Bookmarks, Dyeing Ribbons, Birds in the Bushes, Finishing my first Hooked Rug etc

First a little update on my last post -Prairie Sky II. I couldn`t say before but this piece was purchased by my friend Jody`s partner as an anniversary gift.  The best part is that Jody, a Saskatchewan girl, former co-worker, and my choir director, wrote a song called Ìnfinite Blue`  which was the motivation behind my two (so far) prairie pieces.   Her song, in turn, was inspired by a poem written by her mom.  Happy to say that she was thrilled with the piece and with the thoughtfulness of her partner.   Oh, I love secrets!


On  Friday I brought some new bookmarks out to The Pickle Dish in Carleton Place - a fabric shop and more.   Jan really liked the new fabric ribbon embroidered ones and took them all to sell in her shop.

 

 

Soooo,  yesterday I got out my little ribbon dyeing kit that I purchased from Ribbonsmyth and dyed some ribbons.  This little kit contained 4 basic colours - a red, green, blue and yellow - and I was able to mix them to create some really nice colours.  It came with lots of instructions, recipes, and pipettes.    It was so easy to do - just a plastic container in the microwave for 1-3 minutes and voila!!   I dried them in minutes under the lilac tree, ironed them and soon had a little bag of lovely silk ribbon.

I`m not sure if I can re-create these colours but next time I will make note of the number of drops of each colour I used - maybe even make a sample card - but for now I was just playing!!   I put a piece in water afterwards as instructed and it didn`t seem to colour the water so I`m pretty sure they are colour fast.   Can`t wait to try out more - and maybe order more colours:)  I do believe I read somewhere to dry them inside so the colours are not faded by the sun but mine were out for only a few minutes in the shade and dried nicely.


The last two weeks was also a time for getting things done.  I finished my first little hooked rug this week - hooked in the last few yarns, folded back the raw edges and sewed a one inch binding on the back to secure it.  It was waiting to be finished off for awhile but in the last two weeks  I have tackled some major unfinished business - cleaning my office, buying a car, booking some work on my eaves, so why not tackle some UFOs.

And now for something completely different.  This year my serviceberry bush had copious amounts of berries.   I had to do some research to find out just what this bush was because the birds and squirrels gobbled the berries like there was no tomorrow.....next year I plan to get in on the act too.

This young blue jay actually sidled up to the chipmunk and was begging to be fed

But it was too busy filling its face with juicy berries

 

Eventually mom or dad appeared and role modelled for the youngsters how to pick their own berries

The squirrels ate them by the handfuls

sometimes hanging upside down - don't try this at home

Cardinals and robins were able to eat them on the fly but they were too fast for me to snap a picture

I'm linking up with  the Needle and Thread Network WIP Wednesdays.     See what other Canadian fibre artists are doing this week.