This is not the first nest I've created. The first was called Weaving a Metaphor, and that nest, created to hold a wounded ceramic bird, was composed of eco-dyed cloth, native grass roots, broken jewelry bits, and scraps of coffee-dyed paper notes. I thought it was a one-and-done, but the nesting itch continues.
The woven metaphor nest |
The nest that kicked off this current series was spawned during the Easter season when Trader Joe's sells lovely little bunches of hopeful daffodils at ridiculously low prices.
The birth of a compulsion |
I vaguely remembered seeing posts by a charming young woman living in rural England who forages the forest for plants, including daffodils, and proceeds to make string and baskets from it all. I thought, hmmm..., and hung my Trader Joe's bundles up to dry.
Drying daffs |
Having absolutely no idea what I was doing, I launched into making I-know-not-what by boiling the dried daffodil flowers in hopes of producing a dye. Which worked, sort of. A bunch of linen strips added to the daffodil dye bath resulted in a pale shade that an optimist might call "pale daffodil".
Daffodil-dyed linen strips |
By now I'd decided to make a nest, largely because it is hard to be judgmental about a nest. You feel whoever made it, whether creature high or low, put in their best effort. I knew I'd need something to weave together with the daffodil stems, and the daffodil-dyed strips were one solution. Adding a dried ivy vine I happened to have on hand was another.
Soaking daffodil steps and dried ivy vine |
The next step was to relax my chattering brain, work through my fingers, and build a nest. Note the aesthetic decision to leave the daffodil bulb heads arching out from the top of the nest. That seems to point to a meaning none of us will ever know.
Weaving the daffodil nest in a water glass |
And the end result is the daffodil nest, the first in a series of four unless I can't stop myself.
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