Turmeric

Silk dyed with Turmeric; then over-dyed with pomegranate.
I haven't been able to post here for months, as google randomly decided to not allow me access to the blog. Today, just as randomly, I seem to be able to post again.

woad seeds

A friend kindly gave me these woad seeds for xmas. They're very light; like feathers. Planted up; hopefully I'll get some plants come through, and get enough to be able to dye from. Plans for my 'dye-ing garden' are developing! Cross my fingers.

honeysuckle and suchlike........

 building honeysuckle into a structure

 using cotton thread dyed from odd leaf bath to tie the honeysuckle

men on bikes.......the Tour de Yorkshire came through Wakefield today

Pomegranate & Tea dyed Silk

Exactly what it says on the tin!
Silk bundle with tea bags wrapped in it; dyed in pomegranate dye-pot.
I'm using some of the silk on a small piece of stitched collage. Slow stitching.

seeds

A collograph print on silk. Fabric paint.
This was used by Arts Hub Wakefield as their FaceBook banner picture earlier in March. They're using a series of different artists' work each week, to display the range of creativity around Wakefield.
Positive comments; which is always nice!
I'm still in the process of feeding my creative soul at the moment, so not much going on. But the pomegranate dye-pot I made before xmas, to use with a group of young people, is not quite exhausted yet, so I keep popping bits of fabric in. And I put a folded and clamped piece of silk into a dye-pot of tea/bags...easy-peasy to do. Will show the results of that later.
Currently, I have a white cotton top that I was given, bound up, and straddling both dye-pots.....should be an interesting result! If it comes out a disaster, I can simply cut it up, and not bother wearing it. However....I'm hoping it comes out some kind of pattern that is wearable. I love these experiments in the alchemical kitchen!
Meantime; there's art to look at!

pomegranate

 Meantime.....in the pomegranate pot!

I'd left a piece of cotton in the dye, and forgotten all about it! It's been in there a couple of months, so it's taken quite well! Here is the whole piece.

 And here are some close-ups.

Lovely patterns; made with metal clamps, as I folded the fabric.

work in progress......

 Starting out!

 

 the stitched lines

 

The silk before stitches.

Dyed with pomegranate; I made it in a project with some young people at work. We did a project on Labyrinths, and plant dyeing.

The silk has been lying around, while I decided what to do with it. Then, looking through blogs, I found a reference to the native grasses of New Mexico; and how they (like all grasses) hold the soil together. An image came; and from that, I began stitching. This is very minimal, and with very neutral colours.   



'The Infinite Contained'

 The fabric collages hanging in the space of Westgate Chapel

 'Portal'

 'For No-One'

 'Lucy'

 'My Family'

 'The Other Half of the Sky'

 'Holding (for PSM)'

 'My Garden'

Visitors to the exhibition

 

It was quite a scarey evening. The work is far more 'autobiographical' than any other I've ever made, so I felt very exposed, and 'on view'. The feedback was entirely positive though. Friends who knew the background to the work, came and expressed their delight. And even complete strangers came up to me and told me how much they liked it.

I have been taken aback by the comments.

And now; I'm spending the holidays having a proper break! No work (re; job) and not thinking about creating ANYTHING! I've decided I'm going to 'absorb' for a while. Spend time looking; at things around me, and at other artists.

Ideas are ghosts in my mind; I want to use the mangle for printing with, so that's one thing I'll experiment with....later. And I want to do some more weaving...that I can then print onto. For now; rest. It's been a very intense few years; and now is the time for consolidation, and resting.



spring and autumn silk

Silk, coloured by honeysuckle berries, blackberries, amongst others. The silk folded, with the berries amongst the fabric, then hammered into pulp!
VERY therapeutic!

A close up view. I left it for ages; just sitting there folded. Then put it on top of a pan I was boiling pomegranates in. Steamed the silk. I'll iron it, to try and retain the colour, though it may prove fugitive?

The silk before the hammered berry process. In spring I picked bluebells and random blue flowers, and folded them into the fabric. Then steamed them. Left it all for months, before adding the berries. The blue had faded some.

tending/mending....completed!

This is it.
Finito.
I need to stitch a couple of loops onto the back, so I'll be able to hang it for the exhibition in November's Artwalk in Wakefield.
It has plant-dyed fabric (brown=walnuts; blue=woad; green=existing commercially dyed); hand printed, and hand-stitched, elements. And a lot of running stitch, which you can see better in the earlier posts. I think I've just got 2 more 'samples' to complete now. Best get on with it! 

'hands' #2

The stitched hands.
Used 2 different thicknesses of thread.

'hands'

This collagraphy print is on silk dyed with cow parsley. Since I dyed this, and printed onto it, I've added more fabric; and am stitching onto it. There are no hands in this photo, but the hands are emerging out of the stitching. More photos will be added as I work on it.

plant dyed silk......

Tie-dyed green silk; popped into a pomegranate dye-pot. It's a bit paler than in the photo. Not quite so good definition.

White silk tie-dyed in the pomegranate dye-pot. This looks more 'metallic'; the reality, is greyer.

White silk with blue flowers pressed between it. Seems the bluebells created this blue. I wonder how long it will last? I used no mordants; the pomegranate is mordant enough, most of the time. The blue (bells) I fully expect to fade and disappear. I'll leave it a while, before I use it in any samples.
I've completed another of my samples; mounted it onto a stiff piece of denim. I'm considering using some final stitching on it; to really finish it. It's a relief piece; I used quilting batting for that effect. It's the only sample that has this. So far, anyway!

dyed threads

Those wooden stirrers that you get in cafes; the ones that have inbuilt disposability; replacing spoons, to stir our drinks. Those things....that I can't bear to chuck away...in case they come in for something!
Well......they've come in for something!
I save them, and then all the thread I use to wrap up my cloth bundles, or odd bits I drop into dye-baths, I wind around the wooden slats.
The more earthy tones I've got from the plant dye-pots I've done. The brighter colours came from when I was using dyes on the course last year. But the central 'yellow-y' colour comes from thread dyed in pomegranate. Very different result from the silk I dyed in pomegranate, which came out much more brown.

Ps; what's wrong with spoons?

studio wall

Some of the collage samples I'm currently working on, pinned up on my studio wall. I'm using lots of the plant-dyed fabric I've made over the last 12 months or so. And I'm going through the fabrics I dyed on the City & Guilds course, and various fabrics I've collected, and been given.
These are all going towards an exhibition in November. It seems a long way away, but it will soon come round.

pomegranate patterns

This was the cotton, painted with egg, before I dyed it with the pomegranate.

I just brushed it on randomly.

 This was the silk, also painted with egg; the brushmarks show up darker.

And this is my patio, after laying out the wet fabric as I took it out of the dye-pot! It'll be interesting to see how long it lasts, once it rains.



pomegranate dye #3

So this is some linen thread I put into the pomegranate dye-pot. The colour's very different! I didn't use any kind of mordant; just popped it into the pot. Maybe that's why it came out such a lovely golden colour?

Here is the wedding dress bodice, silk, with some man-made fabric flowers. The silk is a pale grey; the man-made fabric not taken at all. I dropped this piece in late on in the process. It wasn't in for long at all. Certainly not as long a time as the silk and cotton lengths. You can see the silk fabric behind the silk bodice. Noticeable how different the colours are. 

And finally the POT!
Direct off the cooker, and still steaming. The wrapped cotton and silk still amidst the mulch!

pomegranate dye #2

 A cut-up silk shirt; dyed with pomegranate.

No pre-mordant.

Painted with marks made by brushing whisked egg onto it.

 Out of the dye-pot, and onto the patio to be photographed; the silk still wet.

 The silk shirt dried. The colour is lightened again, as always.

Here you can see the brush marks made by painting egg onto the fabric.

The close-up shows some of the brush marks made by egg.

It's had the effect of darkening the pomegranate dye.



pomegranate dye #1

So last week I boiled up the pomegranate, and dyed some silk, and some cotton fabric in the resulting slush! Here are the results from the cotton;

 The cotton, wet, from the dye-pot, laid out on my patio. The cotton had been pre-mordanted by soaking it in soya-milk. I folded this fabric into a square, and held it together with clamps



 Still wet, and nice and shiney!

 After drying, this is how it looks; the fabric has lightened as it's dried, which always happens. The white 'squares' come from the clamps. There's a nice black edging to them, where the metal has had some chemical effect. The range of colours is lovely, and really surprising. Black, creams, greys, and browns. The browns look as though I've been rust dyeing.

Above; a close-up of the squares made by the metal clamps.

You can see the black edging, but the photo's not very good otherwise.

leaf dye-pot

A bowl that's sitting in my garden; rainwater & leaves. And like the Kraken, deep underwater, lurk 2 pieces of fabric, soaking up the primeval ooze...and hopefully making wonderful marks and patterns, while they wait.
I've decided to leave these 2 pieces in a long time; there's a piece of silk which has leaves wrapped into it, and a piece of cotton which is pre-mordanted with soya-milk. This is slow dye-ing, for sure!

And I just had to include this photo! Taken this week on a day-trip to Skelmanthorpe! Worth it, just for the laugh this notice gave me.