Monday Thoughts

"Gentle Reminder: If you feel "off track" please remember there is no track. This is your life. It ebbs and flows and twists and halts and speeds up. It all belongs. Stop trying to be a robot who is productive and perfect all the time. You're not a robot. You're a human. Be alive to it all."

Jamie Varon

Japanese Butterbur on paper. I did some remodeling on the blog and put up a list of shows for this summer, other things coming soon! Check it out.

Watering the Grass

 "The grass is  not always greener on the other side of the fence. The grass is greenest where it is watered."

Robert Fulghum

This could be either Old Witch Grass or Purple Love Grass. The plant ID app can't seem to decide. The scientific names for either are not in my copy of Plants of Southern Interior British Columbia and the Inland Northwest or Northwest Weeds, so both the app and I could be on the wrong track. At any rate the common names are charming and it is an interesting element in the paper samples especially. As always, the fabric sample will hang with me over the next year and have an occasional bath, just to see what happens.

Watering the grass in our climate change fueled summer is pretty much a pointless endeavor, you can get brown grass without wasting a bunch of water and time. Mr. Man and I will be discussing its replacement this winter. Right now I am watering flower beds in order to weed them and put them to rest for winter, not to mention trying to keep my dye and print plants alive until they can go to sleep on their own. In poking around I found this crazy grass tuft that looks like a fiber optic lamp from the 80's. If it holds on fabric, it could be an interesting connecting element between leaf prints. It looks like Mr. Man and I will be having another chat about what is a weed and what is an art supply. 

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.

Acorn Dye Part 2

I bundled my acorn dyed silk with maple and nails. I steamed it for about a half hour and let it set for several days.

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.

Eco Printing Results!

I will be taking these to Best of the Northwest next weekend. In the meantime I will be fighting my way across Snoqualmie Pass to visit a friend. She lives on the peninsula where things are actually growing! I am taking an old dictionary and a phone book so I can press some leaves to bring back.

Mono printing with rusted nails.

Eco-printing with rose petals.

With deadfall leaves.

With eucalyptus.

And with fern leaf maple.