This charming painting arrived a few days ago from Regina Dwarkasing who lives in St.Maarten, along with some actual PODS. Wow, Regina - thanks!! I will be so happy when I can get back to my print studio and get busy with them. I love what you did with them here. Regina had read my post about the pods on the trees at Rutgers last month and generously sent me some from the tree in the only park on the island. I am truly honored and I promise to post what I do with them. I already have a couple of ideas. In the meantime, today I was back to the shibori buckets. This process is not for the faint of heart (or weak of muscle) -nor is it for people who are - ahem - impatient. I was dyeing in the kitchen, which is not my preference - but the 5 gal buckets are too heavy to be anywhere but in the sink, where I can dump them out without having to carry them anywhere. It seems that if I am going to do this in my studio, where the sink is down the hall, I will have to figure out a lwi process for it. Today,everything I dyed seemed to come out purple. Actually, I was overdyeing some things I wasn't happy with - and some of them have a long way to go. (what else is new?). Both of these were more blah before I reworked them. They were, as you can tell, one piece. I tore them in two and shibori'd them differently. The one on the right is more interesting but they might just work well together somewhere. This piece started with white and I think I threw it into some black dye. It is a lovely shade of green. Don't ask me what I did with the fabric - I have no idea. I guess I should be writing down what I do with each piece - but I'm in too much of a rush. This was an overdye of a white fabric that had bits of orange on it. Better than all that white.The dilemma is how to use them, but I guess that's the same dilemma we all have with fabrics we've printed. Shibori is ofen so strong that it can overwhelm something else -and it's a matter of using it so it works with your other fabrics and with your own style. Putting beautiful fabrics together does not necessarily become a piece of art just because. I figure this is a good opp for me to work on composition - but to me, the work still has to say something or it is just an exercise. Of course, that's ME. Not everybody feels that way - and I think it would be easier if I didn't. Oh,dear-myspacebarhasstoppedworking-so-I-will-say-goodnight.I-think-it-is-time-to-contemplate-buying-a-new-laptop.AARRGH.