Sun Aug 28 - At the last minute I remembered I still wanted to make a purple silk scarf for Rhonda at work, so I still had some more dying to do today. I used the exhausted dye bath from both the cochineal and the indigo pots, but the scarf was looking just blue-ish purple. But there was a plate full of used cochineal bugs (hee hee) and so I rolled the scarf around and crushed them into the scarf by hand. The whole thing turned a most wonderful purple color, with some brighter red-fuscia spots from the direct contact with the cochineal bugs. I love natural dyestuffs, they're so funny and weird and wonderful! (And I got a good photo of the cochineal bugs, so when those are posted you'll be able to see what I'm talking about.)

Cleaning up the site was rough, though, because the BIG heat and humidity came out this afternoon. And my drive was miserable through LA, when at one point I just had to stop driving and give me and my car a break. I nearly wilted in the shade with the windows rolled down, just sweating and drowsing until I'd rested enough to drive again.

But fortunately for me, Ceridwen was free to schedule a massage appointment for the evening. So when I got home and unpacked, I just hopped into a cold shower, some clean clothes, and settled down to eat peach sorbet and drink ice water for my dinner. [When you're overheated, this is the yummiest dinner ever.] Revived, I headed over to Ceridwen's house, and just hung out for a while, listening to her stories for a while about her trip to Pennsic. (For the uninitiated, that's a 2-week-plus event out in Pennsylvania where 14,000+ people get together to camp, shop, and fight in armored combat within the SCA. Some day I plan to go, but not for a while yet.)

After the massage and all the lovely friendship time, I just headed home to completely collapse. A perfect end to a perfectly lovely weekend.