indigo dye pot

this indigo dying is another of those things that i never did until i learned to do it in danish, so i don't actually know what this is called. in danish it's a kypefarve. from what i can find online, it's called a starter solution - and it involves lye and powdered indigo and needs a few days to "marinate" before using it. 

you bring the water up to between 50-55°C and then gently add the starter solution. then a kind of shiny, iridescent surface forms. and then you can start dyeing.

we started off with some of the lovely mohair yarn we got from our recent visit to a mohair goat farm on fyn. 

we included a little bag of curly mohair locks. 

you can see some of the magic happening in this shot - it's a lovely green when you lift it out of the water and as it reacts with the air, it gets more and more blue. i absolutely love the alchemy of it and it's so magical that it comes from a plant!

this is my indigo bed. we didn't use fresh indigo for this. i want to learn to extract and make the indigo powder out of my fresh indigo. you can see what i did with the fresh stuff last year - here and here.

i also had some white linen napkins that i bought and they went into the pot as well - here you can really see the green color they have before the air does its magic. 

this is how the mohair yarn turned out. we could probably have left it in the pot longer and gotten an even darker blue, but i think this is just lovely!

and here's how the mohair locks turned out. we'll use all this yarn and such in our weaving projects at the museum. i have one more project to show in one last post, so stay tuned for more goodness from the indigo pot. 

linen dress in the indigo dye pot

i got this white linen dress on sale at cos last year. i've been waiting for the chance to dip it in an indigo dye pot for nearly a year! well, i got the chance last weekend! so i did a bit of prep on it with some fun shibori techniques. i put marbles inside and tied them with rubberbands. 

 my plan is to dip only part of the dress in the indigo and leave part of it white. 

and this is how i dipped it. i love the magic of indigo. it looks so green until it hits the air and then it magically turns blue (more about the indigo pot in my next post). 

how the marble bundles turned out - i love it! i'm really pleased with how it turned out.

i feel like i dipped it just the right amount. and i'm happy we've had a few warm days of indian summer, so that i could wear it in the past week.

and the back. maybe i could have dipped it a little bit more in the back. it has a belt too that i also dipped, but strangely, i failed to photograph that. i want to do lots of more of this!

underskudsmenneske

some years ago i wrote about someone i had encountered who seemed to be an underskudsmenneske (deficit person). i just reread that long-ago post and realized that i have encountered another such person and her deficit came to a head tonight in the ugliest fashion. 

happily, i had had a very good day. i'm feeling happy with my projects at work, i had a really exciting conversation with an artist whose work i love, i learned a bit about making paper and spent a little bit of time at my favorite little museum, which has a magical, energy-giving atmosphere. that all left me feeling like an overskudsmenneske (surplus person). the last time i encountered her, my energy wasn't as high and i wrote about it here. 

this evening, i think that the energy i was beaming was too much for this poor underskudsmenneske. she cracked and became herself, age 8 (though honestly, that might be unfair to 8-year-olds). it was shocking to me, who was the target (she flung at me that i was a "bad person" before jumping in her car and driving away), and my two fellow board members, who were also right there. we all stood there gape-mouthed. i may have actually said, "what the fuck?" 

i feel sorry for her and i hope she actually gets the mental health care that she needs, she's clearly going through something and since my energy was good this evening, i know that it wasn't about me at all. and i'm pretty sure i'm not a bad person. and also, who could feel bad with a sunset like that?

the august garden

i'm not sure how it's already september 10 and i haven't posted the august garden, but better late than never. 

august 7

august 12

august 20

august 26

the light is fading fast in the evenings. the pumpkins and winter squash are ripening. the beans are done. and as i write this, we're finally having some quite warm days, so maybe i'll get a few ripe tomatoes from that jungle of tomato plants in the greenhouse on the left. 

wegovy, baby!

in early may, i started on wegovy. my weight has been creeping up for some years and menopause hasn't exactly helped. it seems harder than ever to those extra pounds. my mom was about my age when she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, so i was starting to think it was a good idea to shed those extra pounds. plus, a couple of my friends were trying it with great results, so i decided to try it out. 

in order to have it prescribed here in denmark, you have to go through a full physical and blood workup. you can have it if your body fat is 30% and mine was "only" 28%, but my blood test showed weirdly high cholesterol, so the doctor went ahead and prescribed it. 

in four months, i've already lost 10 kilos (22 pounds). it simply makes me eat less. i feel full more quickly and so i just don't eat as much. i've learned that i don't have to clean my plate (what a bad habit that was we were taught as children). and a nice side effect is that it also makes me drink less. i have a glass of wine while i'm making dinner and then i don't have any desire for another one. 

i've also been trying to exercise regularly. our rainy summer has gotten a bit in the way of that, but it has also helped with the weight loss.

for me, the main side effect is low grade nausea that comes and goes all day. and a positive side effect is that my nails are so much stronger! it's also positive that my clothes fit better and i just overall feel much better and more energetic. 

this morning, i was browsing instagram and came across some very vitriolic comments on emily simpson's (of real housewives of orange county fame) instagram. she's lost a lot of weight in the new season and the people in her comment section are castigating her for kickstarting her weight loss with ozempic (that's the version of the drug for diabetes). ozempic and wegovy are the same drug and both are made by danish pharmaceutical company novo nordisk but just marketed for two different purposes. 

i genuinely didn't realize that using the drug came with so much shaming. and i really don't get it. why not use all the help you can get on the road to getting healthier? it's not a miracle in and of itself, you still have to get more exercise and be sure that you eat healthy. you still have to do the work, but it just helps you along the way. why should anyone care enough about how someone else loses weight to leave nasty comments?

it feels like the world and especially the online world, has become such a nasty place. there's so much judgement and strife and a real lack of thoughtfulness and kindness.

i do recognize that i am privileged to live a place that has access to the drug - for now, it's only sold in denmark, norway, germany and the us. and it's not cheap. i've paid nearly 1300kr ($188) per month until this month, when it went up to 1800kr ($260). that's because your dose goes up each month on the regimen. i'm actually going back down to 1.0 (this month was 1.7) in september. it might slow down my weight loss, but it will also hopefully cut back on the nausea, which can be a little annoying when you're sitting in a meeting at work, trying to concentrate.

i'm happy to be using this drug and not afraid to say so. i don't know how long i'll continue and i hope that when i stop, i will have trained myself to eat less and get more exercise and it will be such a habit, that my weight will stay off. i'd like to lose 15 more kilos and then keep it off, once and for all. 

kittens in crowns!

it's that time again! time for kittens in crowns! our little mazikeen made some poor life choices and had five kittens! for a little half-kitten herself, she's doing a remarkable job and they are fast approaching peak cute. i'm enjoying them immensely, but will definitely find homes for them and then mazi's getting fixed. 

summer holiday winding down

just a day and a half left of my three week summer holiday. it's been a rainy, rather cold summer and it would have been nice to go somewhere with sunshine, but it's also been really nice and relaxing to be at home and really great to have sabin at home. we worked on the outdoor terrace, i sewed and i worked with sabin on a cactus mural wall in our bedroom. 

i'm sad my holiday is ending and i've got low grade dread going back to all the work i have to do in the next couple of weeks. and i'm sad that sabin will head back to school at the end of the week. i'll miss having her here. we've been watching real housewives of orange county and relaxing. it's been good and hopefully all the rest and relaxation will carry me through the busy autumn.