These 'rose beads' came to me via email from Ate in Norway. She wrote:
"I want to give to you these rose beads. I make them taking fresh roses and boiling them in a iron crock. I go lurking around town at night and pick the roses in parking lots and so on. I am so afraid I will come in the local paper, "Woman caught with bags full of roses!" I boil up the roses and let it cool over night. This I repeat 4 times. You feel when the mass is good to work with and Roll balls and set to dry, but keep working the balls. I tried drying outdoors, but found the larger birds think of them as food. Before it drys completely stick neeedle in and thread into beads. What you see are ones I let go too far, there is no way I can force a needle thru these, but they smell so good. With the rosewater I tried dying wool as the color was a deep purple.The yarn became a grey yellow weak color. A psycic friend was so glad for the water though, she clenses houses with it. Glad to help! I have also pressed the fiber into pendants. Perhaps this is something you can use or pass on..."
