By the way, whatever you do, never run a google search on the word chikan, it must be chikankari (easy to remember if you think of chicken curry!) Turns out that chikan is a slang word for public groping in Asia! If you search for only that, you'll be in for abit of a surprise. Don't say I didn't warn you!
Stitching down the patches with a hem stitch (is that what it's called?)
Instead - snatching a half hour here and a half hour there, between cooking for guests and getting homework done - I've been exploring... stuff... and taking snapshots around the place, as well as following up on favorites (and favorites of favorites) on Flickr.
Here are a few of my favorite snapshots from yesterday. You can see more on my Flickr profile (there's also now a mini slideshow of my images over on the right hand side here).
Clouds above Cecropia trees.
A tank garden that I'm experimenting with, with the view to later creating a small ecological pond in teh Los Charcos gardens, and somebody has just put hundreds of their tadpole offspring in there!
No time for self-reflection... I have dyes to rinse out!
The cloths I've been solar-dying with the seeds of Genipa americana or "guatil". You can read more about that here.
Hanging on the line to dry. I got some very pale(!), but very lovely, blackberry tones, all on natural fibers.
Silouhettes of the inflorescence of Stacharpheta frantzii dancing behind guatil dyed cotton weave. Colored shadows... Hmmmmm.... now there's an interesting concept!
Guatil dyed cloths once steam ironed and dryed.
Amazing forms created by dried tree fern fronds...
... on guatil dyed cottons.
It was all purple and brown. What a majestic combination! Cadbury's obviously know their color stuff! ;}
Speaking of color... For friends who are buried beneath the snow right now, and anyone suffering from sunlight deficit... here are a couple of extra snapshots that I took in my garden yesterday. Wish you were here! :)
Heliconia latispatha and Cecropia trees.
A small sunlit patch of the garden. Color and form!
