liquorice

Friday November 20, 2009

I have finally got around to covering a visual diary and I have promised myself to use it until it's full of all sorts, thoughts, ideas, plans, good books etc.

Normally whenever I get an idea or make a plan I find a new book.  I think I have enough books to last me forever.  I have put the date on the front and plan to add the finishing date and then more on to the next one.   A good plan, I think.

When I did my onion dyeing I dyed some sliver which I am planning to spin and/or use for felting.

 

More beautiful colour.

Today is a looking at my 
  piles day and maybe a bit of tidying.

They just seem to get everywhere.  We have had lovely weather and so I fancy to do some sewing for summer - for that I need one clear table top and space to walk around.

Outside is lovelier.

And I have some old flowers and some of last years autumn leaves solar dyeing - another pile I can see getting bigger.

 
  

Corokia and onion.

I did some samples from my corokia bush outside and got some wonderful colours.  The sort of pinky colour is the raw colour and those on the left are the metal pre-modants - just love that grey!

And using my onion samples as a guide I dyed half a blanket to begin my babies series.  Just in case you don't know I get angry and upset when I read or hear about badly injured babies and children.  And so I am planning a bit of a series.

 
 
  
   The colours and movement across the piece are really neat.  I used more metal pre-mordant and got some serious greens.

And I have needle felted a op shop baby blanket to the surface.  I am waiting for some bigger needles to hopefully get more intergration of fibres.  Yesterday I got felting books from the library. 

Monday 16.11.09

Felting and Carrot Tops.

I have been trying needle felting with some previously dyed pieces.

The fabric pieces on top seem to float and yet also they are part of the fabric and embedded.  I tried pieces of blanket, silk voile, patchwork cotton, cotton gauze and rust dyed cotton.

And then I made a less random sample with pieces of blanket and rust dyed cotton.

 
  These are my carrot top samples.  There wasn't a great variety, however some of the differences are very subtle, and so I think generally carrot tops could be used without any pre-mordant, except for th cotton fabric which I soak in diluted soy milk.  I soak it, dry it and then keep for as long as possible on the shelf before I use it.  India Flints book "Eco Colour - botanical dyes for beautiful textiles" is a wonderful source of all sorts of information

And out the window - a beautiful rhododendron which is just flowering.  And if you could just see over the neighbours fence you would see that the sun is shining again.

Today my plan is to dye a piece of blanket in onion skins, straighten some old foraged autumn leaves and then put together some pieces of fabric and dye them in the piece not in pieces as I normally do. 

 

Onion Skins

These are my brown onion skin samples, so many shades...........

This is so satisfying.  Tomorrow I have some carrot tops to try - greens I suspect.

These are some small rust stitching pieces I have done with rust dyed cotton pieces and stitched onto tray dyed rusted blanket pieces.  They are about 6" square (13 cms square).

 
 
 I have included a detail from each one.

 
Luke's foraging bag.  It's about 8" x 6".  I do hope he likes it and uses it.  It was such a big birthday party and he got so many presents it was very hard to keep up. 

 

  

Monday 09.11.09

 

Organisation and samples

Yesterday I dried and looked more carefully at my rose hip samples.

And I decided they were OK really.  Initially I was really disappointed but then I have a beautiful khaki green colour and sort of pink.  I tried cotton without any soy as a pre-mordant and it didn't work ( I knew that but I was being scientific).  I won't do that again.  I used garden labels to write on so that they wouldn't dissolve.  I did forget the wool but tried some sliver - without labels!!!!!

Today I am going to do some samples with some brown onion skins I have collected while cooking. 
 

And I have some red onion skins collected by a friend (RHS) to save for later.  I am saving my foraging "stuff" in old pillow slips so they stay dry and I can hang them in the wardrobe on skirt hangers.

We are going to a birthday party tomorrow for a 5 year old and I am planning a foraging bag for him.  Melissa makes the most wonderful foraging bags for children.  Thank you Melissa.

 
More rust on the spring.  This is silk (paj) and it is soaking in seawater as I type.

 
  And I have been foraging for kowhai seeds in my garden. NOTE the BLUE SKY!!!!!

 

Rust dyeing and getting organised

Yesterday I spent time looking for more information about natural dyeing and found this cool site called pairiefibres.  She has several blogs as well with links from her website.  Then I found some old pieces of rust dying that I had done a long time ago actually using pieces of rusted metal.

I had a piece of fabric already wrapped around a beautiful rusty old spring that I had been religiously spraying with water to encourage rust with little luck.  Now I have it wrapped around the spring after being rinsed in vinegar, re-wrapped, left overnight and now in the sun and it is looking so good.  I am going to rinse it in salt water next to stop the rusting

I have also been making a plan to record my dying so that it is not so random.  I will still do random I am sure, I won't be able to avoid it .

I have been making notes, assembling materials and reading books.  And I have a records chart taken from India Flints' one - thank you.  I am thinking I am going to try to make regular postings: Monday. Wednesday and Friday for now and see if I can do it.  OK so far, this week.  

Monday 02.11.09

More dying and Fiberarts

I over-dyed my stripey pink piece of blanket the other day.

 
The finished piece and a detail.  It looks a bit like the hide of one of those african wild dogs.

I used corokia(?) growing outside and wrapped stalks of it in the piece of blanket and added chopped branches to the pot and then boiled it for a few hours.

When I have used this before it has given a soft sort of pink, a bit like the underside of supermarket mushrooms.  So the stripes have almost disappeared and the rusty nails have spread out as black/grey.

My Nov/Dec issue of Fiberarts arrived today.  Wonderful for cup of tea time this morning.  There is a review of Clare Plug's exhibition based on her time in Antarctica.  It is an installation called Look South on in Hawkes Bay.  It is travelling or touring in 2010 so look out for it, it looks really interesting.