I’m taking the day off the internet today, trying to imagine what life would be like if I couldn’t access all the great information available online.  Care to join me?

Rachel

Image by allyaubry

If you got buried in 2011, is 2012 your year to dig yourself out and get a fresh start?  Why not pick a room, get rid of what you’ve never loved or needed, and then make it the way you’ve always wanted?

For me, it’s my kitchen I’m most itchin’ to update.  Might just have to make that a project to share with you – if I’m brave enough!

Thanks for visiting!

Rachel

Image courtesy of D Sharon Pruitt

Each New Year is an opportunity to turn over a new leaf.

For me, we are just three days into 2012 and I am already in love with it!   This year is lined up to be an amazing one, if I can just rise to the challenges and possibilities awaiting me.  New work, new focus, new places to be and experience.  Wow!

But I’m not what this post is about.  What I really want to use this time for is to find out a little more about YOU, so I thought it might be fun to ask you a few questions this week (along with the usual posting about great new design).   Here is the first one…

Which word or phrase best describes to you the concept of designing with consideration for the environment?

Thanks for visiting and Happy New Year!

Rachel

for us to close up shop while we spend time baking, wrapping, singing (off key), and generally making merry.  We will return, renewed and reinvigorated, on January 3rd.

Until then…  Have a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Rachel & Emerald

P.S.  The holiday eggnog image above is courtesy of 12 Bottle Bar.  If you’ve never tried real, grown-up eggnog you are SO missing out!  Give their recipe a try and then try and tell me it isn’t DELICIOUS!

Since we will also be busy scarfing down leftover apple pie over the sink all day Friday, we thought it best to wait till Monday the 28th to attempt a blog post again.  Sticky fingers aren’t good for keyboards!  Till then…

Thanks for visiting!

Rachel

In any case, just wanted to let you know that I am in fact “working hard all day like a machine” this week, so my blogging will be curtailed.  I’m hoping to get something posted, but no promises.

This little “comrade” misses you, Dear Readers, and hopes to get back to writing for you soon!

Rachel

I just spent a lovely week with family in the Chicago area.  Now I’m back, refreshed and ready to roll up my sleeves.  Later today you will get another wonderful artisan profile from Emerald, and I have other fun things in line for the rest of the week.  Stay tuned…

Thanks for visiting,

Rachel

Dear Readers,

I have a confession.  I have a bad case of summeritis.  You know, that disease caused by warm, summer mornings spent sleeping in a bit later than you meant to.  Afternoons where the only thing busy are the bees humming around the copious flowers in your backyard.  Days where you try to figure out how to look at least semi-professional in a tank top, and all you want to eat is ice cold watermelon for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  A disease characterized by distraction, lethargy and hair gone wild with humidity.  Yeah, THAT summeritis.

So, I apologize for the infrequency of my postings of late.  I’ll see what I can do to catch up once the weather starts to cool again next week.  Meanwhile, here are a few energy efficient tips to cool your house down when the weather warms.

1.  Ceiling fans – For areas that you and your family tend to occupy during the day and early evening, a ceiling fan is a great way to cool off.  In fact, the evaporative effect of the increased air flow can make the air feel 4ºF cooler, providing for a big difference in your comfort level.  Just remember fans are useless in an empty room, since they don’t actually cool air, just people, so turn them off when no one is around.

2.  Close your drapes and shutters – Direct sunlight coming in a window really heats things up quickly, so make sure to block it out with drapery, shades or shutters until the sunlight is out of range.

3.  Plant a shade tree – This one won’t really help for a few years, but what a difference that tree will make!  Deciduous trees are ideal for this, as they allow the fleeting warmth of a winter sun in, but keep the hot summer sun out.

4.  Turn your lights off! – This is especially critical if the lights are incandescent, as those bulbs give off over 90% of the energy they use as heat.  Even CFLs give off some heat, so be extra careful to turn off any unnecessary lights around the house.

5.  Same goes for electronics - Turning electronics, especially computers, off when not in use will not only save you the energy cost of running them, but also the cost of running your A/C to cool them.  Bonus!

6.  Keep your refrigerator and freezer full – It may seem odd that filling your refrigerator and freezer can save you money, but all that stuff in there actually helps hold onto the cold, making the refrigerator run less frequently, saving you money, and reducing the amount of heat it gives off as it tries to cool the interior.

Have any favorite tips you would like to share?  Add them in the comments below.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

After gathering at the lovely French General for the workshop, we all carpooled over to the park where our dyeing experience would take place.

Once at the park we got a delightful and informative overview of the history of woad dyeing from Denise Lambet, who flew all the way from the South of France just to create a legion of new woad addicts dyers.  After regaling us with stories of previous woad workshop students stripping down to their skivvies in an attempt to have just ONE more garment to dunk in the vats, she proceeded to explain how the process worked, and what we would need to do to have a successful dyeing experience.  Then we got to work.

We were each provided with a bucket full of water and a stick, and told we needed to get our items thoroughly wet – NO air bubbles allowed!  Air is not your friend when you are dyeing with woad. Not only will air bubbles in your fabric block the dye from bonding with it, they also cause the woad to activate to a blue color prematurely, rendering the batch of woad weaker.

In case you didn’t look at the previous post, here is what a fresh batch of woad dye looks like.  Delicious, no?

After a brief moment of hesitancy, we all started cautiously dipping our first textiles into the woad.

Then we progressively got bolder… 

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Ahem.  OK, maybe not THAT bold.

Pretty soon we were plunging our hands in as well as our fabrics.  Thank goodness we were wearing gloves!

Well, most of us were anyway.  A few hardy souls decided to go into full on woad mode, leaving their hands a lovely shade of blue that will last them for weeks.  Badge of honor I guess.

That is some yarn being dyed.  I would love to see something made from it!

Sometimes, strange “creatures” would float to the surface of a vat.  Any guesses what that is?

As soon as you dyed something, you needed to hang it up so the initial yellowish color could oxygenate to the final lovely blue.  You could watch it happen as you ran to the line.  Pretty cool.

Here are a few of the items I dyed.  The depth of blue depended on the strength of the batch (they varied over the 6 or so vats available), the type of fiber, and the time you left it in the dye.

Soon the drying lines started to fill up, so they had to put up more line…

and more line…

until we ran out, and we started to use the rock walls.

This is one of those times when I wish I had an extreme wide angle lens, because I want to badly so show you how there was blue EVERYWHERE in sight.  It was almost 360 degrees of blue.  So beautiful!

People were dyeing everything from yarn, to lace, to small tablecloths, to these sneakers.  After lunch, I only had one item left to dye, and once I was done with that I still felt the itch.  So I did exactly what Denise Lambet predicted…

I took the clothes off my back and plopped them in!  That used to be an oatmeal colored organic cotton sweater I’m standing behind.  Now it is a gorgeous shade of dusky blue.  If there hadn’t been a little bit of a chill in the air (not to mention a few men folk around) I might have been tempted to see what else I had on to toss in a vat.

All in all, it was an amazing afternoon.   The wonderful folks at French General are hoping to offer this workshop again next year.  I’m not sure if I can wait!  That blue is so pretty, I want to dye everything in sight.  My sheets,… my curtains,… my towels,… my cat,….  Oh dear…

Hello, my name is Rachel Hulan, and I have a woad addiction.

Bet you would too!

So here are things I thought you might find interesting this week:

1.  Coming to a living room near you – anti-gravity furniture! (PhotoShop Disasters)

2.  I kid you not – Jersey Shore’s “The Situation” is going green.  Well, at least his re-usable laundry bags are. (Inhabitat)

3.  And speaking of bags, this “living” art installation almost makes me like plastic garbage bags – ALMOST. (Green Bag Lady)

4.  This may or may not be green, but it is definitely the best and most attractive design I’ve ever seen for a pool side lounger. (Trendir)

5.  Crazy but beautiful effect achieved from painting a herringbone parquet floor in a variety of colors.  (re-nest)

6.  Saw this chair made of coat hangers all over the internets this week, but in case you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a looksee. (re-nest)

7.  Not sure if I think this light fixture is a clever re-use, or a scary monster coming to get me. (Standard)

8.  Great article on how we have abandoned so many activities that have traditionally taken place in the community, and replaced them with activities in our homes, thus necessitating larger and larger houses.  Short and worth reading.  (Treehugger)

9.  Finally, the great folks at Lonny have teamed with Traditional Home to create a new online magazine – TRADhome, and it looks terrific! (2Modern)

I already want that amazing chandelier on the cover.  Of course, I also want an iPad so I can slouch in a chair while leafing through all these great new online mags coming out, but that’s a whine for another day.  Sigh.

See you next week!