Midweek meander.

This week the weather has been amazing for April, hot and sunny, the perfect weather for getting out in the garden. As well as lifting the spirits after a cold long winter it has the added bonus of making you notice things anew. The change in light levels and clearing away the winter debris picks out the smallest of details, as I'm always on the look out for dye materials I started noticing the beautiful lichens, pattern, texture and colour all rolled into one, beautiful un-noticed worlds!

I don't know the names of many of these strange lichens, there are so many different types but this one reminds me of barnacles on the rocks at the beach, I wonder if this is what they call it?

This one is a wonderful limey green if you click on the image you can see them in more detail.

Fibonachi spiral?

Orange and silver, wow.

This one looks like an ancient painted surface all cracked and crazed. Locally known as bird poo lichen! Well maybe a bit more rude than that!

Many different types all grouped together but the yellow shines out.

For dyeing lichens are usually a substantive, this means that they don't need a mordant, (or fixative) to fix the colour.One word of caution though many lichens take years to grow and grow at an extremely slow rate, so before you go scrapping them off find out more about them. Lichens are also an indicator of really good  air quality as they only grow in this type of environment, hooray for the beautiful lichen long may it prosper, inspirational aren't they!