Kelocabay

Walnut brown with grey undertones. Grounding earth colors from black walnuts, leaves and minerals.

Plants are popping up, waking up from their winter rest. It might still be winter and really chilly today, but I can feel Spring coming! These hardy beautiful plants growing again showing us that hibernation season is almost over. Woad, Weld, Tansy, Lavendar, Dyer’s Chamomile and even a hardy variety of Rosemary, made it through the snowy winter. Container gardening in the city can be hard on plants. Some years things that should make it past the cold don’t survive. I do also grow all the dye plants in NJ in my families yards in the ground too. Some dye plants actually like the elevated urban garden better than the ground. Each year is another experiment. I’m looking forward to seeing what this growing season brings!

Easter eggs dyed with nature’s palette! This year we used some dried flowers from last season ~ butterfly peas and black pansies ~ Along with the traditional natural egg dyes ~ onion skins, beets, red cabbage, mint, turmeric, hibiscus, teas and spices. Look forward to making these and sharing them each year. Happy Easter

Flashback to a year ago today March 1st, 2020 kicking off this Women’s history month long pop up shop we were part of with my friend @zyem_nyc I love this pic and was excited to post it at some point during the month of the event. The time never came though since covid locked down the city and the pop up shop had to close when it was just beginning. It’s crazy to think it’s been a whole year now living at distance from people. With all that we have collective gone through ...during this pandemic, it seems like a century has passed in some ways. Back at the time I was sentimental and still am, that I was celebrating Women’s month and Women’s business with Monique. We met years ago freelance designing kids clothes for mass market companies and here we were doing a pop up shop together, with our own brands, for the first time. Our strong, independent spirits shining through as we follow our dreams, working in our own ways on our collections. Mo, posted this pic that day as our Mommy and me looks She’s better at Instagram and all that. Makes sense I would share this a year later. I guess that’s more my pace. Slow dyeing. Slow living. Slow posting.

4 different Indigo varieties planted this year. Our Japanese Indigo, Woad and the Indigofera tropical varietiesI hope to grow better this year as annuals ~ Indigofera Tinctoria from @theyarntreeusa and Indigofera Suffuticosa from @madamemagar Each seed type with their own shape and character will create Indigotin filled leaf plants, the creators of our blue dreams to come for 2021 and beyond!

Mellow Yellows Golden Sunshine Mustard Madness Colors and prints all dyed with plants. Goldenrod, carrot tops, weld, rose leaves, other plants, barks and things... Might dye over some of these to change the color or add another dimension..

Blending into the post office floor I rarely walk down to this historic old post office in Downtown Brooklyn. The floor is just the beginning of the architectural inspiration in this building. Sometimes you can just look down, up or all around with a different perspective and see things in whole new way.

Madder Root mini bath after a garden clean up this past growing season. The madder is not ready for harvest for another few years, but I pulled a few roots out by accident and this pretty peach is the result. The fabric in water with roots looks like a rose and the roots extracting color felt like magic when this was happening! This coming season we’ll be on year 3 of planting madder seeds. After the 4th year I’ll finally do a real dye bath with the 1st year’s roots and hope I can continue the cycle for every year I’m alive after that! In it for the life long haul with all these plants and their color magic. Slowly living and dyeing through the seasons.

Sometimes it seems hidden but it’s always there Sending love! Happy Valentine’s #lovedayeveryday #valentines #robertindianalove #loveinthewoods

Blue Magic Made this fructose vat with frozen Japanese Indigo fresh leaf mash in the studio a few weeks ago. It’s the first vat of the season! #persicariatinctoria #indigovat

Feeling the Bern through the seasons with the dye plants! #bernieforever #berniesanders #berniesmittens #berniememes #bernieinaugurationmemes

Happy New Year 2021!! Washed away last year on this cloth. Painted this silk with homegrown indigo pigment and various plant dye extracts. Left it to cure for a few months. Just washed it today on the New Year, we’ll see what it becomes. Excited for change, new beginnings and better energy this year! #handpaintedsilk #naturaldye #plantdye #paintbrushstripes

Top 9 of 2020 Thank you for making these the top posts of the year! As we draws a close to a year full of so much anxiety, sadness and change, I take comfort in the growth and reflection that happened in the forced distance that has been with us all. The post in the center with my fellow creatives close, gathered and unmasked is a reminder of how life once was. This was from the 1 and only pop up event that we did this year. It started on March 1st and was supposed to be... the whole Women’s history month. We got in a few weeks before it had to close along with the city, country and world. We made masks which I never though we would make. I also never could have imagined masks becoming an accessory that is essential in all our lives. The classes taken virtually at home and in the studio that enriched my knowledge and inspired my work in ways that could have never happen in a different time. The seeds, planted, grown and harvested. The natural colors and dyes created in new and old ways. With all the bad some good always shines through. This year helps to remind me that there is always something we can be grateful for. Blessings can come to us in the strangest ways. Wishing you all growth, love, light as we say goodbye to 2020! See more