goldenMoment in Nashville

honey coloured gentleman holding the door

[to me]

"excuse me Ma'am, but which tribe are you from? reason I'm askin is that myself I'm half Cherokee"

being also honey coloured, it made my day.

feltquilts at shakerag

the quiltfelt landskin class very quickly settled into a splendid

sewing circle

many stories and much laughter

we entrusted ourselves entirely to Mother Nature during both this

and the walk in the woods class held the week before

and

[with the exception of kudzu and nepal grass, both noxious weeds]

relied on windfalls from the woods

and a few from the kitchens

to colour our cloth

[although some eucalyptus leaves snukkled in from Florida]

no synthetic mordants were used

only leaves and water

some found metal objects [iron and copper]

and a little milk to assist with dyeing linen and cotton

bio-regional colour...

Shakerag took a gamble

inviting a gypsy from across the Big Puddle

to venture into the Tennessee woods

and teach

and the gypsy is very grateful

shakerag

it's been a pretty intense fortnight here at

Shakerag

in the Tennessee woods

two big classes

some fascinating talks by other faculty members

and interesting lectures by invited speakers

Pam Dorr [Hero Housing in Alabama]

and

Natalie Chanin [Alabama Chanin]

links worth investigating...

and much delight

as we play with

Kudzu

the Scourge of the South

and print brilliant greens...

slip on over to Christine's blog

for more details

in between

yesterday i had a day off

so I went to Memphis

as you do

and here are some things i did for the first time

drove a Chrysler [likely also to be the last]

walked down Beale Street [and back up]

ate catfish

drank a Hurricane

helped count 127 churches along route 64

the visit was short but sweet

but i'll be back sometime...

the wonder of the woods

we wandered the woods

wrote by a cavern

drew images of plants

were told their names

and then went and made more bundles

the oak leaves were magical

as were the maples

and the maple-leaved viburnums

windfall eucalypts wandered in from Florida

and were eagerly consumed

[nil by mouth]

and in the end

we took our books back to the woods

if you go down to the woods today...

if you go down to the woods today

you'd better not go alone

never mind the teddy bears

you'll need a friend to do "tickcheck"

afterwards

insect life aside

the woods around Shakerag are very beautiful

with an amazing flora

but we're not picking

just collecting windfalls

and making delightful bundles

the first windfall walk revealed some spectacular colours

like that oak leaf print at bottom right [in the image above]

and this blue-green magic from a mystery leaf

and what about the Spanish Moss, i hear you mutter

unbundling yesterday

i discovered that what appeared to be silk

on that Japanese apron, was in fact a very clever substitute

[should have realised from the smell]

but the cotton part of the apron has taken on a gentle soft green

which doesn't reproduce well in pix

never mind. Virginia, a kind visitor to the original post

has provided this link

to someone who makes blankets from Spanish Moss

[just like in a fairytale]

and here's Virginia's blog as well

more windfallen treasure

walking back from City Park in New Orleans

i found several pieces of Spanish Moss [ Tillandsia usneoides ]

in the gutter of the road

so of course

it is now in a bundle

with a very special old and mended apron from Japan

and several pieces of metal pocketed

from the railway line near the banks of the Mississippi River

[that's em ei ess ess ei ess ess ei pee pee ei]

how many i's in the Mighty Mississippi?

depends how many fish is lookin up at you

the bundle is rather bigger than my little travelling cauldron

and so is being cooked bit by bit

first from one end and then from the other

time is your friend in the dyebath

[well, i hope so]

we were quite sad to leave New Orleans

but

are now at Shakerag

beginning a new adventure

the good and the sad

it's fun to pootle round New Orleans

shooting from the hip with

the modern equivalent of the box brownie

every so often

something sad finds its way into the frame

these poor mules work 18 hour days

forced to trot on the hard bitumen surface

wearing steel shoes

my feet [clad in wool socks and farm boots]

are killing me after 8 days of pavement walking

[they much prefer paddocks]

so i can imagine how tired those poor mules must feel

how their legs must ache

after working that hard surface all day

how about at least getting them some rubber shoes?

surely there'd be a market for rubber horseboots

perhaps made from recycled tyres

to take some of the banging out of those poor bones

there are horses the whirled over

working long days

pulling fat tourists about

on hard roads

at least these guys seem reasonably well fed

unlike their poor skeletal cousins in India

talkin through neW Orleans

converation in a thrift store on Bienville Street

how ya doin honey?

life's grand

you from these parts?

well, no

where then?

across the Big Puddle

oh. i'm not from here either. i'm from Baton Rouge

but i's lived here 40 years. you enjoying yourself here?

yes, thank you, very much

that's good, it's changed, though

this your first time in N'Orlins?

nah, was here in '83

then you know what it was like before...

walkin' through New Orleans

actually the title of the song is

'walkin to New Orleans'

but hey this is my page and i'll write what i like

wandering a block behind St Charles

in the Garden Quarter we find the Evergreen

flower shop

a curious place

that looks as though time has fallen asleep inside

the kindly proprietor insisted on making us a present

of a can of peach juice

in the vacant lot next door

only fragments of paving remain

the house succumbed to Katrina

grand houses line up little ways further along the street

suspect a black panther or two may lurk in the bushes somewhere

N'Orlins has a warm cheery surface

a

'hi honey, you's sure lurkin purdy today'

ambience

but we suspect a darker current simmers beneath the smiles

we speculate that plump tourists are lulled with

doctored daiquiris

before being lured away from the bright lights of Bourbon street

and cut into bite-size lumps for the 'gators

- all those alligators in the gator farms

must get sick of eating chicken all the time

in a sidestreet off Royal we find the Kitchen Witch

a fabulous bookstore harbouring

cookbooks old and new

garnished with lovely collections of things

such as these dragon cups

which remind me a little of some i once had

from my grandmother

that were consumed by the 83 fires

a while later

an emerald dragonfly flies out of the night

and into another store

blessing us with a moment of shimmering beauty

[images - except for that last one - courtesy of 'Helga' in the Camerabag app for iPhone]

oh really?

[oder vielleicht auch nicht...] *spotted in a window on Market Street, San Francisco

i see that someone who had her first experience of eucalyptus dyes in a two day class with me last year is now teaching about them at a European Museum. Apparently she will " teach everything you need to know about how to dye with Eucalyptus"

wow.

that's a promise that i am not brave enough to make - i haven't even learned all of the botanical names of the 1000 plus species and sub-species of that miraculous genus yet

or experimented with them all individually

maybe i should sign up for the class...

or retire

two kinds of basking

the folks above were listening to someone

those below

singing their own songs

through the looking glass and straight down the rabbit hole

i love this place

the architecture is fantastic

the city is full of amazing stairways

folks grow flowers on the sidewalk

[in Adelaide those daisies blooming in the gutter would have been

blasted firmly with a glyphosate spray long since]

you can take Toto into a store if you want

rather than leave him outside

unless he has other plans

and wants to sit in the sun on Vallejo while you get coffee at Caffe Trieste

[frankly the only coffee in town that's worth the drinking]

need a new pair of SquirrelPants? find 'em on Columbus.

not a perfect fit? alteration man will help

and there are some nice old ponies in the street

it's taking rather a toll on the shoe leather though

we seem to have covered more ground than

the car chases in Bullitt

a little slower perhaps

but with better continuity

getting misty

lovely to be back in foghornLand again

even if good coffee is hard to find

but what's alum doing on the seasoning shelf?

and who eats this?

or this?

tequila mockingbird?

scribbles might be a little sporadic over the next 5 weeks

as your scribe heads east over the Big Blue Pond

thought i'd leave you with this gem...

still [metaphorically] splashing about in the sea

The Leafy Sea Dragon Festival to be held in autumn of next year has announced a project for the event

for which they have very kindly appointed me as Artist in Residence

I'll be working together with members of the community

to create a series of plant-dyed silk flags with which we shall enliven the streets

best of all

we'll be holding a week of dyeing, followed by a lovely big sewing circle

that will fill a whole weekend

to make a big stitched cloth that will [we hope] have a little something from each person's garden bringing colour to it

more information to be had here