Winter Reading

"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers" Charles William Elliot

This is what I am reading now. How Plants Work is a layman's guide to botany; I discovered some amazing things about where the colors from plants originate. The other one, Lab Girl, I would highly recommend, along with E.O. Wilson's Letters to a Young Scientist to high school age women considering a career in the sciences. Some of the notions you have been told about those fields of study aren't true; don't bypass an amazing way to spend your life, we work most of it after all, because of some preconceived notions.

Throwback Friday

Just doesn't have the same ring to it as Throwback Thursday does it? I am not sure what it is about cold gray weather that makes me want to dig around in my book shelves, but here we are. I was looking for something else (of course) and came across these. I have kept them forever as they really inspired me at the time, to the point where I can trace the switch from my retail career to my art career directly to them. I have done embroidery of one sort or another since childhood and at one point, about 30 years ago, I was designing cross stitch patterns for magazines. By today's standards these are what you would call quaint, but after paging through them again I still think they have merit.

Stitches, Patterns and Projects for Needlecraft by Wanda Bonando and Marinella Nava

Copyright 1981, Harper Colophon Books

I was surprised that the copyright for this was from the 80's as it seemed older than that. This book covers about every sort of embroidery there has ever been since the beginning of time. While the projects in it are really conservative, it was a jumping off point for me. I used to check it out over and over from the library and then one day came across a discarded copy at a library sale and just had to have it for my very own.

Mary Martin's Needlepoint by Mary Martin

Copyright 1969 William Morrow and Company

Yes, that would be the Mary Martin of Peter Pan fame. In fact, the picture on the back of the dust cover features her in her costume all stung up for flight. I not only really liked her designs, I got a kick out of how her needlework lived right along her theater and movie career. This was another library book, but then I found a copy at Aunties Books and had to have a copy of it for all of $1.95.

Sylvia Sidney Needlepoint Book

Copyright 1968 Van Nostrand Reinhold Company

Again, I really liked her artwork as well as the fact that she did all or most of her own drawings for the patterns, and showed you how to do it too if you were so inclined. While not particularly interested in needlepoint, I did use her methods to start doing my own cross stitch patterns. This one is also peppered with stories about her career in Hollywood. Again, it was a library book I checked out long ago, but I bet whoever traded in the Mary Martin book at Aunties also traded this one in too, so I had to get it for old time's sake-at a $1.99 who could resist?

The Yestermorrow Clothes Book

by Diana Funaro, copyright 1976, Chilton Book Company

You could say this book inspired my entire art and craft career. I got it while in high school just about the time I learned to drive and was off to the thrift stores in Kansas City! I loved taking vintage clothes (real vintage, from the 20's, 30's and 40's) and rebuilding them. This book had great ideas and great general directions for taking stuff apart. When I look at it today, there are plenty of things in it I would still wear, and in fact, I see on sites like Etsy everyday. She had timeless vision.

Needlework to Wear

by Erica Wilson, copyright 1982, Oxmoor House Inc.

Called the "Julia Child" of needlework, Erica may have been one of the first women to be a "craft powerhouse" long before the quilting girls got going. I remember doing her patterns as a child in the late 1960's and as a teenager in the 70's. Again, I came across this in a library and then found a used copy years later that I had to have just because. I think I found this one fascinating because she did fiber jewelry-and not macramé either! She used very traditional techniques to come up with really modern designs-for the early eighties. Now the clothes in particular look really dated, but at the time this book was ground breaking in that she was not sitting around doing stuff out of the past, she was making contemporary wearables using traditional techniques. 

Ok, my tea is cold and whatever I originally started to do still isn't started, so I had better get back at it.  

Books About Eco Printing

I like lists, so here is a list of books that I have found useful for learning eco printing.

1. Eco Colour by India Flint; 2008, Interweave Press.                                                                                    This book changed my life. While causing me to grow as an artisan and craftsperson, it also brought me full circle to a place and time where I was a lot more comfortable in my own skin. It is not an instruction book or recipe book per se, so if you know nothing about natural dyeing, it could be a bit confusing-or the perfect place to start. To have somebody tell me I didn't need to order exotic dye stuffs and that using what I had thought of as toxic mordents was completely unnecessary was exhilarating. It threw out all the notions I had about natural dyeing and opened a whole new world for me.

      Some of it is hilarious, the part where she talks about the pros and cons of using cat urine as an adjunct cracks me up. Since I haven't known any cats willing to pee in a cup, I wondered how in the world she got enough to experiment with!

     The text is accompanied by lovely photography, making it a beautiful object in and of itself, a place where dreams can grow.

2. Harvesting the Color by Rebecca Burgess; 2011, Artisan.
     The author leads you through the seasons while guiding you to plants that for the most part are found or can be grown in North America. The book is geared towards those that work with wool roving (as most seem to be) but much of it can be used or adjusted for dying natural fiber fabrics. It did make me want to travel the country to try out many of the plants she uses. She also uses ecologically responsible mordants etc. This IS a recipe book for those that must have one to follow, but it is not about eco printing-the dye stuffs and mordants she uses are very helpful however.

3. Wild Color by Jenny Dean; 1999 and 2010, Watson-Guptill Publications
     This is a great technique and recipe book with a bit of history and back ground thrown in. Many of the dye materials are plants found in North America and she gives good little color swatches along each page with the plant. Again, not about eco printing, but playing around with the pre-mordants and modifiers in a eco print setting can be loads of fun!

4. A Dyer's Garden by Rita Buchanan; 1995, Interweave Press
     This is a great guide for growing your own dye plants. She gives a lot of information about the plants themselves and color swatches down the side of each page. She also has a helpful section on what not to grow yourself and why.

5. Craft of the Dyer by Karen Leigh Casselman; 1983, 1993, Dover
     I found this book used and almost passed on it and now I am glad I bought it. While she does use mordants I would not use (I tend to convert things like that into "pot as mordant" in one fashion or another) it is a fantastic list of plants, both wild and from the garden with great commentary about extracting color from them. No photos, but she does give the scientific name for each plant so you can do a quick search to see what it looks like.

6. Plant Guides
     I am a geek about plant guides-I have tons of them. I really like the ones from Lone Pine press as they have good images and descriptions and a notes section that tells you all sorts of weird fun facts about the plants, including whether anybody used them for color or not. I also own weed, tree and wild flower guides for the Inland and Pacific Northwest. All of which live mostly on the back seat of my car to be used when needed. Many state and county weed boards have come up with weed ID apps, which are great if you have a cell signal, not terribly useful if you don't. Low tech as it may be, books on the back seat very often work out the best!

     Please note, I did not provide links to purchase these books on line on purpose. It would really help out your local independent bookseller if you went to them first. No local independent bookseller left in your area? Then at least go to the local version of the big box bookstore and buy them there-the folks in your town that work there need their jobs and the way they get to keep them is if big companies know that a real book store is important enough for you to shop there. Thanks!


   

New Log Book

I keep a notebook that lists each scarf or piece of fabric that I eco print. I note what the fabric weave and content is, the mordant I use and of course  the plant matter used. I try to go back and make notes on what worked or didn't  and if I decided to do any over dying  as well.

The old notebook was "as is" from the store. It had flaming  blue butterflies on the front and had quite  a  collection  of neon green Post-it notes sticking out of it. Not too attractive.

Now that it is time for a new one I decided to be more intentional  about it. I used hand made papers to back up one of the eco print  papers I did last year. I may even buy a high class pen to go with it. It will be a lot more pleasant to scribble in this one for the next year or so.

A Good Day

I went to see the movie Wild today and I was impressed. It didn't quite give me the same sense of passion that the book did, but they did a good job with it. I came home and rinsed out several rusty nail scarves which all came out well-whew! Although I am not sure what I was worried about, the worst that would happen is that I would eco print them later. Then I took a small hike of my own over to the river. The wind was blowing and the sky was brilliant blue. The Spokane River was teal green as it is at this time of year. The wind is completely still now as the sun sets behind my favorite tree in our yard.

Zen Books

I read Cheryl Stayed's Wild last year and then read it or parts of it over and over. I can see why they are making a movie out of it, the story is astounding. Hope they don't screw it up, the book is incredible. It gives new meaning to "walking the path".