Squee! Christmas Movies!

And that leads us to Artsy Craftsy Goodness! Somehow…

I’d seen great costumes in movies before and every now and again some neat statue or sword would stand out but I’d never really put much thought into those things from an artist’s point of view until I was listening to a knitting podcast a few months back and the Caster was talking about new Spock’s knit sweater in the Star Trek Reboot movie.

For some ridiculous reason that was a complete boot to the head.

So I’ve started trying to pay more attention to the little things in movies – both new and old – in between the Bey-splosions (if you don’t get the reference, watch Robot Chicken).

This weekend, my family and I watched Sherlock Holmes (with Robert Downey Jr & Jude Law) and James Cameron’s Avatar.

Avatar was absolutely visually stunning. The jewelry was heavily African inspired (or at least it looked that way to me – maybe with Amazon influences?)  with the addition of lots of twisted and braided leather. I can’t wait for it to come out on DVD just so I can freeze frame it and sketch my little heart out. The female spiritual leader had a beaded top that was stunning – I believe I’ve seen a real world version but this one was a pure red that made me want to run out and bead my fingers off.

The leather headbands also made me itch to try macrame – not sure if that’s what they based the design off of but that’s what it brought to my mind. Everything was very natural and organic and – once again – absolutely beautiful.

In contrast, Sherlock Holmes was all about the Steampunk.  Not to an extreme but there were definite influences.  The female lead (I can’t remember her name) had some great boots (they flash on those towards the end) and had a jacket that was long in front and cut up and over the bustle of the dress in back. This was especially nice because it highlighted the contrast between the bright color of her dress against the grainy/moody surroundings.

I’m sure there were more things but with all the running, jumping, climbing trees it was a bit hard to focus (plus, you know, the Bey-splosions!). Again, this is another one I’m looking forward to owning simply for the freeze frame/sketching value.

So if you’re feeling stuck for inspiration – Hollywood may be the cure!

I’ve been obsessively planning and replanning… and replanning next year’s garden and I’ve decided to incorporate several plants that you can make natural dyes from (you know, the way it was done ‘back in the day’). This decision mostly came about after going through my Richters Herb Catalog and realizing that I wanted over $500 worth of seeds… ridiculous, eh? And that’s just the perennials (because I’m lazy – why replant things?).

Anyway, so the first plant on my list did double duty as both a medicinal herb and a dye plant so I decided to back through my list (did I mention I’m an obsessive list maker?) and pick out the plants that produced dye. I then wound up with a much more reasonable list (in my opinion anyway, hubby dosen’t agree) that came out to around $50.  Actually it’s a bit less because I realized one of the plants on the list grows ABUNDANTLY wild here… did I say abundantly? Let me emphasize ABUNDANTLY.

That plant would be Pokeroot, also known as Poke Berry. It’s berries can produce Red and Brown dyes. This plant likes to try to eat Mom’s rose garden on a regular basis – so that’s $2 saved.

The rest I’m looking at are:

1. Agrimony (Agrimonia eupatoria) – yellow, green, and gold dyes.
2. Yellow Bedstraw (Galium verum) – yellow and red dye.
3. Bloodroot (Sanguinara canadensis) – red-orange dye.
4. Dyer’s Broom (Genista tinctoria) – bright yellow dye.
5. Scotch Broom (Cytisus scoparius) – greenish-yellow and olive dye.
6. Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) – yellow, gold, tan, grey and taupe dye.
7. Coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria) – bright yellow-orange shades.
8. Curled Dock (Rumex crispus) – yellow, green, gold and tan dyes.
9. Elecampane (Inula helenium) – yellow and orange dyes.
10. Gipsywort (Lycopus europeaus) – black!
11. Goldenseal  (Hydrastis canadensis) – yellow dye.
12. Lilly of the Valley (Convallaria majalis) – green dye.
13. Golden Marguerite (a type of Sunflower) (Anthemis tinctoria) – yellow or gold dye.
14. Garden Sorrel – (Rumex acetosa) – blue and green dyes.
15. Tansey – (Tanacetum vulgare) – yellow and green dyes.

Plus I just read that Sunflowers can be used to make dye as well (I didn’t realize Marguerite was a Sunflower at first) – and since I was going to plant a mix of those in the veggie garden to deter pests I’ll get to test the different color plants to see what dyes they make (because just starting with a yellow plant dosen’t mean you’ll get a yellow dye). I wonder what color will come from the darker reddish-brown flowers? We’ll see!

A word of warning for those looking to set up a Dyer’s Garden – DO YOUR RESEARCH!  Several of these plants are poisonous – either in whole or just parts, to animals or humans or both. Some of these plants will damage others if planted too close while others will help. Just read a lot about them from multiple sources and be aware of your own allergies/sensitivities and those of your family members and pets.

Reading about the ones I”ve chose above is making me tweek my garden plans but so far I haven’t read anything to make me steer away from any of my choices (although it was a close call on the Bloodroot).

I’ve got most of the garden layout nailed down – we’re not going to do any large gourds this year but I may run some spinner gourds and egg gourds up the dog kennel fence or the privacy fence around the ‘barnyard’.

As a side note the gourds I harvested this fall are slowly hardening… I think. It’s a very strange process and I’m not sure how many of them are going to make it. Some of them have rotted (most of the ones that did are ones I expected to but there were a few surprises). There are some that look like they’re rotting but when you tap on them they’re still hard and sound okay – I guess, not that’d I’d really know for sure since this is the first year for this. But we’ll see how it goes. You can check them out in the green-on-the-vine-glory here.

Found these beauties at the Goodwill - and my husband wanted me to leave them there! But for $2 – I couldn’t leave that tacky goodness behind! I think I’m going to spray paint them Lime Green… or White… I haven’t decided yet. What do you think?

They’re made by Syroco, USA, Copyright 1966. (The date was in Roman Numerals and being educated in the public school system I went here to figure it out).

I joined the ARBA – The American Rabbit Breeders Association! I also registered a Rabbitry name – The Twisted Wabbitry (Thank you Maria for the inspiration!).

By joining the ARBA I get to attend their shows where I can have my rabbits compared to the breed standard by qualified judges – they also have judges that only look at the quality of the fiber but you have to show in the breed category too from what I understand.

I also registered my rabbitry – The Twisted Wabbitry.  That means when I fill out my pedigrees on my eventually baby Buns (if/when I sell) they’ll show as Twisted’s Domino or Twisted’s Wonka, etc, on the paperwork. This allows people to always be able to identify where my rabbit came from and contact me directly if they have an issue or question. Of course this means I’ve got to get a tattoo setup so I can tag my guys. Pedigreed rabbits have a number/letter combination tattooed in their left ear; that number also goes on their pedigree forms.  I’ll have to decide also what I want that mark to be – it’s usually 5 digits I believe.

I think I need to transfer my registered rabbits into my name but I’m still looking into that one.

I’m also going to joining the National Angora Rabbit Breeders Club which is a specialty club under the ARBA dealing only with Angoras.

The Twisted Wabbitry is going to specialize in naturally colored French Angora Rabbits and fiber since the majority of my buns are non-white.

I’ve decided on my next breeding combinations – I had wanted to try to breed this month but it’s been absolutely frigid here and alot of sites I’ve read this week have said the Does aren’t as receptive this time of year and if they do manage to kindle then they may reabsorb the babies during gestation so I think I’m going to wait, but here’s what I want to do:

Abby is a registered Ruby-eyed White but her undercoat tends to felt right on her so I’m planning to breed her with Bucky who’s a Broken Black, meaning he’s white with black spots. I’m hoping this will improve the coats on the babies and we can get some nice brown-eyed white rabbits out of it. Bucky’s two surviving kits (Domino and Wonka) have absolutely beautiful coats that are soft, fluffy, and does not mat very badly at all even with very little grooming – just like their father.

I also want to breed Sundown and Little Joe. According to their pedigrees Joe is a Fawn color and Sundown is a lynx, I don’t know what the definition of those colors are but just looking at them I’d say Sundown is a fawn and Little Joe is the lynx but whatever.  By crossing them I’m hoping to get an improvement on Sundown’s coat which I feel is very hair-like and limp while Little Joe’s is fluffy and soft. Color-wise I hope to get a full spread from orange to a wild rabbit brown.

Then we’ll try our last attempt with Gertie to Yoder. Both are blackish-gray, non-pedigree, from the Amish small-animal auction. I’m hoping that the issue we had with Gertie with her first litter was due to age – I’m thinking she may have been right on the cusp of breeding age when she had them and maybe that contributed to the issue? Physically she’s changed a lot since then so we’ll cross our fingers on this one.  Again I’m hoping for a coat improvement.  Yoder’s is very soft and fluffy but for some reason the ends of his fur want to felt together which causes that hank of fur to slowly twist and felt up until he gets these u-shaped mats which pinch him. He gotten the most grooming this year out of everyone but still has the worst matting. If Gertie abandons this litter then we’re going to retire her to a fiber only bun.

You can see pictures of everybody here.

Apparently there is a correlation between knitting and that saying about the forest and the trees…

Remember how I mysteriously put my cables on the back of my Pasa Doble shaw? Well I took my knitting and the pattern to the wonderful folks at Knit Wits in Evansville, Indiana (a-not-so-local-yarn-store) and begged for help. The lovely lady (I believe her name was Chris – but I could be wrong because I’m horrible with names) dutifully checked for errata online, read and re-read the pattern and carefully examined my knitting. After about 20 minutes of these she turned to me and said… the cables are fine! It’s the bobbles that are on the wrong side… and she promptly pushed the back through to the other side.

DOH! DOH! DOOOOOH!

That’s what I get for not paying attention to the whole Right Side/Wrong Side bits of the pattern. In theory I shouldn’t have to redo what I’d already done but some of the stitches on the bobbles loosened up on their journey to the other side and they kinda stick out now. So I’m going to tie off this bit of folly and start again.  I may even frame it as a reminder that it’s good to get excited by a pattern but don’t get so excited that you lose your common sense – geez!

By the way – Cindy M and Paula D thought it was hilarious… or maybe they were just laughing at all my irritated expressions when I told them about it….