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.

threads of summer

We are in the final formal weeks of summer, although we will continue to do the summer things as long as this perfect weather holds out.

My summer stitching has all ended boldly. I like it so much that quilt blocks have names, including shoo-fly - a nine-patch with triangle corners. I have found a few variations on how that particular name came to be, but for us it might just mean the shooing of the giant horseflies into the surface of the pond and then almost instantly into the mouths of the bluegill all summer. Because if you don't fed them to the fish those horseflies will bite you hard. 

But really I just like it that a quilt block might forever remind us of a whole summer - a really good one. - and it's not over yet.

winged sumac and red

The weekend was beautiful and the leaves are starting to really show their color. Winged sumac - red!

You can see why they are so named. This one will enlarge with a click.

I had my red runner (last mentioned here) close by - to inspire some leaves in the stitching.

These are the last of the reds from the garden. Soon I will try making hot pepper jelly. It's time to bring everything in, there was honest to goodness frost this morning.

this past weekend

this past weekend - peace and perfect weather for stitching outside

but we are back from this place and right in the middle of a busy in many good ways kind of week.

Be back soon...

two little things...

found in the grass this past weekend. This deer little one - found by my husband. The grass had grown so tall at the pond place a mama thought this (15 ft or so from the house) a great place to hide him for awhile. Love those spots and spots that make stripes. His spots were the same as the seed heads on the grass. Amazing.

and this feather also found by my husband and given to me - a cross between Grace's Magic baby goat and Jude's magic feather? Possibly a pileated woodpecker feather?

And I am still so busy with everything else. I am loving making clothes - from scratch - with Jude and classmates. More soon. Thanks so much for those who continue to check in here.

Walk in the Woods

All these taken two weeks ago on a walk to the big pine forest.

My boys and the light in a patch of running cedar.

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.

A Feather Story

I wanted to say something about Jude's Feather Project. I haven't made my feathers to send to her yet - but I am working on it. Please go on over to Spirit Cloth and have a look and read about what she has planned for the feathers.

and... the front porch basket of our pond place has a little bird nest inside. Brett found the nest and gave it to me in March? and we have also been sticking feathers into the nest as we find them on walks - there were maybe three small feathers and one big turkey feather in there so far.



Recently I heard and then saw a wren singing on the porch rail - then saw him flying off a few times. The small feathers from the basket went missing. Birds are collectors too - it's fine if he needed them - I was so curious why he would take them. One evening right before we all went to bed it started raining. Rain has been a rare occurrence so we all went out to feel the rain cooling the air and there he was. Snuggled right into the nest - head tucked under his body out of sight but his little wren tail was sticking straight out. He slept through all the gasping, photo flashing, boys being lifted to see and all the excitement. He was gone in the morning, but I like to think he? will be the nighttime guardian of our doorway for awhile...

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.

Into Spring...

We have found a wide open space we love to wander around in and that has kept us busy. We have followed winter into spring - staying outside whenever we can and as long as we can. My boys are suddenly wild and loving it - jumping, leaping and running again - getting dirty. Such a relief to get our hands in the dirt again, working and playing outside.

I was needing to get the colors noted here to remember for the quilt. The deepest brown wet soil, every shade of green and then yellows and purples. My favorite right now are the bluebell blossoms emerging as pinks and then transforming through lavenders to blue. The green mist of leaves unfolding in the tree tops and the sky so so blue days in a row. A little boy so excited about bright yellow dandelions and purple violets and so happy we have so many in his own yard!

Starting the spring panel for the Sleep Pattern quilt, thinking of adding in some nine patch squares. Maybe the colors are too shocking next to the winter panel - but that's what I feel - the color surprises, so different from winter. Spring has so much momentum, it just takes off from barely anything.


Thinking I will will just follow this quilt around through the seasons adding layers of detail as I go. Leaving winter behind now and adding spring and working on that until it's time to move on again. By the time I get back around to winter it will be one big square, but I am so ready to just think about spring now. Watch everything uncurl and open up. stitching as I go...