the PHD post (Piling it Higher and Deeper), and shop update

I’m not hoarding, but it’s starting to look like that in my studio: piles and slipping stacks of various fabrics and colours, snarls and twangles of thread in more fibres and colours, and nowhere to move or work!

There’s so much here that i will never use–and never mind how much UNdyed i have still to work through! I’ve been putting aside small packs for myself with the intention of Making, but this time i slipped in notes and sketches so i wouldn’t forget what was so all fired fascinating about the selection at the time 🙂

So….threads and fabric packs now in the shop!

A sampling:

just messing around

I “re-found” a treasure! When my MIL died, the place was full of everything from 73 hand towels, make up from the 70’s, shelves of laboratory glassware from a pharmaceutical company she had worked at, etc etc etc plus a sewing room full of mostly synthetics, bland colours, and truly useless bits. (We donated/distributed amongst family/charities/dump a full TON of her stuff!) I did however find a bag that contained a couple good handfuls of 2 deconstructed wedding dresses–and the overlaid laces are cotton, which i put In The Safe Spot–and lost it for several months!!!!!! Quite fragile, i had to be very careful while scouring and handling it, but it is LOVELY. (And OH the gunge that came out of it, eeeuuuuw!!!)   I see my European friends quite often showing off their “brocante” (second hand market) finds and obviously they are able to score a LOT of old linens, lace, embroideries and trims, whereas here in Canada, they are either long gone into other reconstructions, destroyed by time or snapped up at outrageous prices by collectors, so a find like this is very lucky.

(One thing i thought odd though was that the sleeves at the armscye seam  had a thin uncovered very sharp wire enclosed! There was an apparent bloodstain there as well, so can only guess a weeping bride or a frustrated MIL trying to get it out!)

I threw some with other cottons in my 2 year old dried tansy pot (um, that would be just the tansy 2 years dried, not the pot 🙂 ) and just about screamed: look at that ORANGE!!!!

BUT, i do know that what you see in the dye bath is NOT always what you get on the fibres. (I’ve had a purple dye bath dry to green, for instance!)

I was right however about the colour but did however get a reasonably medium to deep yellow this time, as for a couple of years for some reason, my tansy was giving weak colour. (Perhaps because it was picked from a ‘contaminated” area, an old gas station?)

Also combined older pots of lac and madder:

And quebracho rojo!

dye week again

The shop is empty of fabrics, so it was time to gear up again. I used an old piece from 2009 as a colour inspiration guide!

I do need to revive my indigo vat though for some blues and soft greens, and wind and prep some more thread skeins!

 

Well, these are a *bit* more vivacious than the “source” 🙂 , but oh oh oh, such eye candy delights. It’s grey and smokey outside, neither summer nor fall, with only a liminal edge that says “day”, so i’m spending a lot of time in the Dye Dungeon. It’s therapy, passion, joy, science and chillin’ out all at once in these times

Madder, cochineal, onion, marigolds and quebracho rojo on cotton and silk

Listings will start appearing in the shop on Sept 18. Live! Now! 🙂

“Sotto voce” done

8″ across, natural dyes on linen, cotton, silk/wool, silk/rayon

Sotto voce part 2

After smashing our trusty Nikon D90 last month, i’m still trying to get used to the new Settings and Things on the replacement, a Panasonic Lumix FZ1000. Apparently i need to read the manual, go figure 🙂

The Nikon would allow me on the automatic setting to get the most beautiful daylight shots that showed texture, true colour and fine detail. The Lumix does fantastic close-ups on several settings, but the light effects are not the same. I suppose i should be thankful though that testing it doesn’t ‘waste” film, HA.

So, with 4 different settings (that i of course did not take note of), here’s “Sotto voce” again with different looks. None of them portray it properly, so i guess that’s this evenings reading, and tomorrow’s testing  on the to do list.

And those green dots are coming off, changing to the tawny fox and peachey colours instead. I have a few things more to do to it, and then it gets mounted, hopefully for a virtual exhibit. (If anybody from the fibre group i’m in ever answers my emails and FB questions that is………………………………….)

Sotto voce

A piece started for another exhibit, which undoubtedly will be online, as most are these days!

August sunrise

The pure aura of summer poetry.

And August Sunset, prose for the dusk.

 

 

yesterday and today

Yesterday, i felt like this:

Pomegranate dyed/mordanted cotton, post modified with iron solutions. A base for bad days, i haven’t decided if i should work on it ON the bad days, or wait until a good day to do! Either way is valid–maybe both to see how it affects the work?

When the going gets tough though, it’s time to get out the brightest crayons and have a good scribble. My version of that is vivid natural dyes, and today these results on mostly cellulosic fibres (linen, cotton lace trim, cotton scrim, cotton threads– and small skeins of wool thread on the far left) came out of the quebracho rojo dye pot.

I’m thrilled with these results as previous experiments, while gorgeous on silk threads, silk habotai and silk velvet were rich, my cottons were pastel pinky browns, nothing exciting, and the threads were even more boring. The water IS different in this house, obviously quite different from the Grand Old Lady’s 100+ pipes.

I *might* use some of the wool thread on the top grey piece, still auditioning thread colours for it.

Scribble, scribble, scribble.

 

i’ve got piles

Some “new” colours because of the different water (which is a good thing), but i want some of my “old” colours back as well! But i CAN live with this, if i can have both 🙂

(Click on the photo–as all of mine are–for tactility close-up.) SCRUMMY.

warming the vortex

-40C wind chill today, risk of frostbite in 10 minutes. I ain’t goin’ nowhere this week!

The last week’s results, correctly in dye journal 🙂

I think my soda ash tests needed a fresh mix as well–i adore that orange from the test above, not as apparent in the sample on the bottom of the page below!

Below, the two on the left are linen, quite disappointing! The linen i ordered before Christmas is crappy quality, stiff and feels cheap. I know linen is supposedly harder to dye because of the plant waxes and pectins, but the results were abysmal! I followed all my usual protocols so not sure what the difference was. *Usually* i find rhubarb, whether root or leaves, somewhat inhibits the uptake  of dyes……… For that reason, i never use the leaves anymore. I think it’s the oxalic acid, but also would suspect the roots have more than the leaves, so it’s a mystery!

A mystery because look at the quebracho rojo on the same linen! I was thrilled to see that once rinsed and dry, it was a definite pink, quite the surprise as usually qr is touted to give only pinky tans and browns on cellulose, and paler in range than protein fibres.

I have a different batch of linen from the same supplier that is supposedly the same thing, but the difference is amazing–full handed, thicker, FEELS like linen, so we’ll see what the results are on it.

And the rest of the qr tests:

It’s  bit hard to photo these correctly: the velvets on the 2 top left are pinker than here, not as orange. (And OH do i love that lavender from the third extraction with an iron post mod!

I’m also testing Ugandan marigolds! My son brought me some when he came back last week (and YES it was all legal, above board and phyto-sanitarily correct, according to customs regulations! I wouldn’t dream of having anyone smuggle or mail un-regulated product to me!)