In Peace Meet
Linda Mansfield Avalonblue 2004 Columbia Ave Camp Hill, Pa. 17011 717-350-6600
Avalonblue
Natural and handcrafted items
From Earth based materials
Custom dyeing for Spinners
Quilters and Weavers
Classes and Demonstrations for:
Children and Adults:
History and processing Natural
Dyes
Hand Dyeing
Herbal Gardening
Herbal Crafting
Receive your colors as they come.
Learn the ways of each.
My first adventures into natural dyeing was as a Master Gardener through PennState. I was asked to present at the Pennsylvania Farm Show with two weeks to prepare. At that time I was working with the Herb Gardens at King's Gap State Park in Pennsylvania - working with herbs as food and medicine - and, took on the two week Farm show task with some fear but also joy. It has become a deciding factor in my life.
I know that dyeing is something I've done before, both from my German and Cherokee heritage.
I am excited and alive when my hands are in the dyes; and, when I am gathering, holding, preparing the plants that come to me.
I believe many of the stories of times past are lost not in the telling but the doing. The life before us was passed on generation to gereration as skills which became one's daily living.
In small ways I hope to share this knowledge.
For some it comes as entertainment, for some simple curiousity, for some as a lovely craft - for others a gathering of the Grandmothers, tradition.
I see Herbs as food, medicine and magic. I see Herbs as a meeting with nature. I see Herbs as every member of the plant world.
I see the lesson of this connection as true relation.
.And do not try to match a color of the past.
This is a new day.
This is a new plant.
The colors that come forth are many,
None will be the same
And each that comes is good
And each that comes is good.
--Noel Bennett--
