summer sewing

A deadline is often the thing that brings be back to sewing when other things have prevented me from giving it the time I would like. I have been posting a bit of progress on this one on Instagram. The ease of process in posting a photo or two over there is working well with our all over the place summer schedule.

This recent cloth is a table runner - roughly 14" X 90", made with vintage and repurposed fabrics. The blue fabric is from a little indigo dye session last summer, just a quick dip in a weakening pot.

The back is a thrifted canvas drop cloth. It gives a wonderful weight to the runner, enough relief for a nice crinkle after the wash, and a lovely fringe on a raw edge. Just the quilt top and the drop cloth are a manageable thickness for both hand-stitching and machine-stitching. I really love the weight of this combination.

That's a Buttonbush branch above, my inspiration for the leaves and circle blooms. I am eager to get another portable project ready to roll. Our summer has been full of bike races and although this runner project was portable during the appliqué and hand-stitching stages, for the most part it was made at home.

Because, sometimes a bike race looks like this. Maybe time to start a little mud cloth.

golden greens

Just over three months have gone by since I posted here last, and wow it went so fast. I have been watching the garden grow and my boys too - trying to keep up with all of them - the boys and the garden. 

The late season bloomers in our yard are gearing up for their show. We have several varieties of native goldenrod, most abundantly - Solidago rigida.  It's not at all picky about soil or light or anything so has been a prolific self-seeder, so it seems the perfect choice for dyeing.

So far I have only used the stems and leaves with cottons and raw silk fabrics. No luck with the cotton, which was not surprising. The raw silk has been wonderful - celery green, pale yellow and most recently gold.



I tried painting with a bit of likely tannin-rich mud from our pond. It didn't affect the dye so much as just make a mud stain, but I like it. Like everything else, the mud preferred the silk. I am excited to work more with the mud. I love the raw nature in this process - making marks with wet dirt. On the silk it's kind of amazing really, and these are shown already machine washed and dried.

Before going much further with the dyeing I am thinking about what I would really use. At first I liked the greens, but that green and gold variation - especially in the middle block - is just beautiful.

Next try I will be working on repeating that.

I am also thinking about how beautiful these colors might be with walnut browns.

warm it up

I have been using a lot of golden colored fabrics - I am very fond of the cool indigo/warm yellow combination. I have run out of the golds. Yesterday, I made a bit more with scraps on hand and some turmeric. I have possibly posted about this before but here it is again, labeled this time so I can find it later and recall how I did it. (top to bottom fabrics: walnut dipped cotton, white cotton sheet, beige mens dress shirt fabric)

1.5 QT saucepan filled with water and 1 TBS of turmeric. Fabric is sort of scrunched down in there.

I stirred it around just a little bit as I heated it to a really bubbling boil. Let it boil for maybe just a minute or two and then removed from heat and let sit for a couple of hours.

I rinsed with cold water until water ran clear. Fabrics had sort of an orange appearance before washing. I threw them immediately into the washing machine with a load of yellow friendly laundry. 

Back to beautiful gold after machine washed and dried, twice. Turmeric dyed fabrics can be expected to fade over time. I haven't found mine to fade much but maybe I just haven't had them long enough? Wondering too if the walnut dip for example possibly acts as a bit of a mordant? Wouldn't that be nice?

I really like the rich, natural warmth in the fabrics that already had some color. The walnut dipped cotton on the left. The mens shirt fabric turned out beautiful too, that one maybe the most surprising.

Probably don't need so many photos, but some warm colors like this in the middle of winter seem so nice. Happy warm up.

painting vs dyeing

This piece was made with painted cloth. Some of the variation in color resembles dyed cloth but it is painted. I used a small amount of paint to apply washes as needed to create the colors I wanted with the fabrics I already had. Most of the fabrics I used were solid colors to begin with - I used the paint to add some variation. I also used the paint to emphasize edges - darkening with washes inside or outside of a stitched line. 

I used Pebeo Setacolor transparent fabric paints. The big bottles I have had for quite awhile. The small bottles are part of a wonderful starter set available through Dharma Trading Co.

I also used sun printed fabric (sun printed with the same transparent fabric paint) I had made awhile back and just cut choice pieces out of it. 

However, we did dye some fabrics in the gold and amber range with smashed apples this weekend, which yielded some similar colors. I think I have mentioned this on here before but we just made cider this weekend and so here it is again.

My people (and pup) - Brett holding the apples that have been pureed through a garbage disposal system he has built for cider making (not shown). The cider colored bag is full of the pulp before it has been pressed. That bag has been used for several years and retains a beautiful rich cider color.

The one used for years shown on the right. Two new bags shown left and middle - of those two only the middle one was used this time. This is after being washed. Pretty amazing I think - just apples.

The lighting on some of my inside photos are all over the place today. We have crossed over into winter temperatures in the last few hours and it feels like it has been getting dark since about noon today. So -  hot cider tonight. Stay warm.

72 blocks :: One & Two

These both have the same base fabric - a beige cotton flat sheet. I spent a few summer days (maybe six years ago!?) sun printing large positive and negative circles onto it to make a whole cloth quilt that never happened. I worked on it in the sunny front yard of our house. In the back yard of that same house was a big beautiful cottonwood tree whose leaves would cast the most beautiful flickering shade. My oldest says he still remembers that other house.

I recently dipped a lot of this painted beige fabric into a pot of walnuts and I like the way it softened the blue and green paint.

I stitched the single line leaf first and thought the next one would be better with an additional dark line but I much prefer the first one. Simple.

These blocks are part of "72 blocks" and began here.

Blues

I am in Glennis Dolce's online indigo workshop and just got started today getting my hands in

the indigo. This afternoon was warm and I was able to work outside to get the vat started. Two weeks

of warm weather predicted and I am looking forward to spending more time outside with

the buckets of blue.

Oak and Pond I :: Float

I squealed a little when I unwrapped this one. Two oak leaves wrapped in cotton and left in the pond for about 7 weeks. It is my most successful act of patience and fabric to date. The darkest areas are the marks of sediment settled directly onto the fabric. The oak leaves rolled around themselves and the fabric made a repeat of vertebrae - a spine stretched out. The pond as dye pot made this - all the little life that lives there making an impression, with the help of a couple of oak leaves. There is nothing I can stitch on this to make me like it more.

A favorite thing of summer for my family has been floating on the pond. When I float I am looking up at the sky, my back and spine long and straight, my arms are stretched out and in the water. I move arms over my head and then back down to my sides to propel, slowly. I am symmetry and balance - centered. There is a raft under me - arms and hands in the water - dragonflies land on my knees and toes. The fish, insects, animals, the water and life within it are supporting me, holding me up and I wonder what it all looks like from below - the concentric circle ripples where I touch the surface of the water. The music - along with the birds singing and hot buzz of insects - is this...



All of these together are this summer to me - the floating, the pond, the music and the oak and pond print - are forever related in my mind. They are this amazing summer we have had - that is not over yet. This pond has swept us off our feet. From my 7-year-old son, "I wish we could take our pond wherever we go."



My pond and oak leaf print was inspired by the techniques I have read in India Flint's wonderful book - Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles.

Oak

Results of the cotton with oak leaves inside wrapped around a bottle. Deepest result where front side of leaf was in contact with the fabric, but also interesting that the other side acted as a resist. I really like the browns created.

Paint vs. Patience

Summer sunshine eventually calls for the sun sensitive fabric paints. My boys love to do this too. We brought the paints along to a recent trip to "the pond" place. I made a curtain/valance with oak leaves and the boys made a print each of their own design.

Youngest contemplating composition, leaves to be used in hands - oldest applying paint with my help.


The boys' designs - youngest on the left, I love the circles all lined up on the same side - oldest on the right, note the pirate jolly roger, crossed swords and all. These are done as soon as the paint is dry and the printing process is complete - the mark has been made. As they dry it is still so hard not to peek.

I started a couple of natural dye projects too. One with white cotton - oak leaves wrapped inside - tied to a bottle and sitting in a dye bath of oak leaves and acorns/caps. I took a peek after one week and not much happening - wrapped it back up and left it as it was for another week. Will see what happens when we return - the raccoons may knock it over - but then something more may happen as it dries?





We also placed a roll of cloth into the pond/giant oak leaf dye pot. My husband first gave me the idea as we discussed the pond's coloring - brown and full of tannin from all of the leaves over time. The pond is surrounded by trees - many of them oak.

We placed the bundle in shallow water with a few inky black leaves and mud from the bottom gently laid over it. We will check on it now and then.

It has been fun to hear both boys mention coloring things with water and whatever might make a color - to have planted a curiosity there. Also sort of sad listening to the youngest try to work out the words dye and die.

Flower Power

I've been spending some time here and there enjoying experiments in dyeing fabric using plants. I have been reading Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles by India Flint. My experimenting has been based on techniques in her book and the possibilities are endless.



I am inspired to find out so many plants in our own yard (and the neighbors' yards!) have the ability to yield color to cloth. Looking forward to the discoveries. Needing to work on my patience in this process, still daydreaming of what might happen if I can bear to let something soak more than a few days...

Avocado Impatience

Although I made the previous post about the avocado dyeing today I actually took that first piece of fabric out yesterday. So technically I waited one more day after I first saw what the fabrics were beginning to look like. This afternoon it (finally) rained and the hot sun went away for awhile so I just decided the fabrics had been in the jar long enough and took them all out. Total time in the jar - about 5 days. I used the skins from 4 avocados and one pit.

I had placed colored fabrics in the mix as well as some creamy colored cotton. None of them were white to begin with because I don't use pinks very often and that is often what is achieved from using avocado. I had hoped using some colors would give me something different and I am happy with how they turned out. The lightest cream dyed a beautiful shade - the photo does not represent the lighter colors very well - but it is not what I would call pink - it is much warmer than that - I really like it. I like the dark shapes that happened - maybe where the color migrated to the high spots that were sticking out of the liquid? The blue print in the center was very bright and the print on the right was bright yellow - so it toned them down quite a bit - in a nice way I think.

I am encouraged. It was lots of fun. Its' a good thing my six year old likes avocados so much.

Avocado Skins and Pits

This is my first result - dyeing fabric with dried avocado skins and pits. The darker colored areas have just begun to show up so I am trying to be patient and leave the rest of the fabrics in the jar.

I started with everything - pits cut into pieces, skins and fabrics in a big pot - simmered everything for at least an hour. I tossed in blue, yellow and gold fabric to see what the results might be - we will see.


I put everything into a big glass jar and sat it on the counter for a few days. Then yesterday I put it out in the sun all day and that is when the darker spots (which I like) started appearing. I peak a lot - probably too often - but excited to see things are happening. I have left everything outside in the jar - still in the sun. If I can be patient until then I will take everything out on Saturday - which will have been one week.