easy peasy

wanting to do some quick and easy natural dyeing, i decided to try a technique using extracts from the extract dyeing book, "colours of the rainbow" by helen melvin. the process is quite fun! i had purchased some silk hankies when in asheville, and decided to dye them along with some wool, linen, alpaca, and cotton.

the two colors i used were osage orange and teal (from hue & dye). i presoaked the fiber in a copper mordant to bring out more greens in the colors. i was rather surprised by which fibers picked up which color more; the wool grabbed the most blue, the silk grabbed the most yellow, and the cellulose fibers tended to the paler tones. i was especially pleased by the alpaca.

i pried apart the silk hankies for spinning later (august when i take a silk spinning class), wound the yarns onto bobbins, and twisted the silk organza to get some pleats when it dries.

another experiment i have going is a traditional indigo vat which has been brewing for awhile now. this shibori example is from a piece of duckcloth i want to make into an oilcloth apron; i'm just waiting for some of the smell to air out of it. when i say traditional, what i mean to say is urine and indigo. but i must say, the vat itself smells less odiferous now than it did when i first started it.

in preparation

little bundles i hope to dip into an indigo vat. shibori is something i haven't played around with very much, but i'm excited to see how these pieces come out. i'm using some of the mistletoe dyed scraps and hope the indigo covers up an unsuccessful dye result. i'm thinking the madder dyed pieces will become a deeper blue purple with one dip or so, but i'm not completely certain. that's the fun of experimenting with natural dyes, you really don't know how a fiber will come out of the pot; bright, pale, muddy, strong, mellow, uneven, uninspiring, surprising.

my big picture plan with this indigo dyeing is to create an oilcloth apron i can wear when dyeing in the future. i've wrapped screws into one piece of duck cloth, and scrunched up another. when they've been dyed and dried, i'll stretch them onto a frame and layer linseed oil until a slick surface is created. when all is cured, the pieces will be cut and joined into a long styled apron. i'll post pictures of the stages and we'll see how the final sums up.

i need to get out more

i've been wrapped up in my quilting (timewise and literally) for several days now, and find myself sad to leave it to do other things. one of those things was attending the scad fibers open house on friday, and forgetting to bring a camera. however, i saw some really amazing work, grabbed some business cards, and made an indigo dyed bit of shibori fabric to remember it by.

in quilting news, the triangles and squares have been machine stitched together (otherwise i would still be hand sewing the top still) and i have the top, batting, and back done and basted together. one of the goals of doing this quilt is to hand sew it together. thanks to my lovely new thimble and a bandaid, my hands are pain free, and one of the things i can rest assured about is that after having the quilt in my lap for some time it is definitely warm and cosy.

today was a sunny, breezy kind of day, and with trees budding i thought about picnics in the grass and soaking up the daylight while lying on my quilt. a pin popped that idea, as i was reminded about grass stains (thanks mom!). but still, the idea is a good one, but perhaps an old blanket would be okay too.