Flower of the Month

 "Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith."

Margaret Shepard

Pincushion flower leaves on paper with copper mordant. 

New Weed

And no, I am not trying to increase my SEO (search engine optimization) with that title-although it did cross my mind. Any-hoo, I thought I would show you my results using Watson's Willowherb.

This is what it looks like, sorry it is not the greatest picture, by the time I decided to try the plant it was at the end of its season. Those long curly things are the seed pods.

I decided to throw it in a stack of paper. I was alternating sheets soaked in iron with sheets soaked in alum. I do like the burgundy red with the mint green and I was really excited to see the wispy seed pods printed too.

Of course, I had to see what would happen on fabric so I went scrounging around in the weediest garden border on the north side of the yard and lucked out-there was some hiding behind the sour cherry tree! Since it worked really well with the iron/alum combo on paper I decided to do the same with fabric. This is silk crepe de chine pretreated with alum using an iron blanket.

And this is the iron blanket! I was so surprised this printed so well.

Be sure to check out my Etsy shop, there are lots of new things and I have been restocking the old. 

And Now We Wait

I taught a class last weekend and while I was gathering plant material I grabbed a couple of "experimental" ones. Meaning, either by some miracle I had never tried them, or, I did and couldn't remember whether they worked or not. I like to include an unknown as I think it gives students the "permission" to go out and take a chance on something. It is not the end of the world if it doesn't print; and then I remind them that just because it didn't work with the mordant we are using, or at the time of year the plant was picked doesn't mean that it wouldn't print under other circumstances.

We are living in a jungle of  flea bane (Conyza canadensis), also known as Horseweed as supposedly it is irritating to horses. There doesn't seem to be a consensus as to whether it actually repels fleas, but our dogs never had any!

Conyza canadensis, also known as flea bane or horseweed with antique tractor.

I simply love it when I find something that is everywhere, in the way, and generally making a nuisance of itself, prints. In this case it is a member of the sunflower family, so it does make sense that it printed yellow or green.

On paper. On the left the paper was soaked in alum water and the flea bane was soaked in iron water. On the right the paper was soaked in alum water and the plant material used as is.

Top photo silk crepe de chine pretreated with alum plant material used as picked. Middle photo silk crepe treated with alum, plant material soaked in iron water. Bottom photo silk twill soaked in iron water, plant material used as is. Be sure to click on the pictures to enlarge them in order to see the details.

   Since it is a member of the sunflower family and it "should" do this I have no reason to believe the paper would change much over time. Fabric can be a different ballgame so I will leave it hang on my studio closet doors until next spring to see what happens to it. Once the out of control grapevine has been put back in its place for the year that wall will get moderate morning sun through the windows until we really hit the depths of winter so that is a pretty good test on "wearability". I will wash it out then and see what it looks like.

Side by side comparison

Remember to take a look at my Etsy Shop, Facebook page and Instagram

Pink

"Pink makes me feel both young and old. There is no in between." 

Anthony T. Hincks

Big Leaf Maple on the forest floor 

Classroom samples with a madder root blanket, the other pot is with an iron blanket

Pink madder and lime green walnut

You can catch up with Drye Goods Studio on Facebook and Instagram and I am putting new things in my Etsy Shop almost every day!

Summer Colors

"Art is lunging forward without certainty about where you are going or how to get there, being open to and dependant on what luck, the paint, the typo, the dissonance, give you. Without art you're stuck with yourself as you are and life as you think life is."

Mark Vonnegut M.D. 

Coreopsis foliage with pre-applied rust mordant.

The orange is the coreopsis, again just the foliage, on silk with alum mordant.

Here is the plant, the flowers also print well.

The Color Red

I came across a writing prompt that said to pick a color and watch for it all day, then write about it. Since this is the season of commerce (places you can catch up with me are at the end of this post) and not much in the way of creating in the studio goes on, writing will have to do. I have to make something every day or I get crabby.

A woman was standing in my booth one time and ask me what was the hardest color to obtain. Since I don't really think about what I do in those terms, it kind of took me by surprise, but after a quick glance around I said "Well, if you take a look there isn't much in the way of red, in fact, no red at all." At that point I explained that while there were several options in natural dyes to obtain red, not many of them grow around here. For the most part I limit myself to what is available in the area, I figure I have already used up my carbon allotment by working on imported silk and then I also avoid dealing with the question of how a given dye stuff was harvested and shipped. Madder root, a traditional dye plant, is considered hardy to zone 5 so in the right position in the yard it would probably grow here, but it is a pretty big commitment. If it gets going it has to be in a raised bed as it can be invasive and it takes at least two years for the acid in the roots to be strong enough to make the dye, three to four years is better. Since actual whole cloth dyeing is not really my thing, it seems like a lot of work. We have its obnoxious little relative here, Lady's Bedstraw, that to my understanding will make some sort of a pink. Considering how invasive this naturally occurring plant is in the garden, you would think I would be all over it. Trying to find its roots however, is pretty challenging. They are very fine and you end up plowing up an entire garden plot just to finally get enough to work with. I decided it was just better to rip the plants off the top and dry them for a tea that is supposed to ward off kidney stones, a malady I hope I never get again, so I am willing to do about anything.  

Here is the red I saw in the last couple of days. Eastern Washington has entered the gray time of year. The sky is very often gray with fog, and unless there is snow, the ground gets gray and muddy as well. It gets dark early, Google informs me that sunset will be at 4:21 PM today. Red pops out.

Hawthorn leaf in a pile of cherry leaves

Hawthorn berries that will be picked off by the birds all winter

Mountain cranberries, also bird food.

As I was walking across the yard I thought I saw a bright red piece of fabric stuck in the border garden. It was this little rose bush putting out its last effort for the year! I was so surprised as we have had some really cold nights already, I guess it just had one more thing to say.

Anyway, you can catch up with me in at the following shows, and of course my work is always at Pottery Place Plus, 203 N Washington, Spokane, WA

Tonight I will have jewelry and scarves at The Inland Empire Gardeners' monthly meeting at Centerplace 2426 N Discovery Place, Spokane Valley WA. The market runs from 6-7 PM, meeting starts at 7:00

The Spokane Women's Club 5th Annual Artisans and Crafters Show, 1428 W 9th Ave. Spokane, Wa This Saturday 10-6 and Sunday 10-4

Custer's Christmas Arts and Crafts Show

Spokane Fair and Expo Center 404 N Havana St, Spokane Valley, WA

November 16th-18th Friday 10-8; Saturday 9-6; Sunday 10-4

Urban Art Cooperative's Holiday Market

3209 N Monroe, Spokane, WA

November 30th-December 2nd

Friday preview 6-9; Saturday 10-6; Sunday 10-4

Demons and (Possible) Evil Doers

No, this isn't about politics. Since I have noticed Instagram posts going by about plant collection I thought I would talk about plants that look like other plants and for those out collecting to confuse them will come to no good end.

Let's talk about Virginia Creeper and our buddy Poison Ivy. Both are listed in The North American Guide to Common Poisonous Plants and Mushrooms. A book, by the way, if read from cover to cover might inspire some to never leave the house again! It includes plants like tomato, potato, onions, garlic, and most of the peppers, not to mention things like tobacco and marijuana. They do point out that if one only consumes what is the generally accept edible part of the plant and only in normal food quantities there should be no problem. In other words, if you were thinking about using tomato or potato leaves on a salad-DON'T-they are poisonous nightshades! They have nothing good to say about tobacco or marijuana at all,  which to some might seem kind of judgemental, but I digress. So, it is important to do some study from reliable sources to know what you should never touch in any way and what is ok to do and under what circumstances.

Starting with poison ivy, the reason it is so poisonous is that it contains a combination of urushiols in every single part of it from root to tip. These chemicals, also found in poison oak and poison sumac (not to be confused with Staghorn or Bald Sumac which are trees), are a severe allergen to most all humans. The severity of the reaction is like a lot of allergies, it can be severe at one time in life, fade away and can come roaring back later on. Even the dried leaves or stems clinging to burning firewood can cause those that inhale it to go into anaphylaxis and touching the dried foliage in leaf litter can lead to a nasty blistering rash.  It is even possible to spread the urushiols around in the washing machine, giving your blistering rash to everybody else in the house! So, needless to say, this would not be a plant one would want to dye or eco print with-EVER!!!

Here is an ideal shot of poison ivy up close. The problem with pictures like this is that "ideal" is not how nature grows. The amount of rain, sunlight or soil conditions can make plants in the same area look very different from one another. There is also a western version (pictured here) and an eastern one. When green, I think they look like wilted philodendron vines and it can be really hard to see the "leaves of three" that you are supposed to let be, so it is important to become familiar with what plants look like throughout the year. 

This is Virginia Creeper, also a native plant. As you can see the leaf shape is very different from poison ivy. It has five leaflets and in this case, it is much lighter in color. Once again, this varies from plant to plant quite a bit. This well watered marauder is trying to take over the corner of my yard, with less water it would be more the same color as the poison ivy pictured above, it may have lost leaflets throughout the year, so might appear to have "leaves of three" as the old saying goes.

So, if you spend a lot of time on social media pages about botanical printing or searching for such things on Pinterest, you may have noticed that people talk about using Virginia Creeper. But wait, it's listed as a poisonous plant-right? Well, yes. There is an apparently verified death of child from eating the berries (just because birds eat berries doesn't mean we should) and in the process of trying to figure out what the chemical compounds are in the berries (apparently they still don't know), they have managed to send some lab animals to their great reward. So if you wear gloves, wash your hands and keep it out of your mouth it puts it on par with many other dye plants, a lot of which can be somewhat gnarly. My personal experience with it is that with pre applied rust to silk it can make a really nice print, but getting the uncooperative little leaf to lay flat is a rather frustrating experience. I have never tried to make a dye with it. While I have come across some lovely shots of simmering pots full of color, the sites that I go to for solid info say it isn't a very substantive dye and from what I can see you have to use some of the more wicked mordants to get anything at all. Since I put a limit on what mordants I use, Virginia Creeper dye will probably never be in my future. 

This is a stand of poison ivy growing over by the Spokane River. 

This mass of uninvited Virginia Creeper is in my yard. I waited a few days for it to get to the really maroon shade so you could see just how easy it would to be confuse the two at a distance. Oh! And did I mention they twine around each other out in the wild? They like the same growing conditions and so if you are going to experiment with Virginia Creeper make sure there isn't something else lurking in there with it.

Impossible Things

"Things are only impossible if you stop to think about them."

Lindsay Eagar

Trying out carrier blankets, used to add mordants and dyes to eco prints, I haven't a clue as to what I am doing, but once I figure out it you will be the first to know! I see the beginnings of minty green, so it won't be all bad whatever happens.

This is a Japanese Butterbur, a friend gave it to me and I finally found something it will print on! It has beautiful big leaves, looks sort of like a rhubarb, and it turned into a challenge. Here it is on paper with copper as the mordant. This was an experiment in rolling paper for steaming, I think I will try it again but pressed next time. I finally have a pot big enough to do fairly good sized sheets of paper. It is an old turkey fryer pot; it is very, very tall!

The Blues

"Particularly with the blues, it's not just about bad times. It's about healing the spirit."

Taj Mahal

Since I work with the seasons, sometimes it looks like I only work in one color. In this case, blue. Most of the blue you see here comes from Hollyhocks, although there is some petunia as well. Weirdly enough, I like ironing. In the studio, anyway. It gives me a chance to look things over and see wonderful details and surprises. Here is what I discovered today.

A little oak leaf hiding amongst the Hollyhock.

On the left, the main print (bottom of the leaf), on the right, the echo. I love the hollyhock on the left, almost photographic.

Sumac floating over rusted nails with a little bit of black locust for some green.

Another oak leaf, this one turned plum by its hollyhock neighbors.

Happy New Year!

More Eco Printing with Poinsettias

After the post on December 22nd I decided I didn't really need to do any more experiments on fabric until I have a better idea of how long the color from poinsettias will last. So, rather than waste the plant, I decided to do some prints on paper. Since people keep looking to me for instruction on paper I thought this would be a good way to show you what I do with paper, but there are several ways to do it. Remember to click on the pictures of the finished paper to see the differences in color and detail of each mordant.

I use small pans I got at the dollar store (approximately 9"x 13" and about three inches deep) to soak the paper in. It should soak about 30 minutes. You can soak it in a mordant solution one day, let it dry and re-wet it on another day and eco print, but it is perfectly ok to just soak it and eco print on it in the same day. No wait time is really necessary. I use 140lb watercolor paper, but any heavy duty paper will work. Remember, this is not archival, you are taking a perfectly good piece of acid free paper and adding all kinds of things that will cause its eventual demise.

The pan on the left is water with a quarter cup of vinegar in it. The paper has been pretreated with steel wool. The center pan is water with about a half cup of copper liquor and plain paper. The third pan is water with about a tablespoon of alum in it.  The boards are what we will use for a press and you need string or rubber bands to hold the whole thing together.

Since your hands will be in and out of the mordant and, as we discussed the other day, poinsettias are kind of gnarly wear gloves both to build the blocks and open them up. Start by laying down a board with one piece of paper on it. Place the leaves (I used both the green leaves off the plant and the red "petals") with the veined side of the leaf against the paper. This is especially important if you are using paper treated with rust as unlike fabric, the rust is pretty much on only one side of the paper. Use paper with one mordant at a time, meaning work you way through one pan at a time in each set of boards. The eco print police won't come and arrest you for mixing different mordants in a block, but in the beginning you want to learn what the results are with each individual mordant. After that if you want to see what mixing the various mordanted papers is like-go for it. This is a very wet process and you will get different results when the different mordants drizzle through the layers of paper and affect each other.

You can see the green leaf peeking out below.

When you get done with the papers in one pan, put the the other board on top and rubber band the block. I did use colored rubber bands on the block with copper liquor paper in it just to make sure I could tell it apart from the one treated with alum. The colors from either can be so bright that sometimes it is hard to tell them apart after the fact. If you are wondering about the names on the boards, I thought eco printing on paper to 20 elementary school students and it was the only way I could get each kid's block back to them after they all went in the steam pot. If you take a class from me you can either be "Kate A" for the day or write you own name on the block. I use one inch boards as they don't warp as fast in all the steam, but after a while they will. I have used cardboard, but needless to say that is a one shot deal. The bigger boards do take up more room in the pot however.

Into the steam pot they go! In this case a tamale pan. It is built for this as the strainer the tamales would normally set on is low enough in the pot that the blocks fit right in and still be able to get the lid on tight. It also holds just about 30 minutes worth of water, but set a timer so you don't let it boil dry. Remember, pans for dyeing should be dedicated to that only, no use for food after this. While the point of natural dyeing is to be safer, there are just somethings in this world we should not ingest.

Remember that wet paper is pretty delicate. I discovered a bamboo skewer is a great way to nudge one sheet of paper off the next one down and pick up stubborn leaves. Less damaging than your fingernail.

Here they all are laid out to dry. The top row is the copper mordant, the middle the rust, and the bottom the alum.

Up close with the copper. The green leaves tended to be beige and the red had all kinds of color coming out of them.

Up close with the rust. Note that the prints are more diffuse and that in several places the rust turned black where interacted with the plant material. The bottom two show the difference between the top of the leaf and the underside, the underside of the leaf being the darker more solid one on the left. Again, the green leaves tended towards beiges and browns.

Up close with the alum. All the leaves tended to put out some sort of green or yellow, but a lot of the red ones put out purple splotches. Very zingy.

After the paper dries out it will be somewhat warped. I have had pretty good luck ironing it out when it is really "bubbly" but I also use it as is most of the time. If you can't think of anything to do with it for awhile, you can set it under a heavy book. It can be used for journaling and scrapbooks, but remember it is not archival so it is best if it is not placed in a scrapbook where it will press up against photographs, especially vintage ones.

The poor thing looks like somebody went after it with a weedwacker!

Merry Christmas!

I don't know about you, but I am ready to leave 2017 in the rearview and click the do-over button on January 1st. Normally I am more inclined to refresh my life in the fall and I am not a big believer in New Year's resolutions. I have some frustrating issues with my health and some other troubles that while they will pass, stole my energy and inspiration. I am at my happiest when answering the question "What if?" by creating something. So, I decided to take the advice of two great artists. Chuck Close said "Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work." Pablo Picasso said "Inspiration exists, but it must find us working." In other words, get off your butt whether you feel like it or not.

This time the spark came while standing in line at the grocery store. There were huge displays of poinsettias, and people are always asking me if they eco print, so why not give it a try? If nothing else it would be five bucks worth of entertainment.

Giving me a house plant is always dicy, I tend to enjoy them for a bit and then-off with their heads!

As you are aware, they have a reputation for being poisonous. The truth is they are more irritating than poisonous. The example given on various plant sites was that a fifty pound child would need to eat 500 leaves in one sitting to die. Cheery thought. Anyway, this would explain why a cat we used to have ate them on a regular basis and seemed just fine. The puzzling thing is they are reported to be absolutely vile to the taste buds. The reason is they contain (here are your big science words for the day) diterpenoid euphorbol esters and saponin like detergents, both bitter and mildly poisonous. The red color comes from red pigments called anthocyanins also found in red cabbage, blueberries, and raspberries. You can use poinsettia leaves to demonstrate ph just as you can with red cabbage. Since the white sap of the poinsettia can irritate the skin it is probably best to stick with red cabbage with young children, but high schoolers might get a kick out of beheading mom's house plant.

Wearing gloves to protect my hands as a precaution.

I used one scrap of silk crepe that had been treated with alum and one with steel wool which would also have been exposed to vinegar and salt as part of that process. I used both leaf colors and laid them face up and face down to see if one side printed better than the other.

I steamed the rolls for an hour and took them out for a rest, about four days.

I love peeking in the steamer to see what is happening, but I try to remember that they may not look the same at the end of the process.

The first one is the alum treated sample.  The red in the roll above changed to purple over the four days. Love the purple, the yellow is rather alarming. I may rip it in half and do a black bean dye over it to see if I can tone that down.

The leaves did make a more distinct print out the veined, or underside of the leaf, as most do.

The second sample is the silk that had been exposed to steel wool, salt and vinegar. These colors are much more appealing to my sensibilities.

I guess in all of this I was hoping for a pink or red, and if I played around with other mordants, I might just get it. Of course the next question is, "Is it permanent?". As much reading up as I have done, I can't answer that. Since it is the same pigment as red cabbage the answer might be that it needs another rinse in something else, and a possible color change, to make the resulting color last. The plan is to let the samples hang next to the studio window and expose them to our moderate (almost non-existent) winter sun and watch for changes. The best way to do that is to rip each sample in half and keep one in the closet while the other hangs out. I may use the rest of the plant in samples with other mordants or techniques and see what happens.

It looks pretty good even if its backside did get removed! Kind of like putting the bad side of the Christmas tree against the wall.

Merry Christmas and I hope 2018 turns out to be a year of wonder and inspiration for you!

Pounding on Plants

Or Hapa-zome as the famous Ms Flint calls it. Pounding on anything is a good way to relieve stress and probably helpful to achieving serenity. 

There is a disclaimer for this post however; this all looks much better in the pictures than it actually does in real life.

That being said, here goes. As you may remember I had eco printed some sample fabrics with test plants earlier in the summer. I did try to include leaves I knew would work so at least I would get some sort of useable result.

In this case, I can't even remember what the test plant was, but the rose leaves are nice!

The fabric in the image above is silk crepe de chine, probably not the best thing to use, this works better on fabric that has more body and a tighter weave to it. I started out by picking some of the more colorful leaves in my garden along with the one scented geranium I had that doesn't smell like cat pee. The scented geraniums were an experiment this year and my nose must not interpret the smell as others do. Bleck.

Geranium, Begonia, Astilbe, Coleus

I decided to go with the process that has you put paper down over the leaf, I have done it with a bare hammer before and you do get a good print, but kind of an over-cooked spinach type mess on your hammer. Besides, if nothing else you get a nice print on the paper. I laid the fabric out flat, placed the leaf where I thought I wanted it and pinned the paper in place. I used handmade paper for this as that is what I had, but any absorbent paper will do.

I gently tapped around the outside edge of it first to figure out where I was supposed to be hammering.

The Begonia was probably the best print.

The Coleus had nice color but was so juicy it leaked outside its own border

At one point I switched to a scrap of dupioni

Here are some of the cover papers both present and past. 

The thing to remember about this is that it isn't permanent. I like India Flint's suggestion in her book Eco Colour* to do a T-shirt and then as it fades just keep pounding more stuff into it as the summer progresses. From what I have read applying a mordant beforehand doesn't, probably, make it any more colorfast but there isn't any reason you can't try it and see what you think. Do one shirt with and one without and let me know what happens.

*Remember, I don't do links for books in the blog. It is important that you go to your local bookstore to order and buy it there. Shop local, even if your only option is the local big box bookstore-at least your neighbors that work there will have a job. This week's missive from the soapbox.