In the wild...

The flowers are the prettiest, don't you think?

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...

Bundle Dyeing

I am really enjoying tinkering with dyes, it is truly an addictive past time, and SO easy! The garden, fields and woods at River Cottage provide plenty of suitable specimens with which to dye, so I seem to be constantly stuffing things into jars and marvelling at the results.

The most awesome thing about it all, is the joyous surprises. Of pulling a piece of fabric from it's dye bath and watching it's colour change radically on contact with air or water or even washing soda. It is truly exhilirating and the children are also intrigued and keen to take part.

My lack of utensils has meant I have been limited to solar dying in jars, so imagine my delight when I stumbled upon these...





These vintage aluminium jam pots were an absolute steal from my local carboot sale. They are the perfect size for larger pieces of fabrics and bundles. The nifty carry handles and shaped pourer work a treat.



Needless to say, I set to work immediately with my fabulous new dye pots.
I collected oak leaves and a little reddish fern type plant (I am a bit slack with plant names, as you can tell!) to eco print on to the fabric.



These were then placed on to mordanted linen and cotton, carefully rolled and tied into bundles, and then tossed into a pre-heated dye bath of red robin leaves (photinia).



Now, I have used red robin before... I have not found any mention of this plant being used for dying, so was intrigued to see what the results might be. Some weeks ago I stuffed some alum mordanted fabric into a jar with the reddish green leaves of red robin, and left it to cure. I was hoping for a red or orange hue, and was dissapointed to find that the water and leaves went a rather dull grey. When I removed the fabric, it was the same colour as my white bra's after Simon has helpfully washed them with his black socks, a hopeless dirty white.

Because I was unsure if red robin is poisonous or an irritant, I decided to wash it in washing powder (Fairy non Bio to be more precise), and to my absolute delight, when I plunged the bra grey fabric into the water, both the fabric and water turned such a vibrant shade of acid green that it looked almost radioactive!
It is THIS that excites me about natural dying, what a surprising treat. The fabric dried to a lovely pale lime green.

So, I was keen to use red robin again, into the dye pot it went, with the oak leaf bundles.



7 days later, the water and loose bits of fabric are a glorious deep orange. I am unsure if this is due to the addition of oak leaves or something else, it is certainly a very different (but pleasing) result, when compared with my red robin jar experiment.



The piece of fabric on top is an old bit of muslin which I tossed in with the bundles.
I am going to leave the whole thing to sit as long as I can bare. I must confess I have already unwrapped one bundle, and there were no leaf impressions, so I wrapped and tied it back up and popped it back in, this time I will wait more patiently.

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!

Visitors

Little grey friend all fluffy and cute,

Scampers about in his little grey suit,

Gathering nuts and other tasty stuff,

hiding it away ready for when there's not enough.


Hanging upside down and doing all sorts of tricks,

Getting into feeders the birds' food he nicks,

Running amuck all over the place,

Such a loveable rogue, such a loveable face.


Some say he's a pest and should be got rid,

But not our friendly Squirrel heaven forbid,

He lives his own life and is entitled to that,

He just needs to watch out for the big neighbours cat.



We love to see him and all his grey mates,

They visit us daily and empty the plates,

We don't even mind if he scoffs the lot,

There's plenty more in the bird food pot.


How would it be if he stopped coming to feed,

We won't even mind that he has a little greed,

He's always welcome on our feeding tree,

There'll always be food for the birds and for he.


You keep on coming our fluffy little friend,

We'll make sure you don't meet with a nasty end,

And come the Spring when your family grows,

Bring them as well and we'll be glad it's us you chose.

- Author Unknown

Isn't he a darling? This is actually one of the babe's, one of three, who visit our bird table each day. They are young enough to be less shy than their mama. Our bird table sits right in front of our dining room window, so we have breakfast together, the squirrels and my family of 6, and dinner, and at weekends, lunch too!

Happy Weekending to you :)

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.