mixing it up

i wrote this awhile ago, but hadn't posted it.

i started my trained art life in illustration, using paint and paper. since graduating, i've slowly leaned towards fibers, and have focused on them in the last few years. every now and then i would take out the paints and canvas, work on a piece, and once complete, put the paints away again.

 the other day i had an inclination to do some needle lace, so i grabbed a scrap of linen, and practiced some lace edging. it was a small piece, and i wasn't really sure what to do with it other than find some way of framing it. riffling around under my bed, i came across two canvases i've had forever. ah, inspiration! i took out the paints again, and have completed two canvas's incorporating my fiber work. i like the texture of fiber, the color of paint, the mixture of flat 2-dimensional and the slightly more dimensional fabric.

is this the beginning? who knows, but it is fun.

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.

dyeing haze

some of my dyeing efforts on wool roving are complete, so i carded them together for a particularly lovely batting to spin; two greyish purple shades of logwood, three shades of kamala, and one beige shade of lichen. i was hoping the lichen would be more pink, as the densely packed ammonia soaked lichen concoction was a bright pink, and at first i simmered it on low for an hour (resulting in the palest tan), then let it soak in fresh dyestuff for two weeks (only to get a slightly darker beige).

but the bluer logwood came out lovely, and the sunny strength of the kamala is nice. i threw in some purple sparkle while i was spinning to add some charm, and i quickly discovered that it is quite fun to add things while spinning. i would love to try some core-spinning, but the orifice of my old saxony wheel is too narrow to allow it. i wonder if it is possible to core spin with a drop spindle?

these colors are lovely, but i miss the sheen of silk, and the slightly more intense colors that fiber seems to acquire while dyeing. well, i shall carry on!

cushions, pincushions, pins and...yarn!

i've added some of the yarn i've been spinning to my etsy page. there's so many gorgeous yarns throughout etsy, i think mine may become quickly lost! it would be great if there were local craft shows in savannah, i could think of a few people who would want to share a booth.

i did some logwood dyeing today, and have a bit of fiber soaking in a jar of lichen dye. when i look at the dyebath after the first batch of fiber is dyed there is still so much dyestuff left in it, but the next batch of premordanted fibers come out in such pale shades, even though i soak them overnight in the cooling water. i completely don't get it. it's like this for all of the dyes i've been using; cochineal, kamala, osage, logwood, madder, teal. i hate having to dump the remaining stuff in my compost if it's still usable, so i wish i could figure it out. i think perhaps a posted question to the natural dyes group is needed.

keeping busy

today was a classic spring day; i cleaned the studio, i gardened (well, watered my seedlings really), i dyed, i wove, i cooked (black beans and yellow rice, yummy!), and then i had some serious thoughts about visiting the chiropractor.

it's finally staying warm enough for me to put my orchids out for the summer, and i figured right by my studio would be lovely. so, yesterday i crafted some wire hangers and attached hooks into the fence, and hung them with very little difficulty. they're happier outside then in (maybe it has something to do with the sparse watering schedule they endure at my hands?).

i also cleared a patch in front of the studio for the weld and indigo seeds, so i'll be watering for a couple of days and waiting on tenterhooks until they sprout. i checked on them this morning and found a line of ants tunneling down the middle of the patch, i hope they're not carrying away my seeds!

i was able to add samples of the madder dyeing i did on monday to my dye book. i've been having fun with the wool roving bits i put aside for the dye book, as i've found it really fun and easy to spin them on my bobbin winder. i'm thinking this technique may work for paper spinning.

one of the metalsmithing tools that's been loitering in my studio is a large crockpot which i keep forgetting to bring to goodwill. but luckily, procrastination paid off and i can use it for an indigo vat! now i'm just waiting for the mail system to deliver the ground indigo. i'm very excited, as i'm missing blues in my dye experiments.

a couple of weeks ago i put a linen warp on my loom and have been playing around with different yarns, piles, and random weft kasuri. i've enough left to try one more thing, maybe something sheer.

i took some photos of the studio before i cleaned, and i don't think the desk looks all that bad. i'm really happy with the way the inspiration board is fleshing out.

efforts

well, no news in the indigo front (the experiment bombed for various reasons). but, there's still some dyeing taking place in the laboratory. i've been dyeing wool roving as an experiment to see what colors i may obtain from the different extracts i have. hopefully i will end up with a good spectrum of colors to card together and spin. so far i've created bubblegum pink, deep magenta, daffodil yellow, and a ruby purple by using madder and kamala. currently resting in the dye pot is hopefully a teal and a pale green, so their final color is awaiting verification. i know i should make orange, but it's my least favorite color, so i may settle on peach. when i have them all together i'll post photos.

i was happy to receive extra bobbins in the mail from doc for my new old spinning wheel, so i tested them out and was able to spin a fine grey alpaca two ply yarn; it's especially fuzzy, so i'm not quite sure what to do with it.

on monday during the spinning meet-up, i spun a lovely silk merino i've had forever, and plied it with a cinnamon alpaca. it took a little extra work to ply as i had to reply it on my drop spindle after the initial plying was too loose. drop spindle plying is especially nice as i feel that i have more control over the end result, at this point i prefer it over spinning singles on the drop spindle (i quite like using the spinning wheel for that part).

i'm racking up quite a collection of spun yarns, perhaps i should put some of them in my etsy storefront?

wait...isn't teal a blue-green color?

i had visions of blue-green silk against cream and natural linen. and for once i made test samples before throwing the good yarn in the pot. i made bundles from the silk remnants of my last project, mixed up three mordants; aluminum acetate, tin/tartar, potassium aluminum sulfate, threw in the samples and let them soak for a day or so.

then, today, i mixed up a bit of the teal extract, which made the water a lovely turquoise, applied heat, and tossed in the silk samples. let them soak for an hour, checking every now and then, waiting to see the lovely blue-green develop on the silk. and waited. and waited. green bluish yes, teal, um not really. then, i finally removed them and watched the rinse water run away with the small bit of blue which had developed, leaving a bright green in its wake.

it is a lovely green, but when one wants blue-green, it's not really a happy accident. i had used the extract before on cotton, and the results were a lovely minty blue, exactly what i wanted. one thing i noticed though, is that were the strands came together in the middle of the bundle of silk there is a blue area. so, from this, i can suppose that the tighter areas of overlapping thread hold onto the blue molecules, which is why the cotton fabric is blue, but not the silk thread. another funny thing is that a piece of hemp cloth came out absolutely neon. so, not even the cellulose fibers all acted the same here. ah, the joy of dyeing!

plans and things gone awry

i'm in the planning stages of setting up a big cartel shop for my weavings. i was thinking of just adding them to my etsy store, but then i realized they wouldn't fit in with the patchwork and pins. and as far as setting up another etsy store, the idea of having to log in and out of each one, build up feedback for the new store, and try to be found amongst the slew of products, makes my brain hurt.

so, instead, i will give big cartel a try. i like their simple layout, and it's fun to create banners and headers with a different colorway.

in dyeing news, the mistletoe was a disappointment. the green was so pale as to be called celadon, and though an afterbath of ammonia made a deeper color, once dry it wasn't as bright. but i'm not giving in yet! i will try a copper mordant to hopefully boost the green, use more plantstuff in the dye bath, and use wool and silk instead of cotton. there was a very slight difference in color between the leaves only bath (top left) , stems only bath (bottom left) , and a mixture of both (top right, and bottom right-no ammonia afterbath).

but strangely, the paper towels i was drying the samples on absorbed some of the dye and had blue and green areas. and, no, there aren't any dyes or prints on the paper itself. hmm.

creative organizing

i started a natural dye sample book to keep track of what i've done so far. when i was working on my kasuri piece i added those yarns to it right after i was done; mostly the tiny remnants which were left after weaving. then, today, while waiting for the mistletoe to simmer, i decided to add cuts of the material i had dyed last year. it's filling up nicely, and i realize that pinks, oranges, yellows, and greens are the only colors i've made as of yet. i need to do some dyeing with purples, greys, and blues.

while i was at it, i made some cuttings to do a lightfastness test. they looked really pretty in the window. i hope they don't fade, or only slightly. i think a part of me likes to remain in denial of the dyes fading, so i didn't do any testing till now. which is a bad way to go about creating things; knowledge gained is never such a horrid thing.

inlay and boil, boil, boil

beginning work on a new weaving. i wanted to try out an inlay technique where the ends are left free to create a pile; i haven't any clue what it's called, i just saw it somewhere and thought it looked neat. i hope the piece will turn out well, it's hard to really know until you remove it from the loom.

this piece also gave me an opportunity to use my new obi shuttles which i bought while in kyoto. one thing is for sure, they make doing inlay incredibly easy. and they're just so gosh darn cute!

i came across a passage in an old dye book about using mistletoe to get a deep green. in town there's a group of juvenile trees which have mistletoe growing low enough to cut without needing a ladder. so today, while grocery shopping i collected some mistletoe. then, after separating the leaves from the branches, i boiled the stems for an hour. tomorrow i'll boil the leaves, then i'll compare how much dyestuff i get from them. i think three different dye experiments will be good to do; the stems, the leaves, then a 50/50 combo of both. for once, i think i'll do a lightfast test as well; if the dye passes that, and creates a lovely green, i'll be happy.

things we create

well, as i await the necessary unbuffered acid free tissue paper so that i may mail it off to japan, i thought i would finally unveil the piece i've been working on. i'm quite fond of it, and would like to keep it forever, as it's the first truly artistic piece i feel i've done in awhile.

i used cochineal and osage orange on a tin mordanted silk to get the various salmon hues, cochineal for the raspberry color, and osage orange for the weft kasuri. the binding process took awhile, as there were many lengths of fiber that needed to be resisted. dyeing was an interesting experiment, as i wanted a soft gradation of lighter to darker pink near the top. this was the first serious natural dyeing that i did without a clear formula for proceeding. i used my notes from japan, the book indigo, madder and marigold, and random recollections from my memory of things i've read. now, my hope is that the dye colors will all hold up to time and the environment. well, fingers crossed.

glimpses of the whole

i'm not quite ready to show you the entire piece yet, but here are some glimpses of my naturally dyed kasuri weaving. i am in love with the texture and feel of the viscose silk, and really want to create more pieces from it. it took the dye really well, considering the stiffness and texture. the dye worked itself into the core of the silk, so i think it will last okay. i will be mailing this piece off to japan next month to be in an exhibit of work by students of the kawashima textile school, where i studied a few months ago. i'm very excited, as it will be first piece in an exhibit.

process as a start

i've become a green tea addict, and to further encourage this obsession i keep some yummy genmaicha extra green tea triangles in my studio. storing them was going to be an issue until i came upon a wooden cigar box at the local wine/beer/cigar store which didn't smell, removed the so-so label and replaced it with pretty paper where it was still sticky. i'm quite happy with my $2 find, and it fits 30 tea envelopes at a time.

i finished my cotton kasuri sampler today, and have begun the weaving process on my first project since coming home. i have the loom mostly threaded now, but i thought i would post some photos of the progress.

my inspiration board has a photo of a flamingo along with some fabric swatches to give myself an indication of what color direction i wanted to head in while dyeing. this was a starting point mostly; i also drew up a version on graph paper and a color drawing to get a more exact idea of placement and measurements.

the dye process took two days, and i learned a lot from this; i'm thinking exact notes on what i did are going to be a problem, as i tinkered with the dyeing as i went along in order to get the colors i wanted at that moment, depending on what was happening in the pot. but with everything dry, i think it will work out. the hardest point i had was developing a gradient range of one hue; it was moderately successful, i won't know for sure until i've woven with them.

hopefully tomorrows work goes well, and i will try to remember to take photos as i go along. i won't say anything as corny as "new year's goal".

still going strong

the solar dyed avocado took up about the same amount of dye as heating it on the stove in the second bath, so that's interesting. there seams to be a significant amount of dyestuff in the avocado, so it's a good thing that i've been saving up the skins.

the shibori experiment went well, i'm really enjoying the calla lily-like patterning of the second piece (some bead work to enhance it would be pretty, or possibly some metallic thread embroidery). i will set these pieces aside and work on them more later.

tougher than it looks

i've been seeing posts about solar dyeing, and thought i would give it a try; as it's still in the 90's here and the thought of turning on the stove and standing over it for an hour is rather unbearable. using the leftover dyestuff from past dye projects, red onion skin and avocado skin, i pleated and wrapped some of my prepared alum mordanted cloth bits and let them soak outside in the sun for two days. the avocado is still soaking, so no results to post of yet.

i was happy with the results of the cotton swatch soaked in onion skin; finally some patterning to my dye efforts! as i've been going through my selvedge magazines i've been reading a lot about resist dyeing, i think that that along with shibori will be my next area of study. the linen piece was okay, some dye penetrated the edges but the inside of the pleat was still white. pretty, but not as interesting as the cotton.

i've been admiring the progress eva of tinctory has been making with her smocking pieces, and have to say that i was impressed and enchanted with her work last year, but am really enthralled by her current natural dye artworks. one day i shall own one of her lovely pieces for my own.

i had tried my hand at smocking in the past and every attempt was quite sad, so pulling out the art of manipulating fabric, i tried once more using the dyed linen swatch. after several eh stitched attempts, i ripped them out, and tried to simplify my approach. two rows in and i thought of what could fit in the niches to make it more interesting, and to aid in holding them open. looking through my bead collection, at first i tried seed beads (too small), then swarvoski crystals (too saturated in color), and finally my pearls (they popped right in and added a delicate glow to the soft coloring of the dye). as i sewed, the piece started to take shape and i pictured a 3-dimensional brooch; so when i was done, i sewed it to a bit of felt and a pin. at the finish of this project, i have to say hats off to tinctory, as this was a more difficult skill than i had previously thought, and requires a good deal of thought beforehand. i'm not sure if i shall make further attempts, but a skill learned is never lost.

underneath

i'm really enjoying my experiments with natural dyestuffs. the exhaust baths are incredible! the first soak in the avocado skins gave me a cool medium pink, but when i reused the dyebath a second time the cloth became a warm pinky peach, mostly pale in saturation.

with the red onion skins the first fiber batch came out a yellow green shade, and the second dyebath was a rich olive green. i wasn't able to reuse the marigold dyebath, as i poured it down the drain foolishly. but i'm hard at work collecting every bloom my little plant throws forth!

i wonder what would happen if i were to change the ph of the dyebath? i must pick up ph strips when i go grocery shopping again, and do some reading research. i would also like to collect more local dyestuffs. i'm on the lookout for sumac berries (which aren't ready yet), eucalyptus leaves, and anything else that would yield somewhat colorful material. i would love to dye some purples, for instance. anyone in the south east have any good sources or plants i whould look out for?

second baths

i dreamt of dyeing an ombre swatch before going to sleep the other night. so the following day, i used the leftover dye baths from my previous experiments, the avocado and the red onion skin. i noticed something about the finished swatch; the colors were not the same as my first samples. so i gathered up some swatches of material, and did some more dyeing.

the second red onion dyebath produced an olive green instead of the bright chartreuse. i rather like this color as well. the fabric took the dye up rather quick, same as the first bath, so perhaps i can get a third dyeing out of it yet.

the avocado bath also produced a color shift. the results from the first bath was a cool medium pink, but the second gave me a lighter warm peachy pink, very pretty. i let it simmer for over an hour, and the color did not deepen much from the swatches i pulled out after half an hour; so perhaps the bath is exhausted.

red = green?

i'm in the middle of prepping fabric for the dye pot, so i thought i'd post a photo of my red onion skin results. i used alum as a premordant, and with the exception of the two lighter colored bits, they are all cotton. the triangle wedge is a scrap of wool felt and the other is a scrap of unknown fabric i had at hand, both of which i just threw in the dyepot to see what would happen.

i used an organic red onion, just the outer dry skins, boiled it for five minutes and then removed the skins and dunked in the fabric. the fabric just drew up the color so quickly; the longest any of them were in the pot was fifteen minutes. i really like this green gold color, it's very pretty.

well, off to check on my fabric pots!

i've fallen in love

with dyeing, natural dyeing that is. my experiments with marigold and avocado turned out beautifully.

i cut some sample swatches from various cotton fabrics, some cotton yarn, and a length of cream wool. first i scoured them in a soapnuts concentrate and soda ash, then using aluminum sulfate as the mordant, i simmered the fabric for an hour, rinsed and left wet. both the marigold and the avocado skins were boiled for a short time in separate pots, petals and skin were removed, and fabric immersed. i simmered the marigold pot for an hour, rinsed and dried the fabric. however, the avocado i let sit for a day, just soaking. the pinks were very light, with a slight brown cast. so i decided i would then simmer them for an hour as well. the pinks developed a much brighter tone. to see the difference; the bundle of wool i removed from the pot before simmering, the brighter segment i left in the pot and simmered. i then removed the fabric, rinsed, and let air dry.

i am very happy with both results! the idea to dye with avocados came from the lovely gerfotos, and really helped inspire me to try dyeing. i plan on dyeing with a natural teal concentrate i purchased from dt craft & design, next. or maybe combining these two colors to get a peachy color.