Guatil or Jagua... and my trip cancelled!

Ha! So you weren't expecting to hear from me today, huh? I cancelled my trip to San Jose. I slept very badly, dreaming about some damned blocked toilet, of all things... only to wake up and discover that I have serious stomach issues today! So, whilst it's kind of ironic to be cancelling a doctors' appointment on the basis of being sick (ironic, or just plain wierd!), it didn't seem like a good idea to be heading off on an 8 hour road journey under these circumstances (and I know you know what I mean!). So, not feeeling that great today. My belly hurts and I feel hot(ter) and nauseous. But, HEY! I'm happy and I get to stay at home. Which means I get to carry on blogging! :))) and stitching! :))) etc.!:)))

I promised I was going to tell you about Genipa americana (Rubiaceae), locally known as "Jagua" or "Guatil".

This is one of those truly miraculous plants, the fruits of which have been used by indigenous people here in Costa Rica (and elsewhere in tropical America) for hundreds of years. And more about that in a moment. I've been hoping to get my hands on some and try it out for myself for ages. So you can imagine how delighted I was when Reinaldo came back from the field on Thursday with several fruits from this plant (which you can see in my previous post).

Here's a photo of the flower of this species, which not too many people can claim to have seen! But you now can!















Fabulous flowers, aren't they? The image was taken by Reinaldo (c). Apart from being the region's botanical expert, he is also known (and published!) for his amazing plant (taxonomical) photography, which means that I have access to a library of 60,000+ plant images. And if that lot doesn't provide me with any creative inspiration, well... let's face it, nothing will!!!















Remember that book about Pre-columbian printing stamps that I showed you in an earlier post entotled The Seals of Time? Well, inside it discusses this plant, saying,

"... Today, some indigenous groups such as the Embera of Panama and Columbia, use a blacl colored pigment that is extracted from the fruit of a Guatil or Jagua (Genipa americana), with which they make body decorations".

Ah... tattoos, then! When you look at certain ceramics of the Pre-Columbian period, you can see that the figures are often decorated. I always thought that was just a way of decorating the ceramic itself. But, no! This actually is showing us how the people would have appeared, doning these non-permanant tattoos made from natural pigments. including from G. americana.

The following are images of Pre-columbian ceramics that I snapped recently, in the Pre-columbian Gold and Jade museums in San Jose (we're in Costa Rica, incase you didn't already know).















A face vase... with human teeth!



















Seated female figure and pots.



















Her nextdoor neighbor.



















A high-ranking female, with jaguar-type tattoos.



















A shy standing figure.















Nilo, studying an exhibit with his Grandma, my Mother-In-Law, the very lovely Mercedes Francisca.



















Who is definately the Cacique!... or, at least, of indigenous origin.















And here are some examples of the stamps that were used by the Pre-columbians, to decorate their bodies, as well as other surfaces.

WOW! This stuff just blows me away!!!

So... back to the dye pot...















I have started a small jar of guatil dye, with three small pieces of rolled and folded cotton. When I first put the seeds into the boiling water in the jar they and the water looked like this.















A few moments later, it looked like this.















After a while longer, it looked like this. Not what I call black. More of an indigo-purple. And OMG it really does stain skin! So, if I don't get good results from this, I'm giving up!















Half a fruit pressed onto calico.



















It reminded me of this... coming next!!!!

A little blue?

I'm feeling a little blue today, knowing that I have to leave in the (early!) morning, to make that damned long journey to the city again. Another 8 hours on a stuffy coach. I'm thinking about what stitching to take along for the ride. I never like to have to leave my little home and the boys. This is a quick one. I hope to be back on Wednesday. We have guests booked all of next week!

I've been playing with the fruits of Conostegia subcrustulata (Melastomataceae) again. The last time I tried to solar dye with these, I used too few fruits and it just turned the small scrap of cloth a slightly tan color. So yesterday Nilo and I gathered more fruits for this small experiment. We have alot of these shrubs in the garden and the great thing is - assuming that this dye is ever going to work for me - that they fruit and flower constantly throughout the year. Discover more about this plant here















Thought you might like this image of buds and immature fruits of Conostegia subcrustulata and a visiting grasshopper. The image was taken by Reinaldo.

So... on with the show!



















First I masked a small square of calico, leaving narrow spaces between each strip of tape.



















Then I started to smush the berries with a wooden pestle directly onto the cloth.



















Doesn't that look yummy! Actually, you can eat these berries, they're sweet and gritty because they have so many minute seeds (which you can see in the images).




















This is how it looked when I had done that with all of the gaps.

Next...















A random berry smushing! Pour the berries onto the cloth, place a sheet of paper on top, and roll over it all with a rolling pin.



















Hmmm... interesting! Love that vibrant blue where the light shines through. It reminds me of...

When I was a child I was fascinated by the color of the jars of Vick's Vapor Rub when held up to the light. It was the only bit of entertainment one got when sick. I have a love of Bristol Blue Glass, especially that which comes in the form of a bottle of Harveys Bristol Cream, which, sadly, I can no longer drink :( I went to the Bristol blue glass factory on a school trip once. It was very cool! My (other) home town is about 40 minutes drive from the city of Bristol.

Moving on...















Some very random strokes made with a paint brush, with concentrated berry smush juice,painted direct onto the cloth.















A close-up...















I especially like this section.















And here they all are, hanging out. I'm leaving them there... because, let's face it, it is never going to rain!















And here is a new solar dye experiement, this time using a much higher concentration of these fruits and a piece of rolled calico.















This morning it looks like this... I'm optimistic! I will leave it in the sun soaking for a week.















I had to put a rock on the top to hold the cloth under!

Coming soon!...















Reinaldo came back from the field with several of these yesterday... Genipa americana (Rubiaceae - that's the coffee family). But more about that later!

My posts seem to get longer and longer. Thanks for your attention span!

Calmly at it like crazy

I was planning to post this last night, but then the power went out, which meant that I had to shut down my computer and get back to the house. My workspace (i.e. the dining room) is seperate from the house. Too complicated to explain that! Anyway, luckily, a draft had been saved and I just needed to add a couple of the final images. So here it is!

I'm later than usual today. Probably nobody will see this until tomorrow. I've been happy (and hot!) all day, whizzing around on the internet, studying all kinds of truly amazing things, and my head is nearly popping off. I always get tonnes of ideas like that.

I want to share this with you. I have to say I was very impressed. I can't remember the last time I visited a gallery and liked so many of their artists. I looked at every piece (not all to my taste it's true) and was inspired by many. And I think you will be too! Especially all of you who work in cloth. Enjoy!

Before all of that, last night I did abit more on the frame of my soft pale cloth (which has no name yet). And here's what I did (see the upper line!)















This is the back-to-back buttonhole stitch, single woven.















Just weaving in and out of the buttonhole stitches as shown in the above image, with 2 strands of DCM silk thread #436 (Ha! I saved the number band this time), which is a lovely golden yellow color (Susan, that kind of came from your comment, so thank you for that!)















Here it is again, but this time double woven. Now you can see the complimentary color better. This is what's known as a composite stitch as it is made up of more than one type. It has a name... it's just that I can't remember it!


You probably haven't noticed, but I am slowly deconstructing this piece ;} Little by little, I'm taking out the stitches on the wheat. Maybe they will disappear altogether?... Or, maybe they will appear soon with a darker outline?... I haven't decided yet!















I've also now added this little rectangle of also solar dyed (with bark) cloth. It's a shade or so darker. And I did abit of mini kantha stitching over it.



















Up close it looks like this. I like it! I love the way the texture of the cloth changes when you do this. The stitching gives the cloth a very lovely weight, a kind of gentle rigidness.

When that was done. I went surfing... the net, that is! I started out by Googling for images of Ancient Cloth. Well, that was fun! I found this and looking at it at first, I couldn't be sure if it was cloth, or if it was stone carving. I went to the site's homepage, and here I found quite a selection of images of Ancient Iran: Sasanian dynasty. More stone sculptures?... or are those really cloth too, do you think?

That all got the old grey stuff quivering. Thinking about stone... and cloth. Cloth... and stone, (probably you know the game, when I played it as a child, it was hammer, rock, cloth/paper.) Then I started thinking about how one might go about working from images of stone carvings, converting them to cloth. And that made me think of Deb Lacativa and her amazing work and her technique of brushing on acrylic medium. I bet she would do a great job on the stone-carvings-to-cloth idea! I might even have a go at it myself!

My bloke ;} arrived home from San Jose at lunchtime this morning. He's been away since Friday. Nice to have him back of course, but the best news is that he's bought me a Dongle! Don't worry ladies... and possibly gents I suppose... nothing saucey about it. For those of you who don't already know, it's a device that fits into the USB slot of a computer and works like a phone to connect to the internet from wherever you are... WOW. (3rd generation technology in Costa Rica?... I must be dreaming!). This means that, for just 17,000 colones/month I can stay online all month if I want to. YEAH! To give you some idea, we have been paying around 50,000 colones/month for my connection (that's $100/per month folks!). So, Dongle - think I'll call him Dougal the Dongle - arrives in the nick of time, as we don't have jobs right now.















I'm A Very Happy Camper! :)

Also, remember the [s]lime green cloth from the other day?... well, the story has a happy ending. Don't ask me how, but once rinsed in the machine and hung out to dry...




















... there was hardly very much green on it. Overall, it's a pretty nice rosey biege.... again (seems that's the color all of my stuff turns out!) I've also tried to show how it's changed (in the image below). It's abit subtle, but I'm comparing it to a piece of cloth that is the same color my dyed cloth when it started out (the piece with my crazy new stitching attempts on it).















And here are some things I was doodling today without realizing. Think I can use those somewhere.

You... and that joyous bouncing feeling!

Reading about the brilliant things that you are doing, I am filled with joie de vie this morning! As a Basque country friend has written on her Facebook profile... L is G!

Well?... isn't it??? :}

Inspite of the fact that I have one of those visually crippling type headaches looming in the shadows somewhere, making me feel a little nauseous, and kind of sweaty (or is it that I'm menopausal... I wasn't feeling that great last night either, but that happens quite frequently to me). And inspite of the fact that my small workspace (a self-deligated corner of the dinning room) looks like this...















... I am feeling totally fueled! And it's definately got to do with the flow of creative energy pouring out from you. And I've noticed that links to my blog have started to appear in other people's sidebars recently, and so thank you for those kind thoughts *:)

Well now, I was over at Hannah's this morning ;} and she has a lovely post, involving her attempts at chinese papercut, the results of which are really bold and fabulous. Her talking about cutting paper snowflakes, reminded me of a What-about - I guess that's my version of a What-If, - which I sketched in my notebook a few weeks ago. And no, I'm afraid it isn't inspired by snow in anyway, since all we've had for weeks is sun, sun, and more sun! Oh yes, and the odd earthquake!



















This is my "What-about cutting cloth like cutting paper snowflakes?"

At the time, I don't always get what these scruffly little sketches are about. But then, you have to do them, 'coz you never know where they might take you later. I haven't tried this idea yet. I don't know how... or if it would even work.

Following on, from somewhere, I can't say from where exactly, came these new bag designs and lept onto the next blank page...



















And I'm realizing just how much my style has to with rustic simplicity. Give me a bit of scraggy old cloth and some hand stiching and I'm in my element! ;} Can't wait to apply that to printing on cloth too.

Back to my soft pale cloth... Last night, during the commercial breaks of Dr. House, (one of my few televisual indulgences!) I worked on this little frame, which consists of back-to-back rows of buttonhole stitch. Simple! Isn't that a pretty stitch... albeit crudely handled!
















And here's a close-up...















Earlier, yesterday afternoon, I was suddenly grabbed by the idea of roughly outlining the Wheatear stitching with a single thread of dark chocolate colored DCM silk.



















Don't know what came over me! I'm still not sure about that. What do you think??? In anycase, it has been removed. But who knows, could just as easily reappear!

Also last night... busy little bee arne't I?... I decided to rinse out an unbleached cotton cloth that I've been solar dying with red onion skins for the past week. As you may know, I love magenta. I've tried with red cabbage, but you know, that whole PH thing... when you add an acid or an alkaline to red cabbage, makes it very hard to control the results when dying coth. At least, I got the cloth to turn a gorgeous shade or purple, and then, stupidly, I rinsed it with soap powder and, hey presto!, the whole thing turned a wild sea-witch green! So I thought I'd try it with red onion skins instead.

At first, it looked to have been a great shiborial success. Then I rinsed it... using soap powder ... and... OMG! ... PUTRID!

As it appeared it rapidly began to leach its way down the length of the cloth! I was not expecting that! I ran for my camera.These are not good photos, as the light was poor, and my hands were so soapy that I could barely push the shutter button, never mind focus at the same time, but you'll get the picture. Just take a look at this...















EWE! Arlee is gonna love this!















And here you can see the difference. The left-hand side is still nice and purpley. The right-hand side... isn't!















And, in the end, it all looked like this. Very... umm... yucky!

I haven't dared look at it in the light of day! Who knows what might be lurking in the outside sink this morning!

Did you know that that could happen with red onion skins? Why didn't you warn me?

I've done some mental maths (N.B. my maths has always been very mental!) and I figure $400 for a 5-day creativity advance here on the Osa Peninsula is what it would cost. That would include full board and lodging, but not flights (international or internal) or hotel stay-overs that may be needed on the night of arrival and probably the night prior to departure. Anyway I'm curious to hear what you think about that price? In theory, at least, is it reasonable, or not?

Sew exciting to me

The news sew far on the cloth with the repeating "eyes" pattern, that turned out to be so popular in my own small world ...



















Three down (well, more or less) and only six more to go! So, I should be done by... the end of March! And that's just the center piece of a larger cloth (which I still haven't mentioned in detail).

Yesterday, I finished cleaning up the remaining jars of cloth that I started solar dying at the end of last year, most of which didn't work that well, (this year, I am going to try harder, and use mordants). Still, I was pleased to find, in amongst all the cloth scraps, this bit of silk thread, which had previously been white - well, ecru really - but which has now turned...















... a sweet, rosey shade of biege (if you see what I mean). Veriegated and all! And that got me started!















Remember, an idea from the other day?... Well, I had been wanting of use paler tones to work on this. It's related to that idea I had a while back about trying out same-on-same color. In the image above you can see a dried inflorescence from a Bromeliad (Pineapple family), which caught my eye in the garden the other morning. I've been ruminating on it ever since, and on how I could stitch something like it.

This is sew exciting (to me, anyways!)... I have learnt a fancy new stitch!



















Wheatear Y'all! ;}

This fancy, yet ever-so-simple embriodery stitch, I taught myself using Sharon B's Stitch Dictionary, a comprehensive online Stitches for Dummies, including for stitch idiots such as myself. I will be adding the site link to my ever growing list over on the right-hand side there.



















Detail of my Wheatear stitching, using 1 strand of solar dyed DCM silk thread, mixed with 1 strand of milk coffee colored DCM silk thread (can't tell you which one, as I have typically lost the number band) on solar dyed cloth. I love the wholesome quality that is starting to appear. It's just what I had in mind. Rustic and simple... Rather like me ;}


"Oh, hello sweetie, where did you come from?"















A beautiful weevil with eye markations decided to visit my cloth.

Yesterday, I found the blog page of Hannah Lamb. WOW!

Hannah, (I know that you don't actually read my blog, but...) I think this is love! ;}