penny moons, thoughts of blue and more

It hardly seems possible that it has been almost 3 weeks since my last post here but if you have been keeping up in various other places ( slow cloth, facebook, my online class, my new bigcartel shop, JANM to name a few) you know it has been a very busy 3 weeks.
I have restocked the bigcartel shop with more indigo- 10 sets each of the boro packs, the bookmarks, and the indigo moons. I know there are still a few sets in transit as it took me a couple of weeks to get through the last batch of orders with everything else I had going on. I also rearranged the outdoor wet studio to better accommodate the daily indigo dyeing that is taking place. This next set of orders will all be shipped out next Tuesday, latest! Each new indigo order will include one of what I call my “penny moons”.

Penny moons are just that- tiny little inchies (1.5×1.5) on silk noil made using pennies and of course, indigo dyed. Each bigcartel order gets one as a gift but you can order a set of 5 penny moon inchies all by themselves if you like.

The shibori workshop for kids at the JANM (Japanese American National Museum) this past weekend was really great fun. The main room was filled all day with parents and kids doing crafts make & take style. My workshop was in a separate classroom and was full with 20 kids for the full 2 hours. They really got to experiment and had a lot of fun learning about the different ways one could make shibori. Even the little ones did some stitched work. The itajime is their favorite though. They could make penny moons all day long and never make two alike! they also love playing with the colors and most had never dyed anything before. You can see a set of photos here.

(Just a note- the shibori workshop for “big kids” on the 27th at JANM is sold out)

I have been stitching on a few things- mostly indigo related. I had some scrap indigo cloth left over from the boro packs and thought I would make my own version of a “topsy-turvy” doll. Probably for as long as people have been sewing, rag dolls have been made with scraps. I have two special rag dolls I have saved from the early 1900’s -presumably made by my great grandmother. They are all cloth and one is near threadbare. Both have one black and one white face. My doll is indigo blue and each side has a simple stitched face. I will make a few of these. I’m making one now for Wendy’s kids. I imagine these dolls will be good listeners.

I will also be adding some new spring silk packs in the coming days (as soon as I get some photos taken) which will include what I call “hummingbird silk” -light, airy, watercolor silks for stitching and making.