Woohoo!
It is no secret that I like to dye things in bright and pretty colours, is it?!

Cotton, bamboo, silk... you name it!
And for a while now, I have been working on wool~ bringing some of my favourite colourways (colour combinations) across from silk onto wool and I am very happy with the results of my hand painting adventures!


I have chosen to use my favourite wool for fulling (=felting of knitted or crocheted items)~ a gorgeous single ply merino.  This yarn is wonderfully soft and lofty~ reminiscent of a handspun yarn.
I am terribly sensitive to processed wool, and cannot wear it~ but this yarn I happily wear next to my skin.

It felts in minutes~ evenly and without the fuzziness you sometimes get from other yarns, making a nice supple fabric to work with whether hand or machine sewing.
It also works well for non-felted items, but I don't suggest using it for mittens or other projects that will take a lot of wear and friction... because it does felt easily!

'Easter Eggs' crocheted

'Easter Eggs' knit and felted

This yarn is available in 3.5 oz cakes or skeins.
I can custom dye more if you need it, or skein off less for you, too (it is a great yarn for craft projects in which you may only need an ounce or two).

Take a peek~ and I would love your feedback!♥♥

My daughter, moved by the plight of orcas around the world, has decided to raise money to help them.

She has raised $102 so far~ her first goal was $100.
She has now expanded that to $250.

You can read all about it HERE and make a donation, too, if you like!
Many thanks to those who have so generously supported her work so far!

I am always on the lookout for fun new creative activities to share with my daughter (and her friends~ they know this is the house where we do crafts!). Especially on cold or rainy days.

A few weeks back, I snagged some window writing markers from the art supply store (post-Christmas sales!).  I have seen the Crayola version in action, but never felt moved to buy any for our own use.
These, however, we love and they were just right for jazzing up a snow day!
This set of 8 Washable Window Markers from Sargent Art are bold, bright and addictive... you will have to keep your little ones (and yourself) from decorating all the glass surfaces in your house! 
They do take a little elbow grease to remove if left on the windows after your play time, but the bold colours and ease of use make it worthwhile.
 These markers would make a great art activity especially for children less inclined to creative pursuits~ the ones who 'hate' colouring just might come around if they can colour on the windows!

We have also been using them to leave messages and silly pictures on the bathroom mirrors!♥♥
Have you found any cool supplies lately? Do tell!

Rowan (age 6) is planning on saving the whales.
Well, technically, the dolphins~ she tells me an orca is a dolphin and not a whale at all!

When she announced this at church on Sunday, one woman commented "Do they still need saving?".
Good question!

As some of you may know from my past posts, my daughter is a very sensitive child, in every way.
She often finds life overwhelming and struggles with emotional regulation and anxiety.
But she is foremost, a wonderfully empathetic soul with a passion for caring for others, especially if those others are animals.

This weekend, we watched Free Willy (1993).
Rowan was deeply moved and disturbed by the story.
Was it true? Were there orcas in need of help right now?
At the end of the (20 year old) movie was a call for action, and the number 1-800-4-WHALES.

Keiko ('Willy')

Rowan was ready to place a call.
We noted that while we suspected that Save the Whales is still active (it is), the phone number may have changed (it has).
She went off to bed with her dolphin books, a million questions and a heavy heart.

In the morning, while I prepared for church, Rowan made a 'Save the Orcas' poster, and with staples and paper, a 'money pouch'  upon which she wrote: "will send to save orcas when full".

Hmmm. OK.
She is serious.
And in that moment I saw and seized the opportunity she had created~ a way for her sensitive little soul to see a need, to feel the pain and to respond with action.
As a sensitive child, who feels everything so deeply, this was an opportunity for her to feel those deep feelings not as hopeless or defeating, but as the spur to action.
This was a chance to learn that she CAN do something, make a difference in the world.

And isn't that what we hope our children will learn in life?
That they are not helpless, but rather that they have all the power in the world to effect change.
To effectively, as Ghandi famously said "be the change they want to see in the world".

Wild Orcas

We announced Rowan's initiative at church, and shared it with family and friends on Facebook on Sunday.
Along with her own $10 donation (prize money from a Remembrance Day / Poppy Day poster campaign), a donation from a like-minded child in the UK and donations from church members, she raised $50 in 24 hours.

At this point, her (modest) goal is to raise $100 for the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation.
With that she intends to purchase an Orca Adoption kit for herself, and one for her class (all proceeds from these kits go to the fund), and donate the balance.
She is continuing to read and study about orcas (and the rest of the dolphins), as she says "I should know about them so I can tell people why they need help".


You are invited to help Rowan reach her goal!
The 'Donate' button below is set up through Paypal (we will cover any fees through BTRT so that all the funds go directly to the Foundation).
THE FIRST BUTTON is set to receive USD.
THE SECOND BUTTON is for Canadian funds (CAD).
If you would like to make a donation in another currency OR outside of Paypal, send an email and we'll help you out!
Thank you ♥♥

I feel like an old-timer!

No, not because I have begun to do the 'stretch-out-my-arm-to-read-small-print' thing.
But because I am coming up on five years of dyeing silk.

It may not seem all that long, but in the playsilk biz, it is.
You see, when I opened shop 5 years ago, I was dyeing cotton clothing, a tie-dyer, experimenting more and more with low water immersion dyeing.
At the time, the very few folks were creating playsilks for sale online, and those who were were making either lovely solid coloured silks or complex tie dye and mandala patterns on silk.
Generally, one at a time, each one of a kind (all awesome!).

I was the first in the (online retail) retail market (if I am to trust my research and communications with old-school Waldorf vets) to begin to blend colours in a low water immersion style (for playsilks), in standardized colours.
{{I am being pretty specific here, because I am know someone always knows better!}}

The first BTRT 'colourway'~ Heart of the Fire 2007

In time, I began to standardize my colours, each silk being one of a kind, but with repeatable colour formulas.
I looked to my wool dyeing friends, and the common concept in hand dyed wool, of 'colourways'~ standard colour formulas repeated over various bases and yarns.
And went with it.

Gradually building an extensive line of colourways, along with complementary solid 'palettes' and creating groupings beyond the standard rainbow.

Soft as Spring Palette

 A quick search on Etsy, or any other handmade market today will reveal that this style of dyeing + the 'colourway' concept has been widely adopted by newer dyers.
In fact, I suspect that it is assumed to be 'the norm' in playsilks (without realizing that five years ago, it simply was not)!
Which is pretty darn cool!


Some 15 000 pieces of silk, in my kitchen sink (!), later, I am still passionate about dyeing.
But I don't often have the time to 'play'~ creating new colourways.

New Year, new stash of elastics!

Creating a  colourway is not simply adding a couple of dyes together...
Many of my dyes are custom mixed for my particular shades.
And then there is the order of colour application (very critical!), the amounts of dye, the balance of colours.
Add in the particular temperaments of various dyes, temperatures and other variables.
And whether or not all of the above can be reliably repeated...

And then I have to remember it all.
{I have a partial 'recipe' book, that I should update!}

My favourite yellow in the pot!

New colourways are sometimes happy accidents, but generally I set out to bring a certain vision or experience alive with colour.. early morning dawn, the varied greens of a summer landscape, the blues of polar ice...

This month, I am happy to introduce FOUR new colourways in our 'Heart of...' Collection!

Heart of the Fey

Heart of the Phoenix

Heart of the Mountains

Candy Hearts

Find these and the rest of our silks in the Etsy Shop. ♥♥
Quality • Beauty • Experience

I written recently about some of the challenges parenting brings our way, by way of our daughter's highly sensitive (and now, diagnosed anxious) nature.

School is a particular challenge for Rowan.
She enjoys it immensely and she is an excellent student.
But she also experiences anxiety in all of the many changes and unknowns that a school day brings.
For her, it is exhausting.

We are finding that Rowan, when feeling anxious, seeks islands of control~ finds something she can manage to cope with the overwhelming things around her (don't we *all*?).  This tends to express itself at this time as a sort of hoarding behaviour.  Not like the tv show, just grabbing and hanging on to things, collecting them.

Her item of choice is rocks.
Now, I like to collect rocks, too, and she has always been a rock hound.
But I am talking about coming home with her little backpack stogged full of several pounds of gray gravel chips from the school yard.
When I asked her not to do this, she brought them home in her coat pockets instead.


Faced with the choice of... what? Sewing her pockets shut?
I had to stop and think about this.
 
Recess is very chaotic and overwhelming.
Collecting rocks (often as a game, with friends) is a 'safe place' for my daughter in all the activity around her.
Clearly her behaviour is providing her with something she is needing.

It was one of those moments, as a parent, when you hear that voice saying "there is another way".
That little voice that calls us to be our creative best for our children~ to perceive their need and to meet it in a way that honours their struggles.
I don't hear it very often... I mean, I don't listen to it, or for it, as often as I should.
And sometimes the "you shouldn't do it this way" voice that sounds an awful lot like my mother is just too loud...
But I am really trying.


So I stopped fighting the rocks.
Heck, I already have a rock basket at the door of the house, to which Rowan makes almost daily deposits, and which I empty, discreetly, when full.
 I made her a rock box for school.
I decorated a tall plastic container with stickers and a unicorn and "Rowan's Rocks" written boldly upon it.

It sits at her cubby, and every day, she deposits all of her found treasures into the box, with the expectation that when it is full, I will come after school and we will empty it out, choosing a couple of special items to take home, returning the rest to nature. That will be a tough day. I know. But the payoff of accepting her behaviour and helping to normalize it (and set some boundaries around it at the same time), has been immense. 

Especially for me.
Learning that I can just roll with it.
And I can always fall back on the old adage, if you can't beat 'em... make them their own box and embrace them (isn't that how it goes?!). ♥♥


I'd love to hear about your creative parenting strategies.... the times you listened to that quiet little voice...