Mother’s Day presents for my girls “organic cotton bandanas”

Organic cotton bandanas….that would be a nice cottage industry! I was going to be lazy and buy blanks and print them, but it is almost impossible to find organic cotton bandanas! Not that it took all that long to hem 8 squares (they each got three and I kept two for myself).

Base dye was chaparral (yellow) but over dyed a few of them with cutch. Various leaves were applied, some worked well, others not so great. Sprinkled some dye powders on them (madder, cochineal, turmeric),  covered with rust cloth and steamed for an hour.

My two bandanas were not eco printed. I used them to practice with painting on natural dye pigments (such as was done on the previous post of the give away dress). haven’t taken photos of them yet. Their base colors were chaparral and cutch.

 

GIVE AWAY TIME!

Made myself a new dress, and I just don’t like the way it feels on me 😦

“A Verb For Keeping Warm” pattern, bias cut medium/heavy weight hemp dress, dyed with madder and decorated with walnut ink circles. No pockets. Size Large (armpit to armpit measurement is almost 22 inches).

Drawing will be on June 16th. Open to everybody in the world! Just leave a comment saying you are interested and I will add your name to the ‘hat’.

Eco Print dresses for Jo and her dolly

Thought it would be fun to make Josephine and her doll dresses for her birthday. The doll made it there in time, the dresses were a bit late 😦

photo by Lillian Short

Used a pattern called “Easy Peazy Pleats” by Olive Ann Designs.

The base fabric (cotton/hemp blend) was dyed with kamala, then overdyed with madder. I used mainly used guava leaves with some flowers in the ‘circles’ (the flowers did NOT turn out well) for the eco prints.

Originally I was going to stamp some bees on it too, with earth pigments….but ran out of time. So will save that idea for some bandanas I want to make.

Fun Wrap Skirt For Emily

A fun linen wrap skirt for my oldest daughter.

Vintage McCall’s pattern (Wrap-and go-Skirt #3768)

Fabric first dyed with weld, then shibori resists added and overdyed with cochineal.

Even though my cochineal bath was strong…..the color seemed washed out (as seen in the waist band). So after I placed cottonwood leaves on the fabric, I sprinkled some lac and cutch powders over the exposed pink areas.

Rust cloth covering….then steamed for a little over an hour.

The rust turned the yellow into a delightful green (which I was hoping would happen).

 

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I’m pretty happy with this skirt!! Now to cross my fingers that she likes it, and it fits!

And it does fit!! Looks cute Emily!

Photo by Lillian Short

Modified Dress

This is another take on Sew Liberated’s  Metamorphic Dress.

Again I used only the under dress (like I did for my give away dress). But sized down the top and narrowed the shoulders. Kept the skirt the same larger size, so there would be a bit more fullness. Added a bodice lining.

Much happier with this one! 🙂

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White linen fabric dyed with weld. Over dyed with cochineal using ‘shibori’ resists.

Printed with Liquid Amber, guava and gingko leaves…..with a sprinkling of logwood and turmeric .

 

GIVE AWAY TIME!!

This was the first eco print of the season.

I modified this dress http://www.stonemountainfabric.com/shop/Sewing-Patterns/Sew-Liberated/p/Metamorphic-Dress-x33459593.htm  by only making the under dress  and lining the  bodice.

The sewing job is not the best…..was hurriedly trying to finish it to wear on my birthday (didn’t end up wearing it…..because it is too big)

The biggest mistake was over estimating my size….. made the size 18! And it is too big on me. So it is now up for grabs, if anybody wants it. I will put names in a hat, if I get more than one person interested, a have a drawing on the forth of July.

Linen dyed with kamala. Over dyed, using resists, with madder. Bodice lining is linen dyed with madder.

For the contact prints… I used japanese knotweed leaves, cottonwood leaves and guava leaves on the skirt. The bodice has an unknown desert plant and maple seed ‘wings’.

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It is a bit pale for my liking…. but perhaps somebody will like it! 🙂

 

 

The first prints of the season….

……always leave me with doubts of my abilities, thoughts on what do do differently, and millions of ideas popping into my head.

This is actually the second item. A quick tunic to wear to work, to give me a more varied summer wardrobe.

The linen was first dyed with madder, using  cast iron disks as shibori resists (next time I will do all over ‘dots’ to create more balance….and because I love polka dots!)

I then did my contact prints. Used some horse chestnut leaves from last year, coreopsis flowers, and purple carrots. Meant to steam for an hour…… but fell asleep while reading and they steamed over two hours! Yikes!

😦 the chestnut leaves did almost nothing! No discharge. Sigh.

Decided to over print the whole thing. More coreopsis, some turmeric disks, white carrots (? thought I would give it a try…was going for discharge more than color) and liquid amber leaves to replace the chestnut.

Eh?! Not horrible. But not wonderful. Good enough for work!

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Ruana for Lillian

Well….. you can really tell when winter is here. Things slow down  somewhat.  You get sick. The holidays take up time. A new member of the family is born…. sweet little William (Eleanor’s baby brother) is born!!

I have made Lilly’s ruana….. seemed to take forever! Between the dyeing of the yarns, to the winding of the warp, the weaving and the sewing…a few months passed.

But finally…. it is done!!

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I used a nice alpaca/wool/silk for the warp.

Dyed with: Sequoia (brown).. cochineal (red).. logwood (purple).. kamala (yellow and olive)..madder/walnut (light coral) cutch (yellow).

The weft was Harrisville highland in sand.

It fulled up beautifully!! I love the hand on this!

Next project? Not sure. Am sewing a couple of new linen dresses for when the weather warms up (not eco printed) .

And am heading to California in couple of weeks to meet Boone (Lilly’s new little guy, He’s due the beginning of March).

Then…. on to Spring and eco printing!!

 

 

 

Trying out a new source for linen.

I had bought a bolt of linen from Dharma Trading last year….. nice linen, but it had some sort of finishing on it that made it hard to take up dye unless I triple washed it. Seemed like a waste of water and energy. So I bought three yards of linen from http://www.fabrics-store.com that said it was finish free. I will admit to washing it twice. Which isn’t a true test to see if it would dye more easily.

I liked the results. So perhaps my next bolt will come from there. AND if I buy some more laundry detergent from Dharma… I could probably get away with one washing.

This is the dress I made myself.

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Started with snakeweed dyed fabric that had shibori resists clamped onto it. I then used eucalyptus, liquid amber, guava and maple leaves….with a sprinkling of madder and logwood powders…. to create the patterns and color.

Soon (after the holidays?) I will start making fabric for Lilly to sew with.

Wrong combinations…

I need more sturdy jumpers for work….. to cover up my shirts that snag on something and become holy……we haven’t been able to tell what they are catching on, but it has happened to several of us. Alas, two of my new organic cotton winter tees already have holes!

So….

I had some lovely cotton colorgrown  waffle weave fabric….bought awhile ago when it was on sale. Had planned on making pants out of it, but then decided that it would make a sturdy  jumper to protect my shirts!

I used Sonya Philips’ Dress #1 pattern…. an old stand-by.

Sewed the dress up…. even went the extra mile and finished ALL of the seams. Added some slant patch pockets. Was so proud of it!!

Then I tried it on. 😦 I looked like I was wearing a potato sack.

The fabric was a bit too heavy/stiff to fall nicely. And the very light brown color did nothing for me (took a scrap of fabric and tried boiling it in water with soda..to see if it would darken… not much).

What to do?

Why dye it of course!! I chose madder.

I mordanted the fabric, and then soaked it in salt water over night…. but still ended up with blotches 😦 😦

Tried to over dye it…. again with madder.

The splotches remain.

Am thinking, that whereas the dye pot was huge, and there was plenty of space for the fabric to move freely in it….. the pot I mordanted the dress/jumper in, wasn’t. Could be the splotches were from a poor mordanting job, rather than a poor dye job.

Ah well. I will wear it. Still doesn’t look wonderful on me, but it will protect my shirts.

splotches….. 😦

Before and after… color not quite true, the original cotton was a bit more paper bag color…. and the jumper is a bit deeper coral.