A Spark of Joy

I have been in a B$%$# of a mood for the last few days. That's according to hubby of course.
I dismantled the Yellow Balloons (as all my friends refer to them now, to my face too.) But I won't throw them out. They'll be used someday in something.

I've been searching around for a few days for something to inspire me. I've spent a lot of hours on the couch reading trashy fantasy.

At the back of my mind I've had two things simmering. The first one was a sample of the work of Maggie Vanderweit that I saw at the CQA show last month. www.stonethreads.ca
I'd take a workshop for this technique in a minute, but there doesn't seem to be one in the near future.
Her transfering of rust and nature prints to cloth just took my breath away.
These two pics are from her gallery.

The rust work is pretty straightforward but the leaf prints eluded me.

UNTIL........

my last issue of Cloth Paper Scissors arrived. ( I was on the verge of letting this expensive magazine die the death all subscriptions.)
This issue 67 July/August had an article sooooooooooooo similar to her work!
I went hunting through the kitchen cupboards for a good pot to use. This lead to a Rip Roaring "DISCUSSION" between myself and the Uber Food Safety Guy that I live with...... So it was shelved.
(That's probably why the balloons were SUCH a DISASTER. My little muse was off in a corner sulking)

In the mean time I got thinking about felting and was hunting around for a source of natural roving. Everything I came across was dyed unnatural colours. Here hubby jumped in again and whisked me away to Elora, my old stamping grounds, to the Wellington Fibres. We'd been here before. I actually knit him a sweater about 20 years ago! www.wellingtonfibres.on.ca
But this time I was after roving.
The woman had to hunt around for white. I was hoping to get a salt and pepper but no, and no brown either. (What's wrong with sheep now a days?) Looking for GRISLY colours. Alas, no.

So we headed back with three big bags of roving   AND

An expensive skein of "Grisly" brown. I decided I could un spin this fibre. Do I have a fibre blending board? NO.
But we hunted down the next best thing at Canadian Tire... dog slicker brushes! (McGyver strikes again!)

After five minutes of blending I now had this, well on its way to the right colour and ready for the felting machine.

BUT WAIT.. that's not the end of this tale. 
We also stopped at the Hardware store ( That was after he had me climb a road side apple tree for a bag of little green apples so he could make REAL PECTIN. ( None of this bottle stuff for my uber chef )

At the hardware store I BOUGHT A POT for my stuff and this morning I made this.

Closeup of the upper half

I used grass, clover, tarragon ( 'cause I hate the stuff and I'm trying to kill the bush) Oregano, ( 'cause it grows wild at the side of my house ) and for some substantial "meat", some elm leaves. Onto the material that I accordioned  to fit MY pot, I wove more elm leaves, tarragon and nails for rust. It sure SMELLED great. I followed the instructions in the magazine to the part that said "leave it for 2 or 3 days...if you can".......... Well I Couldn't, not for this first try. ET VOILA!

This I can do.
I can see my morning walks will consist of collecting different types and weights of leaves.
And now that I have a method........it can wait a few more days, until this heat breaks.