The month has gotten the best of me…too. But just hot enough to grow some awesome INDIGO.
Yesterday I picked a couple of pounds of leaves from my garden and made a batch..
It starts out green,
but there is blue in those leaves….
Sacre bleu!
See more Indigo by going to Jennifer Coyne Qudeen and Julie B. Booth‘s blogs.
The Roy B Giv search continues with our hosts, Jennifer Coyne Qudeen and Julie B. Booth. This month, BLUE is at the top of the color heap. This month I present useful applications for this color, favored for it’s calming nature. (All work by poster) 
Dye with it. 
Weave with it.
Stitch with it. 
Photograph it.
Paint with it. 
And paint some more. 
What to do with blue? Dye, paint, warp and weft, pixels and paint. Blue all over the place?
To quote a wise one: “The strongest rope is comprised of many strands.”
What to do with blue…
The search continues in Week 6. Cloth, mark making and meaning. A real adventure because work defines work in art. Working turns surprises into ideas.
My beachy paradise has been struck a chill for the past week, but most days are at least in the 50’s. The storms coming from the Atlantic have blanketed the patio with leaves and pine straw. (Gotta collect those for later.) It’s perfect weather for continuing my junk hunt around the rental house.
The obvious stuff on counter tops and in drawers- safety pins, paper clips, and steel wool – have all been pilfered in an effort to make marks on cloth. Plastic baggies, tea bags, hydrangea blooms that dried on its stem.
It has become a game to imagine what shape or color of degrading metal will occur when set in vinegar. A ball of string, soaked in coffee yielded soft asemic curls on cloth. Calligraphy through a dryer sheet with my precious walnut ink. The orange tissue paper didn’t bleed a bit. While lots of experiments fail, the game is getting harder but more interesting.
While I wait for new discoveries, I’ve spent time taking small cues, making small stitches, taking pictures and learning some new things.
I started a wishbone trapunto, got muslin through my new printer, dyed newsprint, experimented with a counterfeit detector pen, considered white-out as paint and used flower seeds for beads. No cheese doodles but… gutterradyeing. And Textile Art Center has some thoughts on the topic.
Happy hunting!
Tidy piles of color from messy piles of wool. An absolute labor of un-dyeing love.
The raw land at the development where I live, offers so many gathering opportunities. In the nice weather, with Nellie on leash, I wander up unpaved hills, onto weedy patches of sand. On any day, I might find rusty nails, twisted rebar, tangled wire and strapping among the rust-colored stone shards and plant life on the path. My favorite find is the overworked saw blades the workers have dulled.
The nails end up in my mordant water, or tucked between folds of fabrics I’ve tied. I also have a plentiful source of oak leaves, (one of my favorite shapes) and feathers from the wild turkeys that have escaped the neighborhood bobcat. Now is the time for fresh windfall in abundance.
I glove, mask and goggle-up to bend metal into a new word house. I wrap and fold and dye cottons in rusty water, onto rusted bolts and wire and sprinkle nails like jimmies on cupcakes. I piece and patch, boro-style, appliqué, cut away and stitch.
I never quite know what I will get, but the earthy colors marble the cloth like volcanoes and storm clouds. It is where I live.
My talented friend Nancy, from Vagabond’s Daughter, invited a few of us to experiment with onion skins as a dyeing agent on eggs. Nancy provided a variety of natural resists, such as parsley and fennel and we applied yellow and red onion skins to the uncooked eggs, tied into the stretchy hug of pantyhose. I brought a silk scarf from a previous lime-green dye day , and shibori-ed the scarf with eggs and rubber bands. There was also a pot of red cabbage with blueberries that yielded the dark gray eggs.
Egg salad on the menu.
I’ve been in the process of quilting some tops for Lauren Cotton of The Cotton Press. She dropped by yesterday, when we got to talking about her blog and I thought about sharing this.
Lauren dyes and prints all her own fabrics on quite a grand scale. Sometimes two, three or even four overdyes and prints that add to the depth and richness of color and print. Her amazing quilts are one-of-a-kind grids, some giant-sized.
I like to show off the backs because they become two-sided beauties for the owner.
Focus on the colorful flowers. The daisies in the background are the quilting.
Lauren picked up the two I finished and the third in this series is loaded on the Gammill frame: today’s work. Check out
The Cotton Press Studio and get a look at the giant quilt she poses in front of. That’s the one I’ll be working on next. And get a look at how all these beautiful fabrics come to life.
Top corner, a peek at the back.
Surprises abounded with orange emerging from fire bush and berries exploding randomly into the cloth.
She boiled concord grapes that she culled from a roadside car stop and mixed earth pigments for direct painting onto these organic beauties. I watched in wonder and caught the excitement of how autumn can give its natural gift in the life cycle of plants.
I tasted a grape that brought me back to childhood and my grandmother’s wine. The kids got to eat the goodies at the bottom of the jar.
We were at Terrain in Westport – an eden in our midst. There is no way you can’t be inspired by every season and its beauty.
White pumpkins tick my monochromatic box.
We gathered from around the garden. Everything here is plain pretty.
Another way to dye. And a great stress reliever. I felt like I was in the land of drumming rhythms.
You should try this. I am a Vagabond’s step-daughter today.
From the Dorr Mill Store
Notebook from previous dyeing sessions, open for reference.
Notice the steam on this pot. The water is simmering the whole time. Depending on the color I want I measure the water in inches and usually use a full packet for the most intense color. The red pot was at about two inches. The blue had more like 3 or 4 inches.
The first piece will be the darkest, taking up most of the dye. The later pieces get lighter. Great if you want a range of value in the same color. The water will be clear if you immerse enough fabric.
I added a touch of Old Gold to the green and got some really nice avocado and limey tones.
Each color group is rinsed and spun separately. I love this part, I’m almost done.
Now to clean up the kitchen and put these babies into beautiful color groups. They will be available at the Quilter’s Alley and on Etsy.
I have the most creative friends. The interaction goes deep, to imagination and things unworldly. The relationships are powerful and sustaining. This week I documented what lives on the design wall,
But more remarkable were the two gifts I didn’t expect from two friends – both hand made from the soul.
A story quilt about trusting change. Every stitch was laid down intuitively. The precious stones have power and meaning. The cloth is hand dyed Cherrywood.
I am a scarf person. Scarves are my jewelry. Somehow, the Vagabond’s Daughter, knew that I love neutral as much as I do color.
It’s remarkable how the peach and taupetones work with my new skirt.
Her labels are as beautiful as the subtle colors that emerge from her dye pot.
Sharing writing tips, information, and advice.
photography, writing and the spaces between
Sharing writing tips, information, and advice.
photography, writing and the spaces between
Ideas in Cloth 
