Make ink: daisy centers and yellow day lilies

After boiling the daisies, it occurred to me that I should have saved one bloom for the seeds.  They came from a friends yard.  I added vinegar to the ink, may try adding some alum. For now, I am happy with the colour.

Make ink: Sumac Drupes

Finally! Red!  But will it last? It will probably turn green overnight...

Make ink: Red Day Lilies

On Wednesday we celebrated a girl friend's birthday with a girlz day trip to fun places.  One of the stops was this awesome fabric shop in Glen Ellyn.  The fabric selection was fabulous.  Although I didn't take fabric home from this shop, I did dead head the red day lilies in the parking lot and made ink! I took a picture of the fresh flowers, but alas... my phone keeps playing the disappearing photo  game with me. 

Make ink: Tansy

I am very happy with this colour! I dyed fabric with tansy last year, using alum as a mordant.  Not quite enough blooming yet to make a dye pot, but a little goes a far ways when making a little ink.

Make ink: Red Zinnias

Before leaving the library yesterday, I dead headed a few plants.  Yes, I was selective and only took the red zinnias, and yes they were still blooming brilliantly.  Naughty me? 

They cooked down quickly.  I added a bit of vinegar and brushed the ink on water colour paper.  Reminds me of dried blood stains.

Make Ink: Red Geraniums

I'm getting ready to go out of town for a few days (big wedding!), and the geraniums begged to be dead headed before I left.  The heat we are expecting this weekend may kill my plants anyway... What a nice way to preserve some colour:

After cooking it down, I brushed some of the liquid on watercolour paper. You can see the green peeking thru from the back.  I then added vinegar to the water and cooked it down some more to remove about half of the liquid:

This ink blob was on mixed media paper:

Make Ink - Orange Zinnias

Now that the garden is blooming and I have the wedding quilt done, it is time to start picking, chopping and cooking some delicious colour!  I "borrowed" flowers from the library to cook up this pot of loveliness.  Unfortunately the photo I took of the flowers before cooking left my camera.  This happens sometimes for no apparent reason.  The guy at the phone store had to the nerve to ask if I knew how to take a picture.  Inside my head I thought, "Really?  I've been taking pictures since before you were born".  I was sweet and and just smiled.  He then googled and found that others have complained about the same thing.  But no fix for missing pictures.
Any way - I think the flowers were zinnias, but had very short stems.  I cooked them up and after draining I added some vinegar.  The last batch of flowers I cooked I omitted the vinegar and ended up with a lovely crop of mold on top of the ink. 

Ink making: Pansies

I went a little crazy and picked all of my purple pansies.  They will grow back... After an hour of simmering, I strained them and painted a little on some watercolour paper.  Lovely blue colour.  Will add some vinegar to the next batch. 

making ink: flowering crab blossoms

My flowering crab is in full bloom.  The bees are all over it, being such happy bees.  To enjoy the delicious scent a little longer, I cut a few branches and put them in a vase inside the house.  This morning the petals were starting to drop on the table, but instead of running the branches out to the compost, I decided to make ink!

I used a ratio of 2 to 1,  water to blossoms.  I simmered the blossoms for about 2 hours with a tablespoon of vinegar and a tablespoon of salt. (Trying to somewhat follow directions in Make Ink by Jason Logan.)

After straining, brushing some ink on watercolour paper, and letting it dry, I had a big surprise!

Yes! my lovely flowering crab ink dries green. But it is a lovely shade of green!