Passions

I have always been a Jack-of-all-trades, Master of None - a person with many interests who does not master any of them.  This trip has ignited a few of my former favorite things to do.

One of those is dying wool.  I loved to dye wool . . . and I still do . . . but I hate to knit, crochet, hook rugs, weave or do anything other than make God's Eyes.  Once I had children, I quit dying the wool, and have not picked it up again.  But just as with glazes on ceramics, dying wool is fun because you never know what colors you are going to get.

In Mesa Verde, I read about the red mahogany bush that the Navajos used to make a red-brown dye . .  and I began to think about all of the colors I could make with some of the bushes I was seeing.

Then in Craters of the Moon, I saw lichens.  Now in New Mexico, the lichens at our canyon turn wool a beautiful orange.  So when I saw these lichens:

and these:

I began to wonder what color the yellow lichens and the orange ones would turn.  I wish I could have gathered some, but again, because it is a National Park, I could not do so.  Too bad . . . sometime I may find them in a place I can gather them, and then I can again begin dying wool.  And then maybe I will learn to like to knit . . . or not!