Fresh Out of the Dye Pot

My yard is covered with dry Oak leaves. They have blown into the garage as well.

I was sweeping them up a month or two ago and stuffed a bunch of them in my "dye" crock pot

along with a piece of iron. There they stayed, soaking in water (I honestly don't remember adding the water) for many weeks. A couple of days ago, I bundled up some muslin and dropped it in. It took on a nice dark color right away, but I left it there for a day or two. Finally, I decided to turn the crock pot on. I "cooked" it for about an hour yesterday, then turned it off and let it sit until this morning. When I took it out and rinsed it, it was purple. Really pretty, but the purple left somewhere in the rinsing process. I was left with the piece you see on the bottom left and the upper right. Do you see the heart? There are actually two of them, but one is perfect.

Next to that fabric in the same picture, is a strip of muslin dyed in red food coloring, the professional kind. I wrapped the fabric around a stick and left it in the jar for several weeks. Look at that red!  Too cool.

Then, while I was messing around with all that, I thought I should see about the jars I have on the Solar dyeing shelf in the garage. I hadn't messed with them for a while and I was pretty sure they were empty. Surprise! An oak leaf and copper scrap one that has been there for months had a rather large piece of fabric in it. I had forgotten all about it and it was quite dark. I think it is the darkest thing I have dyed with plant dyes. It is apparently a good idea to forget about them. (I hope that bodes well for the avocado and silk I have buried in a flower pot). Anyway, this was a piece of muslin that I tied in knots on the diagonal, wrapped in bailing wire and the circle was made by tying around the plastic cap off a spice jar. If you look closely, you can see the shaker holes. I think I will change my plans for the day and do some more dyeing.

Hot Bundle

Yellow Rose petals and magenta Carnations bundled in silk and dyed with a tea bag.

L Is For Leaf

I worked on this piece, made with the elderberry dyed silk and cotton, most of the weekend. Half of the time I really liked it and then toward the end of the weekend, not so much. I did finally acknowledge that I am not really happy with anything until I start taking it apart. I think they are calling that deconstructing. The piece doesn't work for me until I cut holes in it, unstitch it, cover things up etc. I believe I am like this across the board--in all media. In painting, I call it subtracting. So, on some level I know this, but I never really knew it. Now that I am acknowledging this, I can plan for it. Maybe? I am probably not done taking this one apart..........

If you are reading my blog, please know that I look forward to hearing from you.

Elderberry Dye

The background piece is silk, solar dyed in a ball jar of elderberries for about a month, no mordant.

The strip in the front, is cotton, mordanted with alum and dyed in a crock pot of simmering elderberries.  Neither piece has been rinsed as yet. They are still drying. It will be interesting to see what they look like after they are rinsed.

Surface design

Here is part of a previously dyed piece of cotton, overdyed with indigo and then stamped with fabric paints and sprayed with silk screen inks. Have I done enough? I don't know. What will I do with it? I don't know........................

Oops

While working on a project this morning, I started thinking about dyeing some embroidery thread. "Why don't I just do it right now?", I thought. So I grabbed some embroidery thread from my stash, in colors I probably won't use and carried them out to the garage. I dunked them into various jars of plant dyes and left them while I made lunch. But when I checked on them, nothing was really happening. (Well, come on. It had only been thirty minutes!) Anxious to see what would happen, I decided to microwave them. I had three small plastic containers I had been saving to dye in and I thought they would be just perfect. I filled the containers with different threads and a couple of tablespoons of dye. I set the timer for two minutes and when it went off, I opened the door to find melted plastic and my threads floating in a pool of dye. What a mess!

Natural and Un-Natural Dyeing

In the first picture is a silk thrift store scarf that was originally pink and blue. It is over dyed with Shibori stitching and plant dyes. Also, in this picture, is a piece of cotton dyed with Wisteria leaves and then tied up with pennies and over dyed with Chinese Pistache dye.

The second picture is all of pieces dyed with Rit. Yes, I admit it. Not politically correct, but lots of fun. Some are Shibori stitched,
clamped or tied.