Yukon Gold

home for almost a week now, in the throes of Christmas preparation, but I did take some time to work with a few things I had gathered whilst in the yukon

a small forest path, through the trees, across the stream on a small wooden bridge... a walk of about 90 seconds really but lingering is a must

I walked it as a teenager, a short-cut to the small grocery store, it's still there all these years later

when I first got to Whitehorse in early November it had barely snowed and I saw a number of rosehips still clinging to the branches of the otherwise bare wild roses

some were still bright red, many were black - I gathered all I could find along with a couple of pinecones, one grey and the other brown and brought them home with me

on Monday I put it all into my small aluminium dyepot, added a few cups of tap water and left it to simmer on the stove for about 30 minutes

  a few scraps of various silk fabrics and one cotton piece were stirred in and left to simmer another hour... at that point I didn't really care if I got any colour at all as the house smelled absolutely heavenly and that alone felt like reward enough

the pot and it's contents were set aside for the night to be looked at in the morning... it was all a bit by guess and by golly so I didn't have high expectations but the next day I found all the silk had dyed a  shimmering golden brown; the cotton was a bit washed out but the richness of the silk more than made up for it

although the process I followed was rather haphazard I did make notes in my dye-book and attached samples so things are looking up on the recording front at least

the dye looked like it still had some oomph in it so I kinda sorta quickly "scoured" three skeins of cotton embroidery thread (bright white, natural white and ecru), skipped the mordant stage and put the thread in the jar of dye that still had all the plant material in it

and there it sits... I swish it around every day and perhaps tomorrow I'll put the jar in a pot of simmering water and let it heat up for a while

and continue with the daily swishing for a little longer...

I have several natural dye books and have read all about and done my fair share of proper scouring and other preparations for dyeing both cotton and silk fabric and thread with excellent results but I'm also willing to just wing it sometimes and see what I get and sometimes I strike gold

and speaking of gold, the photo below was the scene a friend saw as she drove into downtown Whitehorse today in the early afternoon... the low sun softened by mist rising from the river... golden light striking a path right to her feet

(photo credit C. Young)

-8 degrees and winter has never looked better