Don't Let Those Flowers Go to Waste

Senior Laarnie Barcelon rescued the flowers below

that our photography teacher had used for props for his class on still lifes.

Mr. Z was going to toss them in the trash when the kids were done staging them,

 but quick thinking Laarnie brought them to me to eco-dye with.

Our school had just found out that Mr. Z's wife,

 Nancy,

 had been nominated for 

the Southern California Teacher of the Year Award,

so I thought it would be nice to use the flowers to make her a scarf with as a gift.

So I pulled out an all silk blank and a wool/silk blank and went to town.

In this second scarf  above I also included some Japanese maple leaves I'd collected 

up on our cabin.

I'd heard they have great dye properties.

These are the results.

I bundled them over copper pipe with a few pieces of rusty hardware for added interest, 

and steamed them in a turquoise Rit dye bath for a bit more color.

These two pix are right after I unrolled them.

And these next two pix are after I washed and ironed them out.

You'll notice that they lost a bit of color intensity

as well as a few markings.

But I still thought they turned out beautifully.

I asked my 3-d students to help me pick out the prettier one for Ms. Z,

and we all decided on the one above. 

I presented the scarf to Ms. Z at our faculty meeting 

when our Principal was congratulating Nancy on being nominated.

I was thrilled when Nancy opened it and immediately wrapped it around her neck,

and wore it for the remainder of the meeting.

I also saw a pix of her at the Awards Banquet with the scarf around her neck for good luck.

How perfect is that???

:)