One almost done!
Shooting photos in my studio at dawn makes for moody presentations, but here it is really:
Despite the flurry around the dyepots again this week, i have been stitching as much as i can. That distraction resulted in not a week of stitch, but two, though the second one will take less time due to less surface area! I’m at the point too where i can start thinking about what will be behind the wing. It can’t fight, but it can’t “disappear” either.
Natural dyes and silk velvet have an affinity for each other, like a love poem whispered into a breeze, like feather soft caresses, cool water on hot naked skin, sensual and earthy, sharing the privacy of deep emotion and quiet solitude.
I’ve always had a secret love affair with velvet, coveting the “lavender panne velvet pant” described in a 1972 Vogue magazine ( i was all of 15 years old and it was certainly not either in my world of farm town, or in my 60cents an hour babysitting budget…) , but never really comfortable wearing any as i got older, feeling slightly fraudulent and as if i was demanding attention i didn’t deserve. But oh the slither of it, the voluptuous animalistic tactility, in the hand, on the back of the neck, under the legs…………
Ahem. Mystery and imagination, in deed, and in thought! Sometimes it’s sexy, too often it’s overblown and tawdry—what’s the expression? “Mutton dressed as lamb”?
Down to earth now. It’s also A BITCH to sew, by hand or by machine, so i’ve stayed far away from it, though once in awhile i pull out a chunk of rayon velvet i dyed some 25 years ago, when all i knew about was Rit. Odd bits of it have shown up in wearable art i made in the 90’s, some Hoodoo work when we first moved to Calgary and i was so enamoured of the spectacular rock formations in and near Drumheller, a few Christmas bits, but nothing really serious.
BUT, these from the last 4 days:
HOW could i not try again?
EDIT: Nov 21, i forgot to mention this is primarily using Quebracho Rojo extract (with the exception of the 2 greys/greygreens which are on osage), and are mordanted and modified with a few different processes. So all these colours from 2 dyes, and 5 mordants/modifiers!!!!!!!!
Now to dig through old sketchbooks.
Now that i have a good stock of green threads from the osage and indigo work, it’s time to add some pinks and purples! Not talking about wishy washy, not talking about raspberries, beets, beans or any other silliness i see on too many blogs who haven’t the sense of a sack of potatoes 🙂
I did get a wonderful hot pink from madder by accidentally boiling over a pot of madder (considered a VERY VERY BAD BAD as madder shouldn’t go above a certain temp or you just get browns), some useful colour variations from cochineal in the pink to purple range, and a very deep purple with logwood. Cochineal however kind of puts me off now because i worry about Ph shifts–and some Ph shifts WASH OUT with an ordinary tap water rinse!!!!!!!!!!!– and i fret too about the lightfastness of logwood, because unless it’s got a lot of iron in the mix (which can damage fibres…), i’ve seen a noticeable change in the depth of colour within months of dyeing. (I do wonder too about the current craze for it in ecoprinting: are these people going to have a shock somewhere in the next few months/year with dramatic colour shifting or fade??) So………………. my next experiments/tests/results are from a type of tannin in the “catechic” range, more red-browns that the clear “gallic” or yellow “elegic” types. Tannins are an important part of premordanting fibres, especially cellulose which doesn’t work well with just alum, but very well with a tannin first, then the alum. Some tannins are also used as dyes by themselves, notably in the elegic and catechic types.
This tannin/dye IS more expensive, but i now am comfortable spending the money to get the best results. There’s no point in cheaping out with some things: it’s a waste of time, effort and resources, from water to electricity to containers and materials used, something i am very conscious off, having been raised quite frugally and with much common sense 🙂
When i threw the Quebracho Rojo in the pot, i first screamed (silently, as Greyman was napping). The colour was PHENOMENAL. However, that silent scream was from my excitable take it at face value 9 year old child self: my rational XX+ self reminded me that what you see in a dye pot is NOT necessarily what you get from a dye pot, as i swear they deliberately skull xxxk with you. Ahem.
Looks fab, ay?
Wet, ooo ooo oooo:
Above, rinsed, barely any wash out!
Dry, bearing in mind that colours can dry 20-70% lighter with ANY colourant, natural OR synthetic:
See what i mean by dye pot deception? Respectable colour, but not terribly excitingly scream worthy. Now mind you, the cottons that are paler pink were unmordanted, the darker cotton premordanted with tannin and alum. The silk habotai and silk velvet were also unmordanted, but because QR is a tannin as i mentioned, i figured “let’s try it as a tannin first”. Interesting too that most sources says it’s best on cellulose, “but performs well on silk and wool”, since obviously both silks did better……………………
The next phase of natural dye colour work is post mordant/post modify (though you can do these first, i don’t because i don’t want that active stew in the mix all in one pot.) Now this a is a nice range of colours!!!
Guess what though? I forgot to put any threads in, so now i have to go wind some skeins, scour ’em, then premordant some…………..
PS you can still click on the photos for enlargement, but you can no longer comment on them–i had to shut that off due to the number of STOOPID ASSHAT SPAMMERS.
#15 in the indigo moon series, i may have lost some “serious art” readers “because apparently all i’m doing is “crafting” this year” (get on yer high horse, you know who, and ride off far away), but ya know what? I NEEDED this year to be easy, to be Small, to be, well, just mooning the world–ha!
The texture on this one is amazing, even if i do say so myself 🙂
Since it’s grey and cold and blowy here, i added a little bling from the embellishment stash that hasn’t seen the light of day for a looonnng while! These moons are getting bigger with this one measuring at 10″ across. (Still thinking of a HUGE indigo moon!!) And some are getting smaller, as i have a few planned in a 5″ size.
See the shop for details.
Not all threads are created equally, especially when it comes to dyeing them with natural colourants!
I’ve had a few flubs along the way, as i build my stash for stitching with, but in the end, each has it’s own qualities that are useful. The major fail i had was a thread i thought was 100% cotton, but since the label had been long lost, and i generally haven’t collected any synthetics for a few years now, i threw it in a madder pot and expected good results automatically. HA! There must have been some acrylic in this one, as it barely took any colour:
Pink from madder, pale lilac from madder with post mod iron dip, but this thread was just too soft and lovely on its own to throw out, so i then dipped them in indigo, because indigo dyes *everything*, it being SO substantive!
And there’s still some lilac-y hints! These give a lovely soft ethereal appearance when used, subtle gradations and shadings quite effective depending on the stitch used.
This one REALLY bothered me at first, a heavily twisted 4 strand embroidery thread, it just wouldn’t dye evenly due to the tightness of the wind, no matter how long i let it sit in the madder! Popped it in the indigo again and whoa! Look at that tweedy heather effect!
I use this one separated into two strands and love the way the colour shifts along each length. Because of the stiffness of the thread too, it tends to stand more proud of the surface. The way the colour took, and the spin of the thread, give it the appearance of disappearance visually when used on darker backgrounds! Fantastic for texture!
And these were a lesson also in the “weight” of a thread, the left being a crochet cotton, the right a stray spool of fine upholstery thread:
Due to my inexperience at the time, the indigo didn’t grab every spot, because of the way the threads were wound, tied and handled. Both are heavier, thicker threads that really lie loudly on the surface, or build a heavy tactile line, again with different stitch types.
It may look as if i’m using indigo to “fix” problems in incorrect procedures, but it’s co-incidence i swear 🙂 I do pride myself on proper scouring, premordanting according to fibre type, and using dyes that are actually dyes, not stains or food waste nonsense. (Again, no beets, beans or berries here….) These “fails” were inexperience, haste, and not testing unlabeled fibres. Lessons learned!
While every stitcher needs a substrate to stitch on, whether it’s conventional fabrics, plastic, metal, paper or toast, it’s the threads that get me excited. I’m continually building the inventory, and am thrilled to say that now i can depend on my own skills to add so much colour, without using commercially dyed threads, or having to worry about matching dyelots! There *can* be subtle differences in dye baths due to the inherent nature of these dyes, but at least the reds are still reds, the greens are greens, the blues are blues, etc etc etc, but never like this debacle with synthetic dye……..
And i wanted to share a very evocative piece of poetry that my friend Dana sent me.
The Many Ways the Light Gets In
It was easy to judge those Jane Austen ladies
languishing all afternoon over embroidery
pulling thread in and out of hooped linen
as the world spun round without them.
The bone stays in the starched bodice of their dresses
forced an upright position,
the way nuns in a cloister sit
all spine and neck erect
to better access the “no thought”
they need to taste
the honey of meditation
centering their minds
to a pinpoint
of light
I’ve envied the discipline of those mystics
tossing off thought like an extra blanket
but not so much the ladies
sealed in their parlors
then today
I found myself
deep in silence
pulling a rainbow of silken threads
through a hooped grid
the rhythmic in and out
of the steel needle flashing its tail of color
dissolving all thoughts in whorls of amber
sapphire, magenta—
falling upward
each stitch an entrance.
Marion Goldstein
I just can’t stop making these moons. I love thinking about them, about the next one, about the shape, the colours, the meanings.
The wing is progressing for Samara:
but the spare minutes are for the moons!
Had a bad moment last night when i suddenly thought the stitching on the wings was too tight, too controlled. Must remember to get out of the small work approach!
But it’s getting bigger, looser and is not too “precious” after all. The “myopia” that develops as i work small areas of a large piece means i have to literally step back to see the whole. And since i can see in my head what will be happening in the wings and in other areas, it will work.
One disappointing (in a sense) thing is that the result is not the same as the work done this way on “A Birth of Silence”. (See previous post.) The rust on that particular piece stiffened the fabric for more dimension, something that is not featured much on any of this piece. I may have to manipulate it more when the time comes to attach to the background, or maybe it will be fine. I think the backing fabric i used this time too is thinner or flatter than the one used in ABOS as well, but c’est la vie!
There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just different.
I’ve just completed a small “commission” for someone, and happily noted that a couple of stitches i used on it can feature largely for “Samara”.
Samara’s wings are (with the figure of course!) the most prominent focus on this piece. I’ve been stumped about how to treat them, and had started three different ways of “illustrating” them, all to no avail. Frustrating. It meant a deadlock, because without knowing how i would work them, i had no idea how to proceed with the background. Hell, it was a gridlock!
The first two were with commercially dyed threads on the rust and natural dye cotton background, the third with all naturally dyed fabrics and threads.
I *do* like all of the ideas–just not for this piece! The first two were a bit predictable: feathers that “look” like feathers, while the third was maybe too much of a good thing with all that colour. (Stack ’em and stash ’em for future work…)
My favourite Thing too, a signature, if you will, is the use of dimension and texture in my embroidery technique. Whether it’s raised areas, or FrankenStitch ( my personal woogly boogly break-the-embroidery-rules-about-neatness-and-even-ness approach), i feel i MUST go back to that. That’s Me, that’s what my work is. The feathers above would have satisfied a bit of that, but nah, too feathery 🙂
I’m looking at this:
in conjunction with ideas from “A Birth of Silence”
and now have these to work on:
I’m hoping that i can do one a week……. the body is almost done, as it needs only minimal stitch, but the background is going to be a bear because it’s so big, and that is why it probably won’t be finished until the new year. (Day Job will be F’n FRANTIC in December, so very very little time there…) When the first wing is done, i can also start making choices for the fabric that will show underneath at the edges.
I know this work won’t be done until into 2019, my slow pace necessary with hand work. No rush, no deadline, nothing really to add to a “Gallery 2018” page on this blog, because i’m going where i don’t know where i’m going.
Small pouch, all natural dyes, going to someone pretty damn special 🙂
So, what do you do with something you’ve stared at for 2+ years, and then cut up?
Throw it in a dyepot. Because if it’s no longer “precious”, you might as well go the full “wtf, why not?” route.
With natural dyes, it’s predictable that if there’s already iron present on the fabric, it’s going to darken and sadden colours. However, with the unmeasurable concentrations of iron used in rusting cloth, there’s no predictability about the shade or depth. Add to the stew, the fact that these pieces were already lined with cotton flannellette, my favourite stabilizer and crunchtexture “additive”, the dyes uptake was even more capricious. And note too: i did not premordant other than using the iron already on the cloth–if i had thought a bit longer, i could have might have done an alum acetate soak to see if the colours grabbed more, but it’s not a big whoopee bad because i didn’t.
I had thrown the figure itself in an osage bath, and was not happy with the resultant boring tan she became. Admittedly, the osage bath was on its last legs, having been used multiple times, but wow, there was a lot more iron on her than i had suspected. After the fabric had been made during the residency, i immediately washed it in hot water and some synthrapol and baking soda, as i do all of my rusted fabrics, removing stray particles, but this really shows how much the rust/iron had penetrated. Invisible to the eye, but not to chemistry! There are many arguments about how to actually “neutralize” the rust, by many different camps of dyers, but this has been the one that works best for me. AND NO, SALT DOES NOT WORK: does your car STOP rusting in the winter when you get road salt on it????? I dunno where that logic came from….idjits.
So i threw her in a pot of madder and sandalwood (using up two old dyebaths). I’ll have to work around the stocking appearance of her from the thigh down though! The other chunks were also cooked in the madder/sandalwood: the largest piece had been randomly and quickly dipped into indigo first, with the hope i’d get some purples. The wings apparently had the most iron on them, but i really like the effect it had on the madder, strong. NOW she’s singing!
Here’s the comparison, before and after:
Fortuitously, the indigo features centred and right above her head, a serendipitous effect.
While these are not the best examples of these dyes, and certainly not the best way to do things (no premordants other than the residual iron), i’m actually quite pleased with the results. She looks muddier, dirty, earthy, but given that Fall is all those things, and that her name is “Samara”, implying dried seeds, leaves changing and falling, the end of Summer and the return to the earth, that is more important, and actually there are some “pretty” areas.
Sometimes “wtf, why not?” is worth the effort.
When i see my thread choices (also naturally dyed) with her, i think the results will be perfect.
Now………..i have to figure out how to use those threads appropriately for this. As beautiful as the dimunitive leaves and flowers have been on the recent moons, those tiny motifs are not going to cut it for this. I need stronger, scaled up structures/objects/designs. Perhaps it’s time to resurrect the FrankenStitch approach.
albedo too 
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