For more info on ISLAND (The Institute for Sustainable Living, Art, & Natural Design), go here: http://www.artmeetsearth.org/
I'm in a beautiful log cabin in Mancelona MI, in the middle of the forest, with a dirt road leading up to the place.... It's like being in a prehistoric forest here, everything is so lush and moist and there are more ferns than I have ever seen in my life! I've settled in, claimed my space, skyped my girlfriend, and have begun mordanting! Only issue so far...found a giant bug in my sink. Had to drown it before removing it from the house. Ewwies.
Prehistoric!!
On the topic of mordants:
I've been reading about cold mordants for cellulose fibers. For a lb of fiber, it's 3 slow baths: a 3oz Alum for 12-24hrs, a 2tbsp tannic acid for 12-24hrs, and another 3oz Alum for 12-24 hrs. I put the first alum pot together last night around 5pm, rinsed it and begun the tannic acid pot at 1pm this afternoon. I think that means I'll start the next alum pot first thing tomorrow morning. If this works like it's supposed to, it will save a hella lot of energy and fuel (always good). All I'll have to do is plan ahead...haha.
I've completed my first Alum/Cream of Tarter mordant on a pound of wool/silk. It's now line drying! I've got a pot of silk and wool yardage for stenciling on cooking as I am writing this (I'm going to turn the picnic table into a print table). I brought the monogum with me for making the dye paste, and I think I'm going to try some highly concentrated dye baths in my small pot for coloring.
Of course the next step after getting things mordanted will be to start dyeing! I went out for a walk this morning and collected Queen Ann's Lace (to add to the carrot tops graciously left in my fridge), and some thistles. No idea what the thistles will do, but I figure what the hell, why not? I will definitely be testing the ferns in the area, I read somewhere that ferns give a rusty color?
As for flowers, there aren't many...... And there's a bunch of weeds I've never seen before (which I took pictures of and will be googling before I go out and pick them bare handed). I'll save them for later this week. There were plenty of roadside flower plants on my way up here, I'm going to have to go back for some of them (I think I saw some purple loostrife at one point). Lots of black eyed susans (practically useless) and hopefully some sunflowers.
I came up here with all the purchasable dyestuffs I've collected over the last 2 years-- Cochineal, Indigo (for the workshop in August), Osage orange, annato, madder, sandlewood, brazilwood, logwood, cutch, and some others, as well as dried dyestuffs like onion skins, nettles, dandelion, yarrow, st johns wart, turmeric, hybiscus. The ones I haven't tried before will be the first to be done. I'm planning to do full swatch testing of everything, beginning with the dyestuffs I haven't used before, which means I'll be getting out the copper and iron after-mordants at some point.
I believe that's it for this moment. Will probably need to do a thiox bath for the pound of weaving cotton I turned into skeins last night... ugh. At least I'll be outside when I do it.
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