Notions-Drye Goods Studio Diary

Thanks for checking in. I am a fiber artist. My current emphasis is on eco printing and other wildcraft with a touch of up-cycling thrown in. You can also catch up with me on Facebook at Drye Goods Studio.

Monday, April 30, 2018

Spring is Here!

"The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt."
Sylvia Plath

Arrowleaf Balsamroot and Cottonwood catkins

Saturday, April 14, 2018

Waiting for Spring

"The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel."
Piet Mondrian 1872-1944

Working with some very old pressed leaves passed along to me by a friend. They still work!

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Leave it to Beaver

While out walking a few weeks ago I discovered the beavers had been busy harvesting the cottonwoods along the river. They left many little chips and pieces around, so being the hoarder that I am, I picked up a sack's worth and brought them home. I thought I had read somewhere that the inner bark layer was used for medicine and dye. After further research I did find it listed as a medicine, but not a dye. This has never stopped me before. After the soaking I opened the jar and it had this tannin smell, so I figured it should be good for something.

Beavers in action

I put the chips in a jug of rainwater and let them set for several days

Note the color change in the water


I put the liquid in a pan and put in various pieces of fabric. This is not entirely scientific, as I put in two pieces of silk, one pretreated with alum and one with steel wool along with two pieces of cotton that had no pretreatment. After this I treated one piece of cotton with alum and one with copper liquor. As you can see, not much to write home about. I decided to eco print on the samples to see what would come of that. The backgrounds on all of these are darker than they appear here, I am still fumbling around with the new phone camera. While I have no idea how much tannin may actually be in cottonwood bark, it did smell that way and I do think the prints on the cotton are darker and more detailed than they would have been otherwise. On the silk there wasn't that much difference one way or the other. We will see what happens down the road when I get around to rinsing them out.

Cotton with alum. Maples and dry hollyhock

Cotton with copper mordant. Maples, eucalyptus.

Silk with alum. Various maples
Silk with steel wool. Maples and dry hollyhock.

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Creativity

"One gets into a state of creativity by conscious work."
Henri Matisse 1869-1954

Hope, 2018 collage: paper, felt