Day 6 of The Artist Practice Foraging and wild dying

Fresh blackberries

all for free…

Foraging with friends and little friends for the day: I was lucky enough to go foraging on the golf course close to where I live with my friend and little friends in the heat of the summer. It was so, so hot. We were in the shade of the woods making it fun. We picked blackberries, so many available and all for free! We didnt pick more than we needed- thats a rule and then there was the treasure.

It was getting too hot and time to go, we wandered slowly, back towards the car. The Elderberry tree was spotted and it was packed full of fruit. That’s when the stick with the hook came in handy. You can only reach so far the hook aids the pleasure. One can pick and the other can hook. Hook and pick. Pick and hook. Teamwork. Really good way to get to know someone as well. Not through words, through action. The word yoga come to mind- union or yoke.

Wild Dying: I was so enthralled by the colours from the wild dying I got from the black berries and the elderberries. The solar jars got so hot and the mulberries and purples and lilacs on the silks were vibrant and the salt mordant worked a treat. The blackberry cotton was a bit grey and not much to it bit it still worked. I particularly liked the way the seeds left marks on the cloth. Something to play with at a later date.

I will try and get out there next week for I fear that by then all the fruit will be gone and I will mourn the loss of the berries until next year. Hopefully mum will have fruit trees in the back garden and then I can steal some leaves for dye baths from pears and apples. I picked up a small twig full of leaves and its nice and dried. Really be fun to check out some petal dying too.

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I haven’t been back. The fruit may all be gone by now. Autumn is coming. I have leaves and bark from my mums garden and sometime soon I hope to get round to making some more wild dye. I have watched Youtube vids on petal dying and nicked dried Holly Hocks flowers off the scorched grass. Seems so weird that it became so hot. An experience I am sure that will come again.

All this around us all of the time. I just harvested some lavender from another friend. I real sense of sharing between us all.

Dried lavender from fresh…