Merry Christmas!

Green Idea--Garlic Slush!

How great is this. The Tone Bros., makers of Adams Spices, donated 18,000 lbs. of garlic salt that was destined for the landfill, to the City of Ankeny, a Des Moines suburb, to use for de-icing their roads this winter. Garlic-flavored slush is making the road crews hungry but that seems to be the only adverse effect. Here is the story.

Introducing Casey, my blog dog!

I don't have any grandchildren. I don't have a puppy.

I am seriously lacking in cuteness to post about.

I decided to ask my friend Bev, who just became a dog mother, again, if I could adopt Casey, her Puli puppy, as my blog dog. It would be a sort of cheating because she had to get up with him this morning at 4:45 (and it was raining) and I would get to do all of the fun things, as I practice for such time as I may be blessed with grandchildren to spoil.

Puli's are seriously cute puppies but they are amazingly cool dogs. I am hoping that my cats might become jealous of Casey and start doing cute things again.

So Cool!

We subscribe to The New York Times and The San Francisco Chronicle. Too much data! Today I discovered a great design column by Zahid Sardar in the Chron that I've been missing out on.

My friend Linda has been doing fabulous things with recycled sweaters from the thrift stores, including felted cashmere baby blankets, and I immediately thought of her when I saw these terrific handbags. They are by Berkeleyan Josh Jakus, a former architect, who makes purses and handbags from recycled felt.

It's All About Color!

Luscious pictures! Color, color, color!

I had no intention of buying another book on dyeing but Lynn Koolish's Fast, Fun and Easy Fabric Dyeing is a great new addition to my bookshelf. I've done some dyeing but I don't dye regularly and I'm always thinking I should dye some more fabric. I would call myself a novice dyer. I really believe in serendipity but the more I dye, the more I want to achieve good results.

Lynn's book is very inspiring. It reminded me that a dye project can take as little as 30 minutes to set up. It can take even less time if you have your dye solution and your soda ash prepared.

I like to keep records. Lynn has some great tips on keeping track of your results. That's really important if you want to reproduce your work.

I've done some solids and mottled, almost-sold fabrics, but I am looking forward to trying rolling as a method of creating texture. Lynn's sections on creating patterns using shibori and thickened dyes are exciting. The fabrics she created with a rag roller are very cool.

I'm thinking about slicing off the binding of this tasty book and inserting it into my Dyeing 3-ring binder.

As we've come to expect with C&T books, Fast, Fun & Easy Fabric Dyeing is clearly laid out with lots of scrumptious color. And that's really what it's all about, isn't it? COLOR.

Happy Beethoven's Birthday!

Bark with Lichen

I've been thinking about lichen for over a year and haven't done a thing about it except to collect specimens. I can't resist the sticks and clumps that fall from the trees. And bark!