Last week, Annabel and Adelaide came to me with their sketches for Halloween costumes. Yes, yes....Halloween (I did remind them that it was still mid-August, to which I was met with a blank stare. As if Halloween shouldn't be prepared for all the year long?). Once I saw the drawing, I realized that what I had been interpreting as a KNIGHT Princess in conversation for weeks, was actually a NIGHT Princess. The both of them - flowing blue dresses with yellow stars all over. Oh!! Fun!! And I quickly became just as excited as they were. A search through my fabric shelves revealed not enough blue fabric, and not of the right color. But! I remembered an indigo kit (this one), tucked away for testing out a future Taproot piece, and a whole big pile of linen, ripe for becoming the color of night.
There's nothing like a good old fashioned messy craft project to bring the kids coming in from all corners of the farm and house. And that's just what this project did - as each of them scoured their bedrooms for 'something white,' set to experimenting with elastics, rubber bands and clamps, and handed me the pieces to watch transform in front of their eyes. It was as fun for me as it was for them, of course. After we spent a full day working on it, stopping only for snacks, the 4-load laundry line of mine was full of our creations. I promised them we'd use up the rest of the dye vat for as long as it lasted, and they haven't forgotten that promise. Last night found us out there by headlamp as dark set in but we weren't quite yet done....and this morning, Harper came to me with a white handkerchief in his hand and sleep still in his eyes, and declared "tiny rocks, I think!".
It'll be a wonder if there's anything white left in our house by week's end!
