Trance

I have been gathering my naturally dyed cloth all summer. Old sheeting and pillowcase's have languished in jars with leaves, berries, petals and what not. Some have been boiled, soaked, tied or bundled.

As summer draws to a close and the autumn chill seeps into my bones, I decided it was time. I gathered my fragments of cloth, and finally, they became one.

It isn't square, it doesn't matter. I will stitch it at night, whilst the babe's sleep, it is large, maybe queen size. Draped over my lap as I stitch it, it will keep me warm. I am a little overwhelmed by it's size. It will take many months and I do not yet know how it will look when it is completed, I think this is, in part, the point.

It has a hole, this excite's me, I wish I had made more holes. I will start with the hole.

After much consideration, I decided to name it Trance, being as this is what stitching is all about for me.

Trance [trans, trahns] noun, verb

1. a half-conscious state, seemingly between sleeping and waking, in which ability to function voluntarily may be suspended.

2. a dazed or bewildered condition.

3. a state of complete mental absorption or deep musing.

4. an unconscious, cataleptic, or hypnotic condition.

5. Spiritualism . a temporary state in which a medium, with suspension of personal consciousness, is controlled by an intelligence from without and used as a means of communication, as from the dead.

I hope that the pale tones of mother nature, will give way to a rhapsody of colour in stitch, it will need careful balance I think, to keep it all in synch. I am ready to be lost in cloth. Skitchbook at the ready.

What are you stitching lately? Have you joined in the thread swap yet? Please do!

I see a Tree

I unwrapped the bundles, no leaf prints, and one cloth was a bit dissapointing so I tied it back up and popped it back in the dye bath to steep a while longer.

But I like this one, alot.



I see a tree trunk! Do you?
It dried darker than it appeared when wet, the luminous lime greens turning a pale muddy brown.



I am delighted with the results, but really want some leaf prints. No luck with Oak, perhaps the leaves are too young?
Does anyone know what leaves found in the UK might print nicely?

Plans

I am putting together ideas for a very large cloth, in part for my course, but also just because.
I am not sure what the cloth will be called as yet... but I am thinking earth and it's elements. The Elemental cloth? I'll keep thinking about it.

Here are some water babes that may or may not make the final cut, I always did like drawing mermaids.



I have too many ideas, I am wondering how to make them all fit. For now, I am just going to keep going...

A Skitchbook

I have been dragging my sewing paraphernalia around with me in various bags, pockets and what not, and it was less than ideal. Scraps tumbling out everywhere, needles stabbing me as I reach in my bag to find my phone, my wee scissors being lost or buried underneath masses of crap (the usual stuff to be found in a mothers handbag - soothers, wipes, half chewed biscuits, screwed up receipts and the odd tampon that threatens to launch itself, shamefully, at passers by as you dig around for change or something).

So, it was time to get organised. A needle book didn't quite cut it, they are too small to hold all my bits and bobs. I wanted something larger, that would hold needles, pins, thread, scissors, small pieces of fabric, scraps AND a place to tuck a smallish cloth or two that I could work on during the daily train rides.
I had two little woven clothes kicking around, a decadently soft felted wool scarf, scraps of felt and fabric... and so, a Stitchy Sketchbook was born, of sorts, a Skitchbook?



I stitched the woven cloths to the old wool scarf, lined the other side with more purple felt, whipstitched around the edges, attaching a scrappy tie, the back was made in much the same way...





Then I created a sandwich with another felt page, which I can attach scraps to, and my favourite part of all, my monster pocket!





The wee pocket holds the bulkier items that can't be pinned to the felt. Bobbins and a seam ripper, and a wee pair of scissors which are attached to the inside of the pocket, by a long scrap of fabric (no more lost scissors!). I love the monster pocket and how the scissor ribbon looks like a tongue when I pull the scissors out. It was completely accidental, this monster thing, I stitched around the pocket opening and decided it looked like a mouth, so added eyes, a happy accident, which delights me every time I get my skitchbook out.

The little stitched roll to hold needles in place was also an afterthought, works a treat...



All the layers were sandwiched together and bound on the left edge with thread, like a book. In hindsight, I wish I had added more layers, more pockets, and made it sligtly bigger, this one is about 6" square. So, I may make another.... next time I will take more pics and try and share a tutorial, should anyone be interested in making their own Skitchbook, complete with a monster pocket or two?

Blueberry & Blackberry on Cloth

Blueberries


On cloth, fresh out of the Blackberry juice dye bath, mordanted with alum


Squished


Back into the blackberry juice


2 days later




This one was in Blueberry juice




A few shades of blue and eau de nil

Natural dying is SO exciting!

Ah sweet colour...

I am working on project for a large cloth, more about that later... in the meantime, I need to find larger pieces of fabric. I am used to making small things, so I don't often buy anything larger than a fat quarter, my scrappy stash just isn't cutting it, and seems to be made up of novelty prints (I am such a sucker for a print). I need big cloth and solid colours.

I am hoping to dye a couple of old sheets, but I am also very tempted by the shot cottons by Oakshott Fabrics, so I ordered a sample pack of all 83 colours, 83! It is SO hard to choose just a couple.





Whilst the sample pack is £12.50, you receive a £10 gift voucher to use on your next order, AND the samples are a very generous 2.5" x 5" in size, that's quite a lot of fabric! I couldn't resist snipping off a few wee pieces and stitching them down to one of my scrapplique cloths, to see how they stitch and fray.



The needle just glides through, and the fray is so pretty, I love shot cottons. Now I just need to choose, I am liking the blues and violets most of all. I think I will keep stitching with them a while, see which one's sing to me.

Oh, and I just found this. Glorious colour, good enough to eat, it made me drool on to my keyboard. Chawne is like a rainbow goddess, for sure.

Scrapplique

What to do with little fabric pieces? I mean the really little pieces, less than 1", I keep them all, I can't help it. Those little scraps of colourful joy, scraps from the childrens projects, old bedding, scraps of family, scraps of life.
I looked for projects online, but there isn't alot you can do with very tiny scraps, so I stitched them down, on slightly bigger scraps.



It became quite addictive, a simple kantha stitch, rainbow arteries connecting cloth to cloth, to create new colour and new cloth. I have a pile of these "new" cloths, and I will keep adding to the pile, and maybe one day I will connect those too, and have one big cloth, who knows? There is no plan, the only plan is to keep stitching. I call it scrapplique, it seems fitting, raw edges, no fancy pants precision, just cloth on cloth.

















Some of them are gifts, yet to be gifted.

The base cloths are all hand dyed with tea and tumeric, and mostly cut from my old linen maternity pants. I guess those pants were pretty big, I seem to have an awful lot of that cloth.

Word Play

Well my cloth is coming along nicely, I have spent the last few evenings stitching the quote that I wanted to include. I used purple metallic gutermann thread, which is not easy to embroider with and text is quite boring to stitch too, so it took a while.



Here is a photo of how the cloth looks as a whole, there is still much work to be done but I am really pleased with how it is coming together, it makes me smile :)
More silver leaves need to be included, the tree trunk to the right needs to be stitched in (I am rather anxious about doing that, it is a big area of stitching to cover!) and the leaves to the top left need more branches and lots of more leaves.



The background is also due some special treatment.... not sure what yet, more white stitching to give texture to the cloth and secure the weaving for sure, and perhaps more... I like that this part of the story has not unfolded to me yet. Oh yes, there is still much to be done and much to learn.
You can view a full size photo of the cloth here.

Happy Weekend to you! <3

Still Stitching

The butterfly idea is growing, I have added some leaves and have oodles of teeny tiny leaf shaped cut outs to add. I have also learned a couple of new embroidery stitches. The leaf shows coral stitch, though I reinforced it with a bohkara stitch to keep it sturdy.





I have also been trying woven circles, my cloth is turning into a bit of a sampler, but that's ok.





An embroidery from the bottom of the bag has also been calling to me, a few more stitches and this will complete. I am not sure what I will do with it, perhaps a cushion or quilt block for Boo.



The house is littered with little snippets of thread which the vacuum stubbornly refuses to pick upp, still, at least it is sparkling and rainbow thread....

Going with the flow of change

The rainbow woven cloth just wasn't doing it for me, I also decided it was too small. So I began working on another woven cloth, this time about 20" square and using only white fabrics, in the hope it could act as a nice clean backdrop for appliques made from the first cloth.

I don't have a lot of pale fabrics so I had to attack some bed linen. I have to say the texture of used fabrics is much more pleasing when woven than the new fabrics I used on the rainbow cloth, I thought I would feel a bit twitchy about the frays and wayward threads, but I actually quite like it, the texture is lovely and soft, it feels nice to hold it and I am enjoying stitching it.

Last night I attached the first applique made from the rainbow cloth. I knew as soon as I decided I would make a large applique from this cloth that is had to be a butterfly. Butterflies are the symbol of change, and so it seems rather fitting to me right now, on a personal and circumstantial level at least, change is always afoot, but never more so than now.



The body of the butterfly is embroidered in a haphazard short and long stitch and then I used a metallic thread which I actually weaved through the embroidery. I have also used silver thread here and there.



Check out my Flickr to see the photos in larger size.

I am still working on this applique, but may move on and add more to the cloth and come back to the butterfly later, sometimes it helps to see it with a fresh eye.
I am becoming a bit obsessive about this project, it is a combination of the stitching being a real tonic and the creative possibilities.
I am thinking I might make one of these cloths every month, and stitch them together to form a quilt at the end of the year... kind of like a stitched diary or journal... I just might.

Cloth Weaving

I am taking part in Jude Hill's Cloth to Cloth workshop. If you haven't heard of Jude and her amazing cloth weaving endevours then you really must pop by her blog. Her work is incredibly inspiring and oh so liberating for a beginner to quilting, like myself, who is prone to wonkiness and lack of precision.

The course doesn't start for another week or so, but I have already started a little cloth weaving experiment.
The cloth is woven and stitched to a backing (in my case an old baby muslin) to stabilise it, the cloth is then embroidered, appliqued and embellished according to ones whim, the blocks can be attached and made into a quilt as with standard patchwork.

Being as I have oodles and oodles of scrappy bits of fabric, and not many large pieces, this particular craft is well suited to me at the moment.
Most all of the Spirit Cloths (as Jude calls them) I have seen are very organic looking and mostly in neutral colour palettes, using recycled fabric. Alas, whilst I do like organic, I posses very few neutral toned fabrics and so I am conscious that my own attempts look somewhat gaudy and bright in comparison to the pale and beautiful cloths Jude turns out. Still, one must be true to thine own self, and I do like colour so.
Left over scraps from Amber's book bag have found their way in, same for some of the scraps from a project I did with the fabric Sena sent, and a few other scrappy pieces, including some wide satin ribbon in acid green.





I started weaving the cloth at about 8pm yesterday, and then began stitching it to the fabric, which I completed at around 2am. Quite a lot of work, and it is only 10" square, but I do stitch quite slowly at the moment on account of my illness, still at least the inability to sleep allows me the extra hours I need to make progress.
I am not sure how any embellishments will stand out against the psychedelic rhapsody of colour, so I may have to rethink the neutral debate after all if I am to achieve some contrast and tone....

There is something incredibly healing about stitching and colour. It allows me to switch off from anxious thoughts and exist solely in the moment. I am looking forward to working on my cloth more tonight, and very excited about starting the Cloth to Cloth workshop in a few days time, my fingers are twitching at the very thought.