What to do when you’re home from work ‘sick’

You experiment on spraying catalpa leaves with iron water, and eco printing an old wool lap blanket!

I did make an error in judgement. I had accordion pleated the blanket, thinking that only one side was going to get printed….. silly me! The best prints are on the middle of the back side, with two unprinted panels bordering it. A learning experience.

 

Sometimes creases in the fabric don’t really detract from the overall design, they lend themselves to it. But in this case they do bother me a bit. I just couldn’t get the blanket to square up and lay flat. So it folded over on itself while I was rolling it up. I need to figure out some sort of clamping devise that will hold one end tight while I roll from the other end…. I think that would help somewhat.

 

 

 

And tomorrow it’s back to work….. 😦  I’d rather be home doing this!

Four ‘new’ shirts

From yesterday’s ‘teaser’……

I am really happy with three of the four shirts….. not bad! They are all thrift shop finds. Three are cotton and the fourth is linen.

I’ll show the linen one first, as it is my favorite!

 

My second favorite is a cotton tee-shirt.

 

And this cotton blouse turned out nicely….

And lastly, another cotton blouse…. not my favorite 😦   I had thought that I had wrapped it in a manor that the ruffle on the front would dye yellow, but only part of it did.

For some reason, my smoketree leaves didn’t make a very strong mark on any of the shirts. But with the addition of an iron dip, the guava leaves turned out nicely!

Next….. I have an old wool throw soaking, am going to try and give it a ‘new’ life!

 

A teaser

Unwrapped four bundles today that made me happy. Not just from their sunshiny coloring, but nice prints too!

Two were unwrapped as the sun was going down, the other two afterward, so I only have some quick shots of the first two.

Will post full shots of them all tomorrow!

Some recent projects….. continued.

We’ll see how the computer is acting this evening 😀

Besides making the dress, I’ve been working on some thrift shop finds, and re-printing a couple of older shirts of mine.. Some for an article I’m writing for Lilly and the rest just because.

I found a great cotton ‘sweater’ top that took prints well.

It went from this ……

To this…..

And an old silk blouse of my mother’s. I took out the shoulder pads, and cut the sleeves off (may need a couple of tucks in the shoulder seams to make it a bit less sloppy/large looking).

 

And here is a photo of them all. The two shirts in the upper left hand corner are ones that I had dyed before, and the were looking wan, so it was time for a face lift. The others (with the exception of my mom’s silk shirt) are thrift shop shirts, some linen and some cotton.

 

It’s taking a long time for the photo download, again. I think that it’s time to turn my camera back to low resolution 😉 Had it turned up to high for Lilly’s sake.

I have one more linen shirt that hasn’t been photographed yet. And several more shirts that have been soy milk soaked, and are waiting to be dyed.

But may take a break and do some weaving first 😀

 

Some recent projects

I set about to make a dress for my son Cooper to use in a photo shoot. I used a Tina Givens pattern, in a size small. Not sure what small thing it was meant to be for, as it seemed pretty big when I was finished. 🙂 But I was happy with the results!

 

It will be interesting to see how he does a shoot with this!

Okay, my computer is acting wonky, and it’s taking WAY too long to down load photos to wordpress. Have to head to bed so that I can get up bright eyed and head to work in the morning. Will continue this in another entry tomorrow evening (hopefully).

A little yarn dyeing between eco prints

Am a bit in limbo, between making my slip dresses and starting a project for Lilly’s magazine. So thought that I’d get some yarn dyed!

The first skein was out of some horsetail that I collected on my trip to Portland. Not a very bold color 🙂  But a nice pale peachy yellow that will blend in well with my other colors.

Then two skeins dyed with Saint John’s Wort…… love the shade of green I got from it! There are some small patches of red here and there amongst the green…. not enough to bother me.

 

Two skeins with Hibiscus.

And finally, tried to dye with eucalyptus leaves again. The first time I tried, a couple of years ago, I didn’t get anything spectacular. But am happy with this color. Picking all of the chopped up leaf pieces out of the yarn, the ones that wouldn’t shake out, isn’t going to be any fun though!

All of the colors look nice together. But then, most naturally dyed colors seem to blend together well in my opinion.

And finally…. a teaser.  two pieces of raw silk that were dyed/eco printed in the left over Saint John’s Wort pot. The flowers are coreopsis from my garden.

Now….. back to my project for Lilly’s magazine!

Oh….. in case you missed her first issue, here is a link!

 

 

Eco Print Dress For Ellie

Remember the fabric that I posted a couple of weeks ago? Some of it made it’s way into this little dress for Ellie!

I had bought a pattern from Tina Givens named “Ellie”…… how could I resist that!? Plus, it was on sale for only $2.50.

I admit that I modified it somewhat….. I left out the side panels that would’ve been in the purple cochineal fabric. It just seemed like too much dress for a wee little girl. I added the vintage lace around the neckline. Oh, and since I didn’t have any rings for the belt in the back, I turned it into a sash.

When I was showing Jeph the dress, after I had photographed it, I noticed a stain on the lace. My first reaction was…. “dang it!”, then I sighed and said “oh well”.

But his reaction was perfect! He said…. “that’s not a stain, that’s history!” A way better way of looking at it, wouldn’t you say?

I am heading to Portland this coming Tuesday, so won’t be posting anything for a couple of weeks. When I come back, perhaps I will have a photo of Ellie wearing her dress!

What a Hoot!

I have never really shot a self portrait. I rarely even have photos of me taken anymore! But today I made a foray to Red Tank Draw, to try and take a photo for Lilly to use in her upcoming yellow themed magazine.

Setting the timer on the camera…… then quickly moving to where it was focused…… all without tripping on the rocks (I am a klutz!).  It was hilarious. Needless to say, I had fun. Even if she choses not to use one of my photos, it was good for me to get out of my comfort zone.

I’ll share one of the photos here…..

Probably should’ve smiled a bit. Ah well.

I had planned on taking the photos up in Oak Creek Canyon, but there is a large forest fire burning in the upper canyon. It has been SO dry and windy here. Hopefully the winds will die down a bit and they can contain the fire soon (1000+ acres burned so far, and 0% contained).

Have another slip dress cut out and partially sewn…. it is soaking in rain water mixed with sea salt. Tomorrow I will dye it.

Yellow

I’ve been working on a dress for Lilly’s magazine….. the theme of her first issue is “Yellow”.

I have the fabric that I dyed last week (with turmeric/soapnut)…… A good jumping off point! And I have a new pattern by Tina Givens.

You can see her patterns here:

http://www.sewtinagivens.com/

An all yellow dress is a bit much for me. So I eco printed some strips to add contrast in the ruffles. And this is what I came up with. I’m happy with it!

The yellow is mellow, sort of a light ochre.

The little bit of eucalyptus dyed ruffle helps break up the monotony of the yellow (yes, it’s true, I’m not a ‘yellow’ person!)

But the fun thing is…. I had made a long shift dress a few weeks ago. I wasn’t happy with the eco printing, it was much too light. (I am planning on over printing it, when the leaves gather in a bit more pigment). This shift was on my dress form  and I threw the new dress over it yesterday  while we had company over for dinner. And I loved the way the two looked together!!

😀 now I have to figure out how to make an interesting photograph of the dress, for the magazine! With a real person in it…. probably me.

I also have cut out a little dress for Ellie. From two of the fabrics I posted last week. It will be interesting to see if the cochineal/avocado dyed purple fabric changes color when her nappies overflow!

 

Tricking the printer….

I’ve found if I quickly plug in my camera’s memory card, before the printer remembers it’s not working….. I can down load photos! 🙂

I wanted to post photos of Raggedy Ellie. She is now residing in Portland, with her new companion (who tries to eat her).

Remember the first photo?

Then she got hair….. madder dyed alpaca.

And clothes…. first her dress and bloomers

Then her apron

It was fun making her for Ellie…… and making it all out of naturally dyed and eco printed materials.

Here she is with her namesake…..

I have also been dyeing some raw silk, for dresses.  Although, I dyed them before I got my ‘Tina Givens’ patterns…. and there is going to have to be some creative piecing, to get the fabric to fit the patterns. Silly me. Next time I’ll wait until the patterns arrive before dyeing/printing the fabric!

The solid colors are from cochineal and avocado pits (purple) and turmeric/soapnut (yellow)

 

This one I had rolled in an old window screen, hoping to get some cool rust patterns in it. Almost worked. I think that the screen was too fine. Next time I’ll use screening with a larger mesh.

 

I have also dyed an old cotton tee-shirt (which I am wearing right now) and another sleeveless silk shirt and a long raw silk shift. Will get photos of all of these in the next post. Hopefully along with the dress, or dresses, that the above silk is destined for!