winter whites

Powdery blue, silver, rosy taupe, celadon, winter white, blush, misty gray. The faintest of colors seem to dominate my surroundings this time of year. It happens to be my favorite palette no matter what season, but I love how the winter time somehow makes even the whitest shades of pale more vivid.

The color scheme in the landscape is influencing my work. There has been plenty of white on white stitching done (some may be altered in the dye pot at a later date) and a few older unfinished pieces has gained new life, despite being tucked away because of perceived lack of color interest.

Right after the holidays I made time for a dye pot, experimenting with only using plant materials gathered from the back yard despite the wintery weather. A combination of nandina, oak, magnolia and leatherleaf viburnum were layered between silk, cotton, and linen fabric, with a few pieces of paper thrown in for added interest.

The clamped bundle simmered with a handful of fustic wood shavings, for a couple of hours and were left to rest for another few days. The unveiling was far more thrilling than I expected. Somehow the wonderful imprints left behind mirrored the shades of the wintery cold landscape outside. In layers, and gradations, even the palest of impressions managed to stand out. Such joy...

divulgence

My love story with pecan leaves continues. Clamped and bundled with a variety of fabrics and papers, these graceful leaves never cease to amaze me. This time I will let the pictures tell the story – and as always divulging what's within is the most magical part of the tale.

walnut and oak leaves

An incredibly stinky brew of walnut and oak leaves became my dye concoction this weekend. The mixture had soaked in an iron pot on our patio for about six months and was ripe in every sense of the word. Besides the indigo vats, this was my first dye experiment in a long time, and I had quite a few ideas I wanted to try. Loose pieces of wool and linen went into the pot, so did two bundles with dried oak leaves, and beech twigs clamped between linen squares and metal plates...

I was imagining the twigs acting as resists, while still letting the dye seep through to the surrounding cloth. It worked ok, but not quite as distinct as I imagined. The linen did not take the walnut dye as well as I had hoped. In hind sight I think I tried to do a bit too much. There was not much room to move around in the pot and the clamps holding the twigs in place were rusty, therefor leaving some rust smudges here and there. I also think I opened the bundles too soon (just could not help myself). I still had a great fun messing around with the dye pot - glad to be back in the thick of it, literally. 

oh indigo

We are about to enter week four in my online indigo workshop with Glennis Dolce, and I am having a blast. I still don't really understand the exact chemistry behind this dye process, but I love the instant gratification of dipping the cloth into the vat, pulling it out 2 minutes later and watch it turn from yellowish green to blue in an instant. Magical.

I am working with two vats - one is a pre-reduced natural indigo vat, and the other is a 1-2-3 vat originating from French indigo dyer Michel Garcia. The pre-reduced vat involves using both soda ash and thiox (color remover) and I am sure that the indigo crystals themselves has undergone some chemical treatment to become "reduced", so to call it natural is probably a stretch. But it does give a nice, nice blue color, especially after repeat dips. The 1-2-3 vat consists of nothing but natural indigo powder, powdered fructose, and powdered pickling lime. It was ready to use after just a few minutes, smells sweet and delicious, and dyes the loveliest pale shades of blue that builds up to a rich medium blue over time.

We are also working on some shibori techniques, such as clamping, and scrunching (my term). The scrunching creates the nice sky like pieces. And the folding and clamping is just fun, fun, fun... I am so happy to be messing with dye pots again.

pecan love story - weekly bundles no. 9

My infatuation with the pecan leaves continues. This time I used fallen leaves from a couple of trees in our neighborhood. They were yellow, withered, and tattered. But the prints still turned out beautiful. The long wool piece was previously dyed with eucalyptus, and had a wonderful coral hue before being bundled up and simmered in the iron pot. The leaves turned a rich gold color on the thick silk organza and muted brown on the linen. Both kinds of fabric squares were layered with the leaves between glass plates and clamped tight. The paper prints were done on thin craft paper that my art store uses for wrapping – I love the faint imprints and the tissue like quality of the paper.

pecan on eucalyptus dyed wool jersey, simmered in iron pot. 

pecan on linen, pretreated with alum and soy milk

Pecan on silk organza, simmered in iron pot. 

Pecan on craft wrapping paper, simmered in iron pot.

You probably have realized by now that the weekly bundles no longer are that weeekly. It was a bit ambitious for someone who only blogs once a week on average anyways. I will continue, and I will still tag and call these posts weekly bundles, but they will not appear as regularly as I first intended.

Lastly, a brief sum up of some of the fun I've had the last few weeks. My days on the farm were amazing with spectacular weather, lovely companions (bovine, feline, canine, and human), and lots of work produced. This past weekend's Artisan Studio Tour was a great success. Both of my new books were snatched up, and I also sold a few wall hangings and met many, many lovely and interesting people. Thank you to all who stopped by!