Merry Christmas

 "My dear

In the midst of strife, I found there was,

within me, an invincible love.

In the midst of tears, I found there was

within me, an invincible smile.

In the midst of chaos, I found there was

within me, an invincible calm.

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that

within me, there lay, an invincible summer. 

And, that makes me happy.

For it says, that no matter how hard

the world pushes against me, within me,

there's something stronger..."

Albert Camus

Poinsettia on watercolor paper treated with alum alone. Very Bright and zingy! The yellow is from the green leaves of the plant, the purples and greens from the red leaves of the plant.

Poinsettia on watercolor paper. Half the papers were treated with alum and half with a soak in iron water; then the papers were layered alternately so that both mordants effect the colors from the leaves. Some might say darker and more somber, but I think they are very interesting to look at.

A few years ago I did a post about poinsettia, such as its poisonous reputation etc., you can check that out here.

Have a wonderful holiday season, make the best of it any way you can while protecting yourself and those around you. Dig deep enough and you will find your invincible summer.

Peeling Onions Part I

 "Life is an onion-you peel it year by year and sometimes weep."

Carl Sandburg 

We grow a lot of onions! We grow Candy Sweets as they are not readily available in stores and are really good. The dye material they are wrapped in is a bonus! We also grow a few red onions.

Just lay them out on the silk and roll them up. With no other plant material you end up with a kind of marbled effect. I used scraps of silk dupioni for these samples.

This with no mordant.

This is with an alum mordant.

This is red onion skin with an alum mordant. Love the shots of green!

Iron pot as a pre mordant, I filled the pot with water and a small touch of vinegar, heated it to boiling, shut off the heat, let it cool for an hour and then added the piece of silk. I let it soak for several hours. Then I rolled up the onionskins and steamed.

Here they are all laid out side by side. Normally I would just be adding crumbled onionskins around leaves, but I thought this was a good way to show different mordants and eventually I will use the fabric for various projects. The next post will show the effect of rusty objects as a co-mordant.

You can find my handmade supplies in my Etsy shop and scarves in the Pottery Place Plus online store.

Huckleberries

"The time has come to reweave the future with different threads."

Yaakov Jerome Garb

I added some huckleberries to the mix after I had laid out the leaves. The post alum rinse described in the next two pictures will change the reddish color to a purply-blue. Post rinses will also change the colors of other plant materials as well, so expect some yellows and greens to appear.

This is what the scarves looked like after steaming. I allowed the rolls to sit until almost dry. The reddish color will not last on its own for very long, so a post alum rinse is in order. About a teaspoon of alum dissolved in a cup of warm water and then added to about a gallon and half of cool water is enough for two scarves. Submerge the scarves, let soak for several minutes, then remove, gently squeeze out excess water and hang to dry out of direct sunlight. After they are dry, wash in cold water by hand with a bit of shampoo and again, hang to dry out of direct sunlight.

I did these one at a time so I would be able to take a comparison picture. So the bottom is before the alum rinse and the top is after.

Eco Printing on Gourds

"Inspiration exists, but it must find us working."

Pablo Picasso

Eco printing with walnut leaves on a gourd. I was messing around with eco printing on porcelain and then decided to see what would happen to a gourd, since I have a lot of them. I never had figured out exactly what I wanted to do with them-maybe this was the idea that was supposed to come along.

I soaked the gourds, the plant material, and the wrapping all in iron water and used leaves that usually work well with iron, kind of stacking the odds in my favor. Getting a gourd to actually soak is kind of trick-they want to bob around. As long as they don't have any cracks or holes they do not get mushy.

Trying to figure out how to keep the leaves attached until I could wrap the blanket around it. This worked pretty well.

Wrapped up and getting ready to steam. Needless to say the lid wouldn't go on the pan, so I made it a foil tent and steamed it for an hour. Since we have now officially run out of summer here (13 degrees last week-yikes!) gourds will have to wait until next year. I am getting some things together with the porcelain, pictures soon!

The holidays are coming! As promised I did put some scarves in the Etsy shop, along with many new buttons, pendants, and papers so be sure to check that out.

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!

Invasive Species

"If we want fewer house sparrows and starlings, we do not need to kill them, we need to create an urban landscape in which a richer variety of species can thrive."

Lyanda Lynn Haupt, The Urban Bestiary

I thought about the above quote while I was out harvesting some knapweed the other day. She was talking about birds in urban areas, but the same theory holds true for plants in suburbs, farmland,and the margins like areas around train tracks and roads. Most of the reason this pesky plant survives is because we give it everything it needs to thrive. We want monocultures and grazing land at our disposal, but both of these create the perfect environment for knapweed of all kinds. 

Spotted knapweed is the most common around my neighborhood.  One recommended method to get rid of it over time is to keep mowing it and never let it bloom(this is not advisable for Russian knapweed to my understanding). This stresses the plant and eventually it dies. Since the seeds can be viable for up to ten years one could hose the area with pre emergent, creating an unbalanced situation where nothing can sprout, leaving more room for the knapweed to come up later once the pre emergent has lost its efficacy. Each plant produces 1,000 seeds, there is no way to know you have sprayed each and every one. Our local lupines, when encouraged to grow do beat knapweed to the punch as their roots contain oxalic acid which discourages the knapweed seed to sprout, while local grasses are unaffected and grow right alongside the lupine. A healthy balanced environment creates a situation where the knapweed can't grow.
I do my part by hacking it down and bringing it home and putting it in my steam pot. This scarf was pretreated with steel wool and printed with Arrowleaf Balsamroot (a native wildflower) and spotted knapweed. It is kind of a picture of Eastern Washington all on one piece of fabric.

Spotted knapweed makes a lovely yellow dye on protein fibers with an alum pre-mordant. Don't boil, just simmer. If I remember right I let the plant material soak in the water overnight first.

Here are both plants in all their glory. On silk with an alum pre-mordant. Remember that safety comes first, wear gloves to collect plants in the wild and always steam the fabric bundles outside.

"Spontaneous" plants (weeds) can be a lot of fun and as long as you don't do anything to make the situation worse nobody cares if you come to take them off their hands. 

Results of the Steamer Pot Picture

I posted this picture on Drye Goods Studio Facebook page the other day and it got some attention along with people asking to see results because of the foil liner. It functions as a barrier, but in a small way as a mordant blanket. I have done this before and have gotten zingier colors, but maybe that was because I was using fresh plant material, this was all done with dry leaves.

So here you go:

Vine Maple, the yellow is the "ghost" from the top of the leaf, the darker print is from the underside or veined side.

A side by side comparison of oak with and with foil barriers. The one on the left is without; the prints are a brown/plum and the background has more "noise" in it. The one on the right is a different shade of brown and the background is cleaner.

Acer Rubrum 

Dogwood

Not sure about the yellow and brown as a color combo, I may do something else with them while staring out the window watching the snow pile up.

Eco Printing from the Deep Freeze

I hope you had a lovely holiday! But it is time to get back to work. Trouble is, when everything is covered with snow and the plants are asleep, it can be a bit of a challenge to get anything done.

What with art fairs and then my husband's mishaps last summer I couldn't get to all the iris, so I froze them by taking the flowers apart and placing the petals between layers of wax paper and sliding the little packets into upcycled plastic zip bags from the kitchen. As you can see they start to bleed as they thaw, so it is advisable to wear gloves and work quickly. You could probably press and dry them, I haven't done this with iris, but I have with hollyhocks and the color is not quite the same. Freezing them gives a result more like fresh flowers. There always seems to be enough room in the freezer for our food and to tuck in a few flowers here and there. The fabric is silk crepe de chine with pre-applied rusty nails.

I also used some spiral eucalyptus from the florist and left over poinsettia leaves, both red and green. Iris petals don't print, but do dye the fabric

So with a little pre-planning it is possible to eco print when the weather outside is frightful.

Have a wonderfully prosperous New Year!

Banishing Ghosts

Normally, I like the look of eco prints all mixed together. It reminds me of the way nature really is. The fabric reflects flowers floating in a mixture of foliage in the garden or individual leaves that pop out from the visual mass of the tree. Sometimes however, the pattern of the individual leaf becomes the most important thing. In this case I am working on lampshades and other lighting ideas and so a clear background becomes important so that the light shines through the individual leaf print. In order for the leaves in one layer to not "ghost" through to another layer a barrier must be used. This leads to a fairly controversial topic-barriers. The controversy stems from the fact that the name most people use for this process is "eco printing"; meaning ecologically sustainable or sound. So, there seems to be something inherently wrong about using plastic sheeting, a petroleum product. The problem lies in the manufacture of the plastic itself and then there is the whole notion of steaming or boiling it.  It will put off fumes that you may or may not be able to smell, possibly creating a danger to yourself. Also, there is probably no way to get the petroleum molecules off whatever your finished product is, thus making it possible, in theory, to have the petroleum seep into your skin from the finished wearable. I don't want to get into the middle of the fruckus, but I do wonder if some of my nasal issues are from making those hair flowers using melted polyester-so I chose to avoid use of plastics whenever possible from here on out.

Hollyhock, Filbert, and Coreopsis, along with plenty of "ghosts".

So, what could be used instead? Since I already did a post about using layers of fabric in between the folds, I thought I would work with some aluminum foil. Trouble is, I get so into things when I am doing them I forget to take pictures. Earlier this week I decided to just set up some "stunt" fabric to show the steps clearly rather than a hodge podge of unrelated pictures. First off, imagine the fabric in the pictures is wet. It is silk dupioni with rusted steel wool as mordant.

Lay out plant material, remember that most leaves print out the under or veined side of the leaf.

Cover with foil. At first I thought cheap dollar store foil would be fine, but decided that heavy duty could be reused or refolded and was easier to work with without tearing it.

Fold over one layer of fabric, in this case I am working in thirds as I want the pattern straight down the middle of the fabric. Ponder what you want as your final effect and fold/layer accordingly. In this case I will just fold over the right side and proceed to the next picture.

Put on the last layer of foil. If you don't, you will have the ghosts of the leaves down the the last layer of the fabric in the bundle. Roll around a stick and tie it up for the steamer pot.

Ready to go!

As I said this was stunt fabric. The following is one of the actual examples I made, and then didn't take enough process shots for it to make any sense. This is silk noil with steel wool as the mordant, using black walnut leaves and marigold petals on both pieces. Raw silk is thick enough that you don't get as much ghosting anyway, but there is a definite difference in the background color and density. 

With no barrier layers

With a foil barrier. The background is clearer and the color of the walnut leaves more intense.

One important thing to remember is that aluminum foil will act as a mordant carrier blanket. It isn't terribly noticeable but you do get different colors than you would without. I am playing around with the whole carrier blanket thing and will post more about that later. The foil is mostly reusable if you get the wet plant material off right away and it can be refolded with the clean side out for reuse. Foil is kind of expensive but it is more effective than multiple layers of fabric. The interesting thing about using multiple layers of fabric is you get that fabric to use for something else.

Decisions, decisions.