busy days

I've just had the loveliest of weeks...

and a rainbow of colour has emerged 

we're moving on to pen and paper in the ink-making workshop so I wanted to finish my inks and get them bottled, ready for the dip pen

designing the labels was almost as much fun as making them... almost

I used hot-pressed watercolour paper with brown Kraft cardstock underneath

iron gall ink for the writing

all the coloured threads except the red one on the end were dyed with the inks themselves

the red is made with the addition of tartaric acid and the coloured thread disintegrated in my hands as I rinsed it

who knew?

below are the blacks 

the iron gall "farm" version on the right was made with oak galls I gathered at my sister-in-law's farm in Oregon several years ago

as I gain proficiency with the dip pen my labels will have more information on them but for now it was tricky enough just to get the names and pertinent information

next is to work on my ink-making journal

so far I've made colour swatches for the title page

I've also added samples of the indigo ink-dyed cloth and thread

I don't want this book to turn into a massive "art" project - rather, I want a journal to record processes, recipes and inspiration in

something full of jots and scribbles and ink splodges

it's easy for me to get caught up in neat and tidy with regimented rows of samples and such but that isn't at all what I want

looking at the picture above it seems I'm not off to a roaring start...

time to get some ink on my fingers and turn the page!