Onion skins and rusty metal

I had a go at eco printing, though I didn't use a mordant - like alum - so the leaves I included in my dye pot didn't transfer on to the white cotton as I'd hoped they would.  I'll know for next time.  (It would've helped if I'd bothered to educate myself on the process before I started, but that would've been too sensible, wouldn't it?)  However, I still got some interesting results with red and brown onion skins, tea leaves, blackberries, bits of rusty metal and string!  

I've a slow stitching project in mind for some of these pieces, and I'll definitely have another go at natural dyeing.  I'm hoping to go to the Harrogate Knitting & Stitching show and I know there'll be plenty of other craft stalls there, so maybe one will be selling dyes, mordants etc.  

In other 'news', I gave up on 'The Lost Apothecary' as it wasn't well written enough to maintain my interest and life's too short to soldier on with a mediocre story.  That's gone to the charity bookshelf in the local Co-op, hopefully to find a new home with someone who'll enjoy it.  I switched to Margaret Atwood's 'The Testaments'.  I'd read 'The Handmaid's Tale' years ago, and this is the follow-up.  It's a terrific, fast paced book that I really enjoyed and it made me want to re-read some of her other novels.  Not 'The Handmaid's Tale' though as I don't think I could stomach the grimness of that again.  Not when we're living in the real world when Afghan women and girls are oppressed so horrifically.  I still find that hard to believe.  A plane ride away, the female half of the population are denied education, free movement, the right to marry who they want, to uncover their hair in public, to speak in public, to sing, go to the gym or the park.  Women's rights really are fragile things.  Afghan women have learnt that, and we'd do well to remember it too.  Sorry, I know that's all very serious for what's essentially a lighthearted blog about crafting.  

Not only crafting but also charity shop buys.  Speaking of which - and lightening the mood - balls of perle cotton and a couple of wooden reels of thread, all 50p each.  A rummage around another charity shop unearthed a never-worn grey skirt with a silky lining and an organza-like overskirt dotted with beads, a bargain at 99p, and very suitable to be cut up and re-made into gift bags.  Plus, a turquoise - or is it teal? - necklace, also 99p. 

The necklace is made up of hundreds of seed beads, and I've already broken it up, ready for the beads to be used for something else.  It's always worth buying old necklaces like this as it's by far the cheapest way of replenishing your stock of beads.  

Okay, that's pretty much all I've got to write about.  I hope your weekend wasn't too disrupted by the endless fireworks.  I mean, they're pretty and I love the whoosing sounds and the glittery bursts of colour, but the explosive noise!  I can't help feeling sorry for all the pets and wildlife terrified by the loud bangs.  Apparently there are such things as 'silent fireworks' which some places, including Asda were selling this year.  They're not entirely silent, but are reduced noise.  Hopefully they'll become more widely used in future.  We owe the natural world that, don't we?