the colour green

I know, I know, I missed last week's light blue.. but the week for green is nearly over as well - so I am going to drop the blue. here comes green:

I do like green - out in the garden or elsewhere in nature. I don't really own any garments in stronger green (very dark bottle green is the exception, but that's rare, too) - I don't have shoes in green, I don't have a lot of green inside the house apart from living plants. for some reason green and outside go together for me. so here are three greens from my garden for you. the one on the left is called Lithospermum erythrorhizon, what a mouthful, eh? it's not a very showy plant with the tiny white flowers, but it's a dye plant! unfortunately  the roots contain the dye, not the top. they dye purple (well, at least the plants in japan do - I still haven't harvested mine, because I don't want to destroy the plant).

the top right one shows the very fresh leaves of an Indian Horse Chestnut (they go pure green, when they're mature). we grew them from conkers that we collected in Dublin some years back. and the funny "snake" at the bottom is the branch of a monkeypuzzle tree (Araucaria araucana) - monkeypuzzle, because even a monkey would be puzzled if he had to climb that scaly tree:)) it looks a bit weird - not really like a tree. I don't find it very beautiful, it looks like a dinosaur to me - but I saw some handturned bowls a while back and they were stunning! because the branches all sprout out at the same height in a ring around the main stem, a bowl has a single colour lower part - and dark "eyes" all around the top, amazing. unfortunately the bowls were too expensive for me - so I am stuck with an ugly tree in the garden:))

nothing much has been happening on the solar dyeing front - due to lack of sunshine really. getting the jars wet in the rain doesn't do anything for the dye takeup, so I started by putting one of the jars into a pot with hot water - inside. it's not really solar dyeing anymore, I know, but we're expecting visitors the week after next and I don't think they'll appreciate dye jars all over the house/garden.... and it doesn't use extra energy, because we light the fire for heating anyway, so it can just sit and heat up over night.

and tomorrow I'll be gone for the day, because the Connacht Textile Crafters meet at the museum in castlebar again. I am showing how to knit socks on 1, 2, 4 or 5 needles (joking really, of course the 1 is a circular needle - with two ends:)) - and I hope for reasonable weather, so that maybe we can use the marquee in the grounds and sneak outside if the sun comes out.....

off to ply some chiengora with alpaca!

ps: I forgot one very green near-garment here: the 3/4 finished birch leaves scarf I am still knitting! might not be mine forever though - could be that I don't want that much green around my neck after all, we'll see:))