Do you like to do wool work? Or Maybe you would like to learn how
to do wool work. Here is your chance to participate in this
free monthly block program. On the 2nd Friday of each month, until the end of the year you can download the pattern.
Please note you have 30 days to "click & print" out each pattern before the next month's block is released! After that 30 days, it will only be available to purchase as a pattern/kit. Be sure to check back often and print off your patterns!!!! Buttermilk Basin also has kits & threads available! Enjoy the world of wool stitching!
Here is the first pattern--and you're off to a good start!
I don't usually subscribe to these magazines, but I have a couple
of subscriptions so I can send the paper version to my 96 yr. old
mother, who doesn't have much entertainment but
watching television and reading magazines.
I thumbed through the issues and this one peeked my interest--
what? someone is bringing indigo back to farmers. As a person who
worked as Education Curator on an Louisiana indigo plantation, this
article came to life for me.
Indigo is different from all other natural dyes (apart from shellfish purple)in that it needs no mordant (a substance used to set dyes on fabrics); it is insoluble and is deposited on the fibers as microscopic particles without needing to form a chemical bond with them. The chemical properties of indigo dye remained baffling well into the 19th century. It was so mysterious and challenging to work with that, in many cultures, folklore arose around the dyeing process. In Bhutan, pregnant women were not allowed near the vat in case the unborn baby stole the blues, and women in Morocco believed the only way to deal with a particularly challenging vat was to start telling outrageous lies. All this trouble was worth the final result. Once dyed, indigo is so colorfast that it can last for centuries or even millennia.
The process from turning the leaf form into this powdery blue magical dye was laborious.
Slaves spent their time walking through the blue sludge every day turning their hands, feet and
every body part that touched the plant, blue. Even today when you work with indigo,
you will come away with blue hands. It is always like a magic act when you
use indigo vat to dye--
But, this is the only natural dye that will give you BLUE!
Here we have an industrious company bringing farmers together for
this venture.
They even sell their dyes to independent dyers like me.
You like that pair of jeans you wear, then you can thank
Are you feeling blue? Down in the dumps? Stuck in a funk?
Could this be your Blue Monday?
The holidays are over, New Year’s resolutions have been broken, and you can’t seem to shake your cold. Tired and overwhelmed, or just downright depressed? You're not alone. Blue Monday — typically the third Monday of the new year — is called the most depressing day on the calendar.
Started as part of a publicity campaign by Sky Travel, this notable date was first published in a press release by psychologist Dr. Cliff Arnall, who at the time worked at the Centre for Lifelong Learning, part of Cardiff University in Wales. Arnall devised a literal mathematical formula to arrive at the Blue Monday theory. It factors in weather, debt and time since Christmas, timing of New Year’s resolutions, low motivational levels, and the urgent feeling that you need to take action. It also reflects that Monday is regarded as the worst day of the week with many dreading the prospect of returning to work.
But the third Monday in January may be redeemed in some eyes. The Guardian calls Arnall's mathematical formula "arguably hokey." As The Guardian reports, "This dubious bit of math was used to give academic weight to a press release put out by Sky Travel to encourage people to cheer themselves up with a holiday."
How to combat the blues on Blue Monday? Arnall advises via the Daily Mail: people can "use the day as a springboard for a higher quality life. For example keeping Christmas spending to a strict budget next year will make you less depressed in the last week of January."
Conversely, the happiest day of the year falls around midsummer. On the upside? There are some Blue Monday enthusiasts who believe it actually falls on the Monday of the last full week in January — which would mean we'd celebrate it next week. So now you have time to prepare.
