Indigo pieces become a jacket

Sampling techniques and colors, I end up with a collection of small bits.  When the bag gets big enough, my quilting/piecing genes take over and I make something from the small pieces!  Using a run of indigo-shibori, I pieced a jacket:

 

Indigo-shibori pieces

 

Indigo-shibori pieced

 

Here’s the front of the jacket, with a fetching peplum!!  The stitching was random shapes.

 

 

 

 

And, the back, with fold and pole-wrapped.  The darker color was an overdye–indigo over backyard (pale) yellow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the collection, pre-piecing, complete with pre-pressing wrinkles

 

Honeysuckle (hybridized) and Holy Basil

It’s spring and the garden is blooming with old and new favorites.  Even the weeds are welcomed after the long winter that we had this year!

Honeysuckle–hybridized

The honeysuckle bush/vine in my garden is different than the one that grows all over. The wild one has a white flower and it’s so prolific that it seems like one GIANT plant.

The one in my garden has a pretty orange bloom and is better behaved.

 

Honeysuckle–hybridized

The color that it gives is similar to the wild honeysuckle.  In the same backyard yellow vein.

 

 

 

Holy Basil

 

A new visitor to my garden came from a local farmer.  They call it Holy Basil with a bloom like the tall phlox.  And in the peak of it’s bloom it was covered in bright yellow/gold blooms.  A standout at this time of year.  After enjoying it, I harvested some of the blooms and dyed with it.

 

Holy Basil

A nice bright yellow…a bit more golden.

And, the plant has many seed pods. Maybe filled with many, many seeds.  Left to it’s own devices, I could have a garden full of this gold visitor!  HOLY BASIL!!

Calendulas and other gardening

Calendulas are a wonderful addition to the garden.  Bright and cheery.

Blooming Calendas

But, not so grand in the dye pot.  I grew the flowers from seeds and finally they’re

blooming.  (That may speak more to my gardening or my garden!)  A boost from some soda ash made the dye more alkaline but the result is pretty weak.

Ah well.  Sometimes the magic works. Other experiments in my garden have been of mixed results.  The marigolds and coreopsis have grown well and I’ve harvested many blooms.  And, if all goes well, the coreopsis will be growing next year.  And, the marigolds will reseed next year.

The safflower plants have give me about a few flowers.  I tested with one bloom and saw some results.  I decided to dry the rest and wait for a grand end-of-season dyepot.  (Grand may turn out to be an overstatement!!)  The alkanet is growing well.  Since the dye comes from the root, that will be another end-of-season dye pot.

Yellow and blue make…surprises!

Combining colors should be an easy process.  Yellow and blue make green, or they should. But, it’s a challenge to get greens with natural dyes.  Should be easy…nature has greens all round!  Here’s a shirt that I upcycled and dyed with clover, crown vetch and indigo.

 

 

I experimented with crown vetch first.  I dyed a piece of cotton muslin with flowers and then overdipped it with indigo.  I was very pleased with the yellow and more pleased with the greens.  So, on to the shirt.  I’m pleased with the shirt, but the yellow isn’t as pale and the green isn’t as “kelly.”  My first dye of the shirt was more gold.  Was it the amount of fabric?  Or the fabric was linen?  Or it had been printed already–although most was still offwhite.  So, I collected some clover flowers and the yellow was more what I had in mind.  (I started to type, the yellow was more yellow 🙂 )

I had switched to crown vetch because the flowers are bigger, so less to harvest!!  But, I went back to clover.  Yup, that little white flower.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another green experiment.  I had been saving some pomegranate rinds…keeping them in the fridge like gold:)  I had used them this winter and the color was a pleasing gold.  I was cleaning my fridge… so, I pulled them out and dyed a piece of muslin.  The color from the pomegranate was more gold.  When I over-dyed that with the indigo…not a green.  More of a brown.  Actually nice!

 

Go that away for Marigold and Coreopsis

Still loving the coreopsis.  This time I paired it with marigold and indigo.

Coreopsis, marigold and indigo

Three dips to get this.  I wrapped the shirt around a pot for the first dip which gave a smoother line for the coreopsis dip.  For the marigold and indigo dips, I tied the two break points without a pot, so it was gathered more tightly.  That gave more pattern/stripes…especially in the marigold section.

Pairs and Pairs

Lots of pairs in this one!

Pairs and Pairs

I pulled together some of the pieces that I’ve been working on this spring.  I’ve been working with printing techniques…here’s a pair of giraffes, that were done with dandelion and iron (ferrous sulfate.)

Holland and Riley

Here’s another close-up. A pair of pieces that star the famous pair–my great nieces, Holland and Riley.  These are done with coreopsis, printed.  Partly stenciled and partly hand-lettered.

The center piece is shibori-folded using coreopsis and indigo.

Lots of coreopsis.  Partly because it’s very available in my backyard and mostly because it gives a wonderful orangey-gold.  More color in the vat…but still evident in printing.

Here’s a free form piece that I did using dandelion and iron.  When I turned it upside down, I decided it was an eye to watch over the pairs!

Pear and indigo

This was a two step process.  I shibori folded and dipped the fabric in dye “liquor” from an ornamental pear tree which gave the rosy tan.  Then it was refolded and dipped in indigo.  I’m pleased with the layers of color that the over-dipping achieves.

Fold, refold and redye

Early in the summer, I found a wind-downed pear branch and I was very excited to get a rosy tan color.  I shibori folded this piece of fabric.  To my eye, the result was lovely,  but pale and not very exciting.  So, it went to my stash pile.  (AKA the pile of rejects that I can’t bear to really throw away.)

This week, I’m working on combining dyes. I pulled this piece and thought, how about adding indigo to the pear.  So, I refolded it so that the tan was protected and the indigo went to the white spaces.  I love it.  The indigo dyed unevenly–some dark and some light.  Some white was maintained.  The tan holds it’s own. And, the over dyed parts add some depth and new shapes.

I might have called this the phoenix piece since it was very close to being thrown away…but now it’s a favorite!  Sometimes you get lucky!

 

 

 

 

 

Clover, Rose, Barberry

Some surprises!  Clover (upper left) started with the small white flower and gives up a very strong gold yellow!  Interesting color, but a lot of work picking the small flowers.  The pink rose?  A long shot that the flower would give up some of its pink color.  Not so generous…yellow color, and a weak one, to boot!

I tried the barberry–hoping that the red leaves would give a red color.  I was very excited when the water turned a nice red.  And moderately surprised when the fabric turned pink. And disappointed when I found it wasn’t water fast.  This is my second try–I dyed and didn’t rinse it!

 

 

Funky Pomegranate Scarf

This funky scarf is a stash-buster!!  I used some natural dyed yarns and combined them with store-bought variegated yarn.  The scarf is very loosely woven.  Some of the yarn felted so that gives the scarf a better structure.

There were two sets of yarn.  Part was dyed with pomegranate.  I dyed with the the rinds after eating the fruit!  The second part was dyed with black walnut and over-dyed with indigo to make it darker.

Black walnut with indigo and pomegranate

I was experimenting with a method of changing color intensity that I learned in a workshop with Mary Zicafoose (http://www.maryzicafoose.com)  In the workshop, we used acid dyes, and measured out the dye in milliliters and the dye in grams.  Not so formal here…I boiled up the pomegranate rinds, filtered out the plant material.  Then I used an increasing amount of the dye liquor with my wool.  It’s a very subtle flow of color saturation; so subtle, I may be the only one to see it!!

Indigo Over Marigold / Coreopsis

Early in the summer, I dipped a wool/silk blend scarf in a gold dye bath then I set it aside to overdye and this week was the time.

The first dye bath was marigold/coreopsis and in the silk/wool it gave a nice gold color.  Next, I folded and tied with a two pieces of wood for the resist and then dyed in indigo.  What happened–the lagniappe of the piece–there were edgings of brown as well as the indigo blue.

Marigold coreopsis indigo

Indigo is a great dye to use.
It gives good color
But not THE blues