April Moon 2016

The completed April Moon, 2016. 

This one has a lot of stitches on it; and various silks that came from a fabric sample book: re-purposed silk. I've been making sketches of the stitching I've done on each Moon. My idea is to make a drawing of all 12 moons, which I'll get made into a giclee print. And sell. A small print; affordable. Ready for September, when the textile works will be exhibited. I am stitching........and gardening......and working......

May Moon

Just begun stitching 'May Moon'. It 'may' take some time.

January Moon 2016

This is part of what I'm working on for this year. I'm making a fabric collage for each month; later on this year, I'll be exhibiting them as part of Wakefield ArtWalk.
I'm using a mix of fabrics; but trying to use a lot of the fabric/s I've dyed using plants.
Each piece will have this circle; the same size; for the full moon. I've almost completed the March Moon; just a few final touches.

I got a lovely pile of fabric sample books the other week. They were in a skip, about to be thrown away, so I did a bit of skip-dipping, and brought some home. Amongst them, was a book of silks.......now you might know that I try not to use purchased silk. I shop around for second hand silks; clothes; remnants etc. So this sample book is an absolute treasure. 
A deep pile of silk, in different colours, even though they're quite small in diameter. Some of these will find their way into this current series. And the couple of pieces that are white/cream, have been popped into the pomegranate dye-pot.   

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.

turmeric on silk

Happy New Year to 2016
It's been quite a year of transitions, for me. Settling into my new job; making new relationships; getting out and spending more time with people; camping and travelling more; being ill; getting the trees cut back out the front of my garden. 
We had the horrendous floods in Yorkshire over Xmas; though I haven't been personally affected, we were at risk over the xmas weekend. I can only imagine the dreadful conditions people are currently coping with.


I've had some more personal transitions too; it wasn't only the trees that got cut back this year. 
A number of my friends have had a crap year; and so I'm glad to see them through all that. So I'm welcoming 2016; I hope you have a peaceful and love-filled year. I will try my best to! 

The opened bundle. Silk with the turmeric dried on it. I've left it to dry, and settle a while; then I'll iron it, and see if that fixes it. I've not used a mordant at all; it's an experiment. See what happens. I do like the marks made by the binding though; I hope the silk retains that. It may need some overdying at some point though? Have to wait and see. 

 The dried turmeric on the silk, before I opened the bundle.

Letting the silk soak in the turmeric; it's in a cup, so it's only a small bundle of cloth.

The cup with the turmeric mixed in water; I left part of the fabric out of the mixture, to see if I could get a graded colour......because it's yellow, it hasn't got as much contrast as I'd like.

leaves dipped in iron water

 The whole piece of silk

The Bundle; steaming

I dipped the leaves (fig leaves, and a plant I can't identify) into iron water for a couple of days, and left them there.

Wrapped them into a bundle of silk cloth; no mordant; an aluminium steamer. It's never cleaned in between dyepots, so has remnants of all sorts of plant dye in it.

I left it for a couple of days, after steaming it. Then unwrapped; and I think it's come out rather well! Am leaving it to settle for a bit; then I will iron it to fix it, which will flatten the fabric.

I'm rather happy with the results.

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!

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.   



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.

'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!

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.



fragments......

 One of the samples I'm working on. Tweed. Curtain fabric. Silk threads.

Silk fabrics. Spirals of threads. Muted colours. The gathering of the fabric as one layer is stitched to the other. Textures.

No print included in this one......

playing with filters!

One of the samples I'm working on. Silk dyed with walnut, and woad; cotton dyed with the woad. Printed with the collography plate I made. Photographed using my camera-fone; on ordinary setting.

 Same sample; using the 'poster' setting on my camera-fone.

Same again; using the 'solarisation' setting on my camera-fone. Not a fantastic solarisation effect. Needs more contrast for that, really. How easy it is to make these effects; I remember forty years ago, trying to get the solarisation effect, using darkroom techniques. Messing about with the stinking chemicals. Getting my hands dirty; in the dark, trying to make sure every speck of light was blocked out. Using the college darkrooms. Buying developing equipment to set up a darkroom at home; at first under the stairs (a tight squeeze!) then getting it all up into the loft (much easier!). Looking at Man Ray's photos; his solarisation effects.

'Negative' effect on my camera-fone.

The technical skills we used to practice to try and get these effects. All done now, with a click on the mobile phone. Is it too easy nowadays? We're all photographers now, aren't we?
The ubiquity of camera's in our mobile phones has created a generation who records their every move and posts it online.
I keep my old photos in boxes. 
I sometimes wonder; what would Man Ray have done with this technology.?What would Bill Brandt have done? How would Lee Miller have used a camera-fone when she was photographing events of WW2, and the liberation of the camps? Well; they would've been able to travel light/er, wouldn't they?
But what effect would this technology have had upon their art? They would have used it, definitely. Artists use whatever technology is there. And I'm using some of the oldest, most basic technology in the world; dyeing with plants, needles and threads. Ancient technology. Going back millennia. I like that.

the mother-of-all-dye

Silk dyed with cow-parsley flowers, from last summer. A delicate yellow. Hard to remember the beautiful hot summer we had in 2013, when we're having such a wet, dreary winter.
I've printed onto it, using the collography plate I've made; I'm using it on a lot of the 'samples' I'm stitching currently. The darker area, has come from some bleeding through from a fabric I dyed with procian dye. I like the random-ness of it. It's just sitting there, waiting for the next idea. It's unknown; a mystery.

Dug out from the pile of detritus behind the compost bins.....a lovely post finial; at least I think that's what it is? I've nowt to attach it to, so it's sitting beside the door to my studio, looking pretty. It's ceramic, and a wee bit chipped at the top, but still looks nice.

broken; mended

 close up

 away

further along