bling!

when i saw these heavy looking spheres set against the winter sky, my first thought was that they looked like an audacious multi-carat ring on the brittle finger of a 93 year old socialite. nature’s bling! a little research showed them to be oak marble galls, which contain large amounts of tannic acid. apparently, these galls can be used to make ink and to dye cloth. traces of iron-gall ink have even been found on the dead sea scrolls. something tells me my imagined social x-ray with the big honkin’ rock on her finger would not be caught dead dyeing fabric (pun intended). but i don’t hang with her kind of crowd, so i think it sounds pretty cool.

oak marble gall (distortions to leaf buds caused by gall wasps)

rice creek regional trail, saint paul, minnesota

  • margie says:

    we used just this thing to dye with in the workshop last weekend . You would have loved it.

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