finish ripening. We've had VINE RIPENED tomatoes for two weeks but haven't tasted a one. We bought some really smelly stuff and put it on the tomatoes. We're waiting to see if it works.

Mosquitoes are beginning to dwindle to late summer tolerable levels.

Spiders are busy making webs everywhere. I can't keep up with them. There was a spider web on the couch the other morning when I woke up, right where I'd sat the night before (is that why Jim calls me Missy Muffit). They work fast. Most of them are ok and we do spider rescues, taking them outside to live a long happy spider life. Except fat bodied spiders, they give me the creeps. Mice are ok as well as snakes, slimy fish, and itsy-bitsy spiders. But not the big fat bodied kind. There is one kind up here with a body the size of a half-dollar. I just can't get near them. Fat bodied spiders are moving into the outhouse. I observed one in there the other day while I was busy. Wouldn't you know something scampered right down my butt crack as soon as I stood. My scream was heard all about the neighborhood.

Well, that's it for the critter report. Now the weather.

Boy did we get rain. Probably about 3 inches over the course of two days and we really needed it. I hope it rained on the fire that is burning only 10 miles south of the cabin. It has been burning for close to a month. The forest service says we have nothing to fear as there are intervening lakes, a bog, previous burns, and fire crews which should prevent the fire from coming close. We do smell it when the wind is out of the south.

Well, thanks for stopping by. I've got to go find some color inspiration and will talk to you real soon.