A New Year

First of all, A Happy New Year of 2015 to all of you!
May your year be full of happiness and warmth, love and kindness, and may you be in good spirits all year long!

Do you believe that there is something like "coincidence"?
Well, I don't. Sometimes there are thing that are just supposed to happen.
Remember the cochenille last summer?  It is the blog post I just published, it was still in concept...:-(

Dyeing yarn is so addictive!
And it makes you go on, and try new stuff...

As there is a prospect of getting a piece of land in a public gardening project, my silent wish for 2015 was to get some dye plants. Well, silent? I told the Ravelry community...
Top of my list is madder, a plant that had been a luxury trading good from Zeeland for centuries before synthetic dyes were invented. Do you know old paintings of soldiers in uniform? The red of the soldiers' uniforms probably is created with madder.

This time I was working at the museum. The lady wore a marvelous, obviously hand knitted stola-scarf. We met lateron in the Café, and we had a most inspiring chat about handwork and designing and Ravelry. (Maybe later this year there will be a moment when the results of this chat will be published)
We exchanged mail adresses, and Ravelry nicknames.  In her next mail she told me that she has not only madder in her garden, but all kinds of dye plants with lots of great shades that makes you smile: indigo, woad...  the next time I'm in the neighborhood we'll meet!

We did so, and she handed me not only a bag with plants from her garden, but also seeds of all plants which give a colour. A whole rainbow. And a whole library with tips for the "how to" and soy beans to make a lovely "snack from own soil".  It seems that I like some "out of the box" stuff...
Yes, I do!

And I can't wait for the spring to come!