It was a pretty wild weekend as far as dyeing and printing goes. I picked a lot of comfrey in my garden and tried natural dyeing. I got two pots going and was going to experiment with alum in one and vinegar in another.  I boiled the comfrey for about an hour -the whole house stunk in a very grassy, organic kind of way. I drank a little comfrey tea and then I immersed a piece of PFD cotton into each pot. after about 15 minutes I added vinegar to one and alum to the other. Here are some shots of the process.

I was too impatient to wait for the color to take, so I had a jar of cutch and put in a few spoons of that into one pot on the right and went out to the garden and picked a whole lot of flowers and put em into other pot-

Finished comfrey/cutch/alum on the left and comfrey/vinegar/flowers/alum on the right.

Then some tie-dye and 300 t-shirts for good measure.

I also put up some herbs and flowers for my summer salve and rose cream.

rose petals, lavender, and primrose.

summer salve recipe

gather herbs and flowers and cover with olive oil in a deep casserole dish

cover and bake in a slow (275 degrees) oven for at least an hour

squeeze through cheesecloth 2x

add optional shea, almond oil, lanolin, mango, (whatever you like)-

add citronella (for bug-off!) or other essential oils  for a relaxing massage-

lavender, clary sage, rose, grapefruit (joy)

heat in a saucepan and add some beeswax until you get the consistency you like and pour into sterile glass jars.

keep checking by dropping spoonfuls onto a plate because once it is cool, it will be much harder from the beeswax. If you overdo it with the wax, just heat it up and add more oil or butter. Make a lot because your friends are all gonna want some!