Category: Ecoprints and Natural Dyes

Posted in DillyDally Coat/Ragmates 2020, embrilting, in progress, Natural Dyes

DD, part 3

Posted on by arlee

Remember scale, visually and physically! I do like these dainty details, but i’d like them to be stronger. But i don’t like that indigo circle because it’s too strong!

I’m thinking too those deeper “grey” diamonds need only MINIMAL stitching as they are actually purpley ecoprints.

I still want the slightly aged effect i got with my first Suzani inspired piece:

Have to find the rest of that indigo cotton i used above. *That* is more the effect i want, a bit fadey, uneven, softer, more vintage. The deep indigo velvet i used in the top photo is beautiful, but i’m preferring more the “weaker” and the “mistakes” i’ve done 🙂

I need to do a quick sketch or two to size up motifs. I usually do a printout of this and pencil in ideas, though i don’t always follow it slavishly. It’s kind of a free association exercise to see what i *could* do when i can see the whole.

Posted in a collusion of ideas, Deliberation--do something you don't do--or haven't in awhile, DillyDally Coat/Ragmates 2020, in progress, Natural Dyes

the DillyDally coat

Posted on by arlee

My muslin base, a heavier weight than i would have deliberately chosen, but since it came in this form and was scrounged for free, it is what it is:

Whomever had made this originally obviously got confused about seaming for right side/wrong side, but since it will all be covered, it doesn’t matter.

 

I’ve been “mapping out” what i need, as *i*am larger 🙂 😦 and the muslin base needs to *be* larger than it is. Wow, tried it on, it’s fine except that it needs some underarm gussets and a bit of sleeve widening so i can wear things under, and a 3″ extension on either front edge so i can wrap and tie. I’ve decided to keep the colourway in the terra cotta, red, orange, redder browns range with flashes of yellow, and indigo as an accent. Linen, a bit of velvet, some cotton certainly, i’m looking through what i have, and will also rev up the natural dye pots again–i adore the terra cotta resulting from madder over marigold (top of the photo above).

And pockets, gotta have pockets!

I want to try a few things i haven’t ever done, and a few that i haven’t done in awhile. Because OMGZ, i was so bored i dug through a box in the studio that i hadn’t seen in years (HOW did i miss that in the move??) and it was full of ideas, sketches, photos, instructions, patterns and ephemera from both my Cap College day in ’93 to ’95, but my first year in “Deadmanchuk”*** (’03) and WAHOO! I love lush surfaces, both visually and as tactile texture, so some bits that were previously done as “samples” (ie bits that never made it to finished work, or were aborted work!) may show up, along with new ones. (AND I FOUND MY YULE GHOUL PATTERN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

 

 

 

***Deadmanchuk (also Deadmonton, Edmonchuk, The Chuck)–slang for Edmonton Alberta, usually used by people who hated living there…..

Posted in natural dye research, Naturally dyed threads

first multicoloured naturally dyed embroidery skein

Posted on by arlee

It’s been my goal since the beginning of March to create 5 colour threads, using a minimum of dyes. I know which dyes blended will make certain colours (ie yellows like weld, osage, tansy and blue (indigo) will always make greens though different factors can make many shades, and indigo and madder always make purple and again shades with varying factors), but have been experimenting with other dyes that are less predictable.

I have managed to make my first 4 colour skein (silk/wool blend) using 3 dyes (logwood, osage and quebracho rojo), though it’s just a prototype as the process needs refining. The pink is too weak, the purple and yellow areas too long, and there’s not enough green to really be noticeable. However it does have lavender, pink, purple, yellow, green and coral, and that means it was fiddly work, but i figure practice will make perfect, as with all things 🙂 Still pretty pleased with myself!

My dream/wish/expectation is to make threads with colour breaks like these leaves:

They were done in these piece with “orts”, leftover bits of thread no longer than 3″–i want one thread skeins that look and act like this!

I know there there are dyers using naturals, and dyers using synthetics to make huge multicoloured knitting skeins, but since my focus is embroidery, it’s a bit more precise what i expect the end result to be. I still have to experiment with various post modifiers as well, a lightfast test for that green, and how well the process works on cotton threads.

Studying and “labbing” on!

Posted in cutch, Not so ordinaries

bored bored bored attention span antidote

Posted on by arlee

I’m so bored and going so squirrelly with a very short attention span, so keeping it simple. Never know what haphazard clamping and dyeing will result in! (Note this is ONE piece, but due to the IG algorithms, things have to be square to “fit”, so i had to “tile” it but oh what an idea now for other pieces!) Cutch on linen.

Now i want to do wider pieces! Repeats! Combos! Hey, boredom done with!

Posted in Days of Honey, Natural Dyes, pomegranate (as dye and as mordant), Probably talking to just myself, quebracho rojo

yesterday and today

Posted on by arlee

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.

 

Posted in FybreSpace the shop, Natural Dyes, Naturally dyed threads

naturally dyed threads on sale!!

Posted on by arlee

All thread skeins on sale, limited quantities! My naturally dyed colours are 10m each, and are available in listed quantities as 6 strand floss or #10 perle. Next week, i will be dyeing more and they will remain at $5.00 per 10 metre skein. PLEASE NOTE: IF THE COLOUR/NUMBER IS NOT IN DROPDOWN MENU, IT IS SOLD OUT. (10 meters is almost 11 yards for those who don’t use metric )

Sorry, below SOLD OUT

 

 

Posted in Crafting Art, Natural Dyes, Probably talking to just myself

playtime

Posted on by arlee

A long time ago, i used to play a lot in my studio. That usually resulted in 4 posts a day (!!!!!), because everything was exciting then: textile arts and mixed media were hot in the blog world, as we were all new to the internet and the windows it opened for creativity. There was MORE feedback then: people didn’t just “like” something and then flit to the next page. There were CONVERSATIONS, friendships made, active sharing and promoting of each other, and well, it just wasn’t facebook/instagram preciousness and staging.

I always enjoyed making Little Things, and at the time, it was part of a viable business as well. There were at least a hundred Yule Ghouls that flew out of my BC studio, innumerable really inexpensive wallets, the ubiquitous christmas stockings, penguin ornaments and artsy bags of all sizes. I stopped most of that when i moved to Edmonton in 2003: the market there was completely different, a lot less explorative, a dearth of innovation, and funky individuality was not cared for much…..it was crushing, as an artist and as a small business.

That coloured things for many years. I got rid of a lot of finished product simply by donating it to the Sally Ann, and once in awhile, even in such a large city, see one of the very creative bags i made, slung over someone’s shoulder. But i know they paid peanuts for it, thrift stores generally not in the biz of charging shitloadarmandleg prices, and so won’t make them again AS part of the bread and butter part of my studio. I also didn’t see the sense of having PILES and BOXES full of Things that wouldn’t see the light of day again.

BUT, i am involved with Contextural again, and there is a Christmas Sale, so let’s just think about that. Stocking up, protyping, testing, MAKING.

Anyways, blah blahdy blah.  I made a pile yesterday of recent naturally dyed linens (my new favourite fabric):

I admit to just sitting and staring at it, inspired by the colours and the feel, but not sure where to go. Then i espied an unfinished project and what the heck. I gots lots of those 🙂 Combine!!!! I’m “Goin’ Minoan”, ha.

It’s a start.

 

Posted in a collusion of ideas, Contextural Fibre Arts Co-operative, in progress, Intersections, Natural Dyes

deadline, schmeadline, back to stitching

Posted on by arlee

Since i so rudely interrupted myself with all the thread dyeing, i now have (counting today) 25 days to finish a piece for a group show. But i *did* need those threads as the tub was emptying!

Looking rather a bit strange, but that’s how they start sometimes.

I had started with this sketch as the inspiration, but knew along the way that it would interpret itself for a new piece.

I’d also chosen that fabric behind, but realized it had spandex in the blend, which is sticky about needles and threads pulled through….

So, it became glorious pile of this:

TOO MUCH!!!!

It morphed smaller:

I tried to stare it down every time i walked by it, didn’t really like it, and it was saying nothing. Pretty but nothing.

Yesterday i took it down to the Dye Dungeon (where my studio is), and cut a piece out of it, then pieced back in some madder/marigold dyed linen. It’s started to sing now.

There may be a bit more radio silence here than normal, as i meet that pesky deadline.

Posted in a collusion of ideas, Jam Day, natural dye research, Naturally dyed threads

two and a half weeks of rainbow

Posted on by arlee

I ♥♥♥ variegated threads. I used a lot of commercially dyed ones with earlier work ( pre 2017) but when i switched completely to using naturally dyed, there was a dearth of them available anywhere, and i was petrified at the thought of doing threads! I have since refined my use and skill level of natural dyes, and while i had successfully dyed solids, i hadn’t really thought about variegating any, beyond the simple step of post modifying dipped areas.

Last week i had shown photos to an acquaintance who waxed so eloquently rhapsodic about the colour breaks in these little leaves:

 

They aren’t variegated threads however; they were “orts” (scraps, ends) of naturally dyed solids that i couldn’t bear to throw away. Just as i have found a use for one inch squares of naturally dyed velvet, so too do i save bits of thread that are at least 3″ long!

But i started thinking about this. Much of my work is finely detailed and there is no way to get such tiny breaks of colour, unless one becomes really neurotic about the method. (Yeah, yeah, i know: some many  a few think i AM neurotic but i ain’t that much…) But, never say never. While i will not attempt breaks of 1/2″, i can do 1″. Some of the colour combos too are practically impossible: i’ll never get a half inch of green on a predominantly pink, purple, blue thread, but i can get close in each colourway. And then use 3″ long bits, NARF.

So, for the past two and a half weeks, i have been working with thread instead of fabric, playing and testing, using different combos of 4 dyes (madder, osage, cochineal –that old moldy one STILL!–and indigo) and overdyes, post modifiers and timing and got these results:

The above are two colour breaks, pretty basic, but lovely nonetheless. Obviously, indigo over anything makes magic 🙂

And a mix of the 2 colour variegateds and solids from this work, thrilling to say only 3 dyes, and some indigo :)!

I dyed many of these in larger skeins so i can divvy them up, some for me, and *some* of these for the shop, in 10 yard lengths. All are cotton, except for the three in top photo, the bright red, bright yellow and salmon, towards the right of the photo.

Next i’ll be trying 3 colour skeins and continuing this way, i’m hoping to get to 5 colour breaks, something that my tired brain actually has to draw out to figure the correct sequences.

One thing that made me really happy was that i finally got a lavender/lilac/wisteria/whateverflavour you call it in your palette (centre of bottom photo). This one is NOT going to be anything but what it is, no modifying, no other colour additions. (Until the next time.) Again, from the moldy old cochineal. I’m not saying the mold had anything to do with it, just that there is no reason to waste a dye because it’s gone off, looks funny, or is fuzzy. Yeah, if it was completely foosty, but not as a surface deal 🙂 Obviously, if this happens to you, do some tests first with a small amount, don’t just take my word for it. *Your* mileage vary vary greatly.

I must now get back to a piece that is slated for a show, due March 31st–hurry, hurry, hurry hard!!