Fool's Gold

Remember how many times I've said I wanted to make yarn the color of Red Mountain Pass aspen leaves?

Two autumns ago, The Lizard and I gathered two full giant pretzel jars full of fallen aspen leaves. One jar was filled with brown leaves (which took all of about five or ten minutes to fill), and one jar was painstakingly filled with golden leaves. We'd had early frosts and lots of rain that autumn, and most of the aspen leaves had turned brown or had been blown down. Gold was difficult to muster that year.

With a bit of vinegar to extract the color and a lot of water, both jars sat in the sun for a couple of weeks. Then the leaves were strained out, and I began solar dyeing yarn and T-shirts with my two jars of what I called Fool's Gold.








All my solar dye pots froze solid for about three whole months once December hit. When they finally thawed, I wondered if the beautifully colored liquid might still have enough pigment to solar dye some sock yarn.








I crafted a pouch with aspen-dyed yarn to hold a collection of my aspen leaf greeting cards.






Quilted Quakies


Be Different!


Quilted Quakies Thank You Card
Then I got this new wild idea...

What if I made paper from aspen leaves, and then made greeting cards from the paper, and put THEM in an aspen-dyed sock yarn pouch?!?

I never got around to making paper until this year. And voila! Yet another dream comes true!






Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

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