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onsdag den 14. august 2024

Words for Wednesday & World Photography Week

The Word for Wednesday challenge started a long time ago. Now it has turned into a movable feast with Elephant's Child as our coordinator; and the Words are provided by a number of people.
The prompts for August  are provided by Mimi @ Messymimi's Meanderings.

The general idea of this challenge is to make us write. Poems, stories, subtitles, tales, jokes, haiku, crosswords, puns, ... you're the boss.
Use all Words, some Words, one Word, or even none of them if that makes your creative juices flow. Anything goes, only please nothing rude or vulgar.

 It is also a challenge, where the old saying
"The more the merrier" holds true.

So Please, remember to follow the links, go back and read other peoples' stories. And please leave a comment after reading. Challenges like this one thrives on interaction, feedback and encouragement. And we ALL need encouragement.

This week's prompts are:

Fraud
Weak
Unaware
Wind
Cope
Morning
    and/or these not as common as they used to be words
Fusty
Prepence
Clement

Today I dyed with different plants. In the morning I picked tickseed and tansy and hollyhocks, I also picked up some walnuts that the strong wind had blown down. In my stash I found madder roots, some red leaves - the fusty smell took me unaware and I began coughing; carefully so as not to blow away the plant materials - and some cochineal; calling this a plant dye is a small scale fraud, as it is not a plant, but a  bug living on cacti. Even a weak solution of those bugs dyes a load of yarn. I was not clement in my treatment of said bugs, but mashed them with a glass mortar and pestle to wring every ounce of colour from them.

    ... and now I used all the words but prepence, which I could not really get the hang of. But I'm not done with the telling. 

I grated the walnut husks, broke up the red leaves, and picked the petals from the tickseed flowers. Then I distributed it all unevenly over two wet hanks of yarn, also adding a teeny tiny amount of the mashed up cochineal bugs. The hanks were then firmly rolled into a piece of an old sheet.

The rest of the bugs were dissolved in water and the water poured into a glass. A third hank of yarn was added to this glass. Hollyhocks, tansy, more tickseed and walnut was packed with a hank of thicker yarn into yet another glass and weighed down with pebbles.

Everything went into the wonderful pot for two hours. Then came the patience testing wait while it cooled off enough for me to touch.

-- 🌿 🌻 🌺 🍁  --

I dag har jeg farvet med forskellige planter. I morges plukkede jeg skønhedsøjer og rejnfan og stokroser, og jeg samlede også nogle valnødder op, som den stærke vind havde blæst ned. I mit lager fandt jeg kraprødder og røde hasselblade - den støvede lugt overraskede mig, og jeg begyndte at hoste; forsigtigt for ikke at blæse plantematerialerne væk - og noget cochenille. At kalde det en plantefarve er nok ikke helt korrekt, det er nemlig ikke en plante, men en lus, der lever på kaktusser. Selv en svag opløsning af disse lus kan farve en masse garn. 
     Jeg var ikke blid i min behandling af de små lus, men knuste dem med en glasmorter og en støder for at få hver eneste gram farve ud af dem.
     Jeg rev valnøddeskallerne på et rivejern, knuste de røde blade og plukkede kronbladene af skønhedsøjerne. Så fordelte jeg det hele ujævnt over to våde fed garn og tilføjede også en lillebitte smule af de knuste  cochenillelus. Garnet blev derefter rullet stramt ind i et stykke af et gammelt lagen.
     Resten af lusene blev opløst i vand, og vandet blev hældt i et glas. Et tredje fed garn blev puttet ned i glasset.
    Stokroser, rejnfan, mere skønhedsøje og valnød blev pakket med et fed tykkere garn i endnu et glas og tynget ned med grus og småsten.
     Alle glassene og rullen kom i den vidunderlige gryde i to timer. Så kom den tålmodighedsprøvende ventetid  mens det afkølede nok til, at jeg kunne røre ved det.

Pictures  --  Billeder
Høsten -- The harvest

Cocheniller -- Cochineal

Cochenillemagi, farven er nu på garnet -- Cochineal magic, the dye is on the yarn now.

Rullen efter dampning i gryden -- The roll after steaming in the pot

Unpacked -- rullet ud

Og her hænger de så til tørre -- and all hung out to dry.

11 kommentarer:

  1. It seems like an easy process but it probably isn't. I hadn't dye anything before so no clue. It seems it could get pretty messy.

    I think the word is prepense with an S instead of a C. I made the same mistake. Spellcheck seems to think prepence is correct but I can't find the word on any online dictionaries.

    Have a lovely day.

    SvarSlet
    Svar
    1. lissa, in my home dictionary which is quite old, it has an S and the meaning is premeditation.

      Slet
    2. I just copy/pasted the words from Mimi's blog. I found out it meant something like premeditation as well, but could not wrap my head around how to use it in a sentence.
      I did not think of checking the spelling, as my spellchecker does not like prepence, but comes up with no helpful suggestions either ... pretence or presence is not what I mean, no thanks.
      Online Merrian-Webster at least tells me that prepenSe is how it's spelled. Sensible as pense-something has to do with thinking.

      Slet
    3. ... and oh yes, dyeing is messy. You should see my fingers, stained with walnut, cochineal and hollyhock. I have to take care not to spill or drop anything. It's also quite easy and so much fun. Go for a walk, pick some leaves, flowers and things and then make colourful yarn and fabrics!

      Slet
  2. I like the colour distribution of the hanks that got rolled in fabric and it left a nice pattern on the fabric too.
    I'm trying to think how to fit prepense into a story, but can't come up with anything.

    SvarSlet
    Svar
    1. Thank you - I love plant dyeing, it's the closest thing to magic in real life.
      This morning I realised that I left out the flowers that dye yellow from the pink/green rolled hank - oops. Into the pot it goes once again.
      Prepense is a beast. Maybe just a word to stumble over in a dictionary?

      Slet
  3. These are beautiful! Thank you for working the words into your wonderful story of dyeing yarn.

    SvarSlet
    Svar
    1. Thank you for supplying the words. I love this fun.

      Slet
  4. I especially like that pale pink yarn, and the sheet you wrapped yarn in. Will you use the fabric for something?

    SvarSlet
    Svar
    1. Thank you, yes I will eventually use the stained piecve of cotton for something. The last one was turned into a sewing bag, Leg me see what happens this time around.

      Slet
    2. ...a nd today - September 8, this comment of Jenny's was marked as spam. Stupid Blogger. Do you really think I'd leave a spam comment here for so long - and better still answer to it?

      Slet

Jeg bliver altid glad for en kommentar, og prøver at svare på alle kommentarer .

I am grateful for all comments, and try to reply meaningfully to all of them.