Category: natural dyeing

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Woo Hoo!

I beat out the snow showers yesterday by cooking up some contact dyed clothing on Monday. Unbundled them yesterday and am loving the results! Still need to be rinsed/washed.
The real surprise came from the avocado skins and seeds. Normally I get a nice green from the skins and a salmon color from the cut seeds. This time – blue with just a hint of salmon! Thinking it might have something to do with the egg whites I dipped everything in, but that is not clear just yet.
I so love the magic and surprise in the dye pot!

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Get ready…

… For a fabulous adventure! I will be heading down under early next month for three very full months of teaching, traveling and time with friends.

The piles are growing of things I need and want to take along. Making sure it all fits and comes in within the weight limit will be a trick!

My hope is to keep this blog updated regularly during my travels…. Time will tell!

 

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What I’ve been doing…

A busy time right now….  Come to think of it, most times are busy!

Anyway, getting ready for my first appearance at the 10th Annual Fashion Show and Boutique of the Textile At Alliance (TAA – associated with the Cleveland Art Museum). I will have work in the fashion show as well as a booth in the boutique. The hardest part right now is sewing tags on all the silk scarves I’ve dyed this past year!

Here are some glimpses of some of the garments (repurposed and some rearranged) that will be available for new owners:

                 Imagered and grey         

          browns and olive

elegant rust

mud circles skirt            mud lines skirt

locut leaves shirt

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Dyeing continues…

After the weekend Natural Dyeing workshop that I held here at my home, I saved the pots of water that were used for dyeing with copper, iron and aluminum. There is always some color floating around in a pot after its been used and I figured I would re-use it to take advantage of the first dyeings.

The aluminum was nice, but OH BOY! I feel like I hit the jackpot with the iron pot!

nat dyed silk scarves

The silk scarves just burst with color from two different eucalyptus leaves, avocado pit and skins, blueberries and lots of onion skins both yellow and red. I know they will lighten as they dry and some of the dyestuffs are still stuck to the silk, but they look gorgeous!

 

 

nat dyed papers

Even some papers came out lovely!  Over the weekend we didn’t see much color from the Eucalyptus rudis (long leaf), but this potful must’ve been just right.

The grey on both silk and paper is from the re-used iron water.

 

I’ve got the copper pot simmering right now in hopes of a similar jackpot!

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From another perspective

Sara Pearce, a local paper collage artist and one of the lovely people attending the past weekend’s Natural Dyeing workshop, just put up pictures and some description on her blog – you might want to check it out.