The big one on Tabula Memoria still has me stumped as to the middle visible sectioning.
Hexagons discrete? Holes? A tree? More synapses?
Still a mystery.
Author: arlee
I am a Canadian textile artist in Calgary, Alberta. As textile artists, we connect and are connected to communities larger than our Selves, or our immediate environs. We encapsulate culture, technique, history and innovation every time we touch cloth.
indigo frustrations
Now WHY would the henna (123 vat) solution work as a solution, but not as a vat when added to more water??????????? Maybe the henna IS too old after all to keep working in the increased volume? Whatever! I’m completely frustrated by this, and to boot, the chemical vat is not working either. WTF? I did recommended “top-ups”, still Nada.
(Proceed to step two of frustration: slam doors, stomp around, curse, yell at the vats.)
SO, if a 123 is considered a fructose vat, i had to cast around for some info on what i could use for the fructose. Yeah right, the one week we have only apples and oranges in the fruit bowl…..oranges are too acidic and apparently apples do not work. BUGGER. Taking a trip up to the Co-op would necessitate getting dressed, catching a bus, doing the shopping, getting back on a bus, getting home, and undressing (errr, changing back into to the HouseClothes.) RAISINS!! Oh joy, usually we have two huge jars crammed with them. What do i find? One scant 3/4 cup.
Step three: weep.
Step four, just huck the damn things in a pot with 3 cups of water and boil, then cook for 5 minutes. Decant the syrupy sweet smelling liquid. (Henna smells like pudding made with mud.) Cool somewhat and gently introduce to the 123 vat. “Hello Stoopid, meet Fructose. Fructose, meet Stoopid. Get jiggy with each other please, i promise not to peek.”
Step five; keep hoofies crossed. Go do something else.
As to the “chemical” vat, i am going back to the original MAIWA instructions. Nobody else’s method seems to work, though you’d think it would all be the same. Something is missing there, but not sure what. I compared all the measurements, the instructions, the temps, and i’ll be bamfoozled if i can see any discernible difference………. MAIWA’s method helped me revive a frozen-through-three-harsh-Calgary-winters vat (NOT the true definition of a 123 vat), so i’m sticking to them!
FINE> I’ll have go back to embrilting in the meantime to wile the waiting away……………………
HAUL!!!
Attended the UjaamaGrammas big sale yesterday with my friend Susan—–kind of shocking to see all the stash that has been handed off to others!!!!!!!! BOLTS of fabric, bags of fabric, piles of yardages of fabrics, grab bags of fabric, a quilting cottons room, umpteen “kits” never touched, a long wall FULL of yarns, a room full of patterns, books and magazines. Admittedly, i had donated 3 huge garbage bags full of my stash! The place was wall to wall people, but apparently we came at the right time, because even though it had “opened” the night before, it was still crammed with stuff. Some years, there have been block long lines waiting to get in!
And admittedly too, i brought 3 ( much smaller) bags home 🙂 I deliberately took “only” 75 bucks with me in cash (though they did accept debit and credit cards). I spent 5bucks for two “tapestry” frames, a buck for a bag full of “crochet cotton balls” most for dyeing, a dollar for 4 books, 22dollars for 22YARDS of fabric (most for dyeing, though there are also a couple of chunks for fall wardrobe purposes), 2bucks for admission, and i donated 6, because WTH. Grand total: 37 smackeroos.
And Susan generously gave me the two longer that she had got last year 🙂
The largest frame is the PERFECT size so that i can finally do the standing figure for “Tabula Memoria”, without struggling to keep the grain straight–my largest hoop would have necessitated moving the fabric in and out of the grip, and that would have meant the grain would surely have been off on the damned haremcloth. (Love AND hate that stuff!)
The minute i got home, all of the fabrics went into the washer.
Silk A FREEKIN’ DOLLA A YARD, five yards, this one will be thioxed gently to remove some colour:
Cottons for dyeing, naturally and not ;):
The top piece is my favoured cotton flannellette, used for stabilizing all of my work, *as i work it. Sometimes more expensive than the dyeable cottons!!
The wardrobe pile:
The blue piece is the only piece that we mis-identified–we thought it was a sueded silk, but alas, it’s polyester. That being said, it will be great for binding edges and slivers of detail. The yellow rayon may possibly be overdyed with indigo. The top fabric, also a rayon, will have some of the motifs embellished and accented somehow, and/or overdyed.
Threads to dye:
Some of these are quite quite fine, which means they’re going to be great for dyeing in variegation, and possibly plying together in one needle. The black is actually a slippery fine rayon. (I could have stuffed probably 10 bags with these threads as they were a dollar a stuffed bag, but space is a premium in the stoodio, so restrained myself!)
The books:
Now, i recently got rid of half of my library, so these will probably be passed on in a short while to someone! The *only* reason i bought the Rosemary Eichorn book was because when i had my wearable art business in the 90’s, i COVETED it desperately!
It was funny too, to suddenly reach exclaiming about a certain fabric and then realizing as i touched it, that i had donated it–it stayed! Didn’t see anything else i had gotten rid of, so i guess someone fell in love with the rest of it–ha!
damn dyelot differences again……
I KNOW it’s impossible to get consistency in dyeing, especially with variegated threads, and over a period of years, but wow. The original dyelot i bought in 2012, at the top, the new one below:
Fortunately, this is one time i don’t need to worry about “matching”, as neither is already being used in anything! And i actually like the new ones better 🙂 I do however when buying now, order 2, preferably 3-5 skeins of each so that interruptions won’t happen with colourways. Minor differences may not make or break work, but major ones *might* if you can’t integrate the different look.
nothin’ like the smell of senescent soymilk in the morning
GAG. You know that garbagey, something’s-dead-and-liquescing smell that tells you there is something rotten in the State of Denmark? I searched the entire house yesterday, thinking i’d find a decaying apple, a bag of decomposing rose leaves or an ancient pizza crust maybe that the DogFaced Girl had stashed. Turns out it was the soymilk i had made up for mordanting fabrics. GAG. Into the basement with that! I have one more dip to do tonight and then that crud is getting flushed!!!!!! GAG. Fortunately too, the Dye Dungeon is quite cool, the basement of a 107 year old house after all, and nothing is wafting up through the air vents!
While i was down there, i also poked the old indigo vat. I started it in the summer of 2011, managed to revive it even after it being outside and FREEZING through 3 Calgary winters, but Long Live the Indigo Vat, the Indigo Vat is dead………….
BUT Great Excitement abounds also! While the henna experiments failed as a dye, it’s working in a 123 indigo vat!!!!!! This is the stock solution below, and i’m hoping to get some indigo dyeing/shibori in this coming weekend.
Also started a conventional “chemical” vat, because i wasn’t going to hedge my bets that the 123 would work. That being said, i can now compare the two to see if i get the greener turquoisey results from the 123 i noticed while in a Yoshiko Wada workshop a couple of years ago.
And my threads arrived yesterday from my favourite supplier 123Stitch:
AND this weekend i am going with Susan to the UjaamaGramma’s sale, which means no doubt that some sad eyed puppy of a bag of thread or two, and sundry other heart-wrenchingly abandoned bits will follow me home. Good thing i donated too, so there’s room 😉
lightfastness, and other current pursuits
Annatto, while initially strong, does fade substantially. I wrote about the marvellous depth of colour here, but after 5 weeks in the sunny Stoodio window, there is quite a difference in shade. Considering too that spring in Calgary does not have the longest amount of daylight or the strongest UV rating, this does not bode well for future use.
Left silk, right cotton, both with the folded over section on the left in sun, while the behind section was covered.
I’ll be overdyeing these, using them as a base colour, but will do more lightfastness tests, because it may still affect the final outcome. I do wonder though how substantive dyes allow other dyes over top—-indigo works, so will the annatto???
I also started two indigo vats today, one a conventional indigo/soda ash/thio and the other a 123 with indigo, calx and henna. Since the henna did not dye fabrics for me in a straight dye bath, i’m hoping it still has enough “chemistry” in it to work for the vat!
My friend Susan (also in Calgary, so we have location in common, but our water as well 😉 ) has started a separate blog too, for her natural dye processes. We’ve been trading notes and she generously shares much info on dye subjects i have little knowledge of.
Bah, Humbunny ;)
And waiting. For Easter birds, Easter rabbits, Easter other cats, Easter porcupines, Easter whatever. No wonder my jade keeps breaking……
revving and refreshing skills
Honestly, i haven’t done any ecoprinting in probably over a year, so thought i’d best get back at it. I need to refresh my skills for the upcoming res and for some slated workshops in the fall.
Below, cranesbill on privet dyed silk with annatto overlay:
Very soft but quite clear detailing, but you’d have to be very close to appreciate the nuances.
Dock dyed silk, with Grevillea ecoprint, softly coloured, but not wishy-washy at all. And look at the detail from the Grevillea buds!
One thing immediately apparent with this method, is that the base colour has to be STRONG, as some of it disappears in the cooking method. (Steaming has NEVER worked for me.) Next up, some premordanted fabrics to be dyed. In cotton, because that’s what i work with, and prefer, i’m hoping the recent gallnut excursions help with colour development. I never had problems before getting richly detailed, deeply coloured prints from leaves and flowers on cotton/cellulose fibres, but now i want true depth, more colour laying and dye fastness also.
pursuing perseverance
I figure i am actually at midpoint with “Tabula Memoria”, which makes me feel better. Mid point still means half again still to do, which makes me feel bad. I’m at Dithering Stage, second guessing, re-ordering threads to replace ones i’ve run out of, and measuring by the inch what goes where and why.
That darned second figure is *a* bugaboo right now. The aborted one is filed, and i’m re-figuring (snarf) how to do it so that it means what it’s supposed to mean. The centre of the top moon is *the* bugaboo though, has me bamboozled–not sure how i want to treat it. What does it mean when a moon is divided?
It’s also time to fill some negative space with some discrete, minimalist stitch for anchoring and to keep it “void” but not empty. My brain is trying to wrap around what it’s saying to me……i *know* what i mean, just can’t express it in words. Invisible memories. Impalpable boundaries. Undisclosed but there. Can something Not Be and Be?
Meow. Not Meow.
oh sorry, am i boring you?
I keep slogging away at the side panels for this piece, each day ending with me thinking “almost done this part!”, and then seeing it ain’t so. (Don’t get me wrong–i love what i’m doing for this one, but it gets SO SO SO myopic at this end of the needle…)
This morning i realized i can start other areas as most of the piece is side stabilized now with all the stitching that *is* done. Figure One is pinned to the bulletin board, Figure Two is still in my head after i aborted the first attempt at it, but there is another area that’s really important, and that’s the moon.
There will be dense work on this area, but “blending” in, so to speak. Two colourways in floss and perle, i’ve chosen DMC 4140 (Driftwood) to do the darker areas like the rust, and DMC 4145 (Sand Dune) to do the highlights/lighter areas.
I work by committing to something, and the best way to start this area was to clearly mark where the moon is. That’s commitment!
Now i HAVE to work that area, because the marks don’t come out. The moon is off centre, (i can’t abide symmetry!) and that’s something that will be worked with, as i intend to ghost a bit around it— the template (a huge stainless steel bowl for popcorn 😉 ) i used to mark for the circle, was not the same size as the original mark made by the rust and dyes. For the record, yes i do so use pencil, and occasionally fine black micron pens to mark some areas. Intuition is all fine and dandy and “sensitive to the cloth and intent”, but sometimes you have to have a guideline.
While i work this, i can think how to balance the top of the left panel, as it’s empty, unlike the top of the right one!
albedo too 
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