Corona creativity

Because we are unable to gather at Studio 11 for our monthly creative delights with Christine, she has, in her usual undefeatable resilience, put together an online course for those of us who want to continue exploring cloth and stitch. Her suggestion was that we work on the theme uppermost in our minds at the moment which is, of course Covid-19.

What an unprecedented experience for all of us, both close and far - something which will probably redefine "normal" for most of us once we have got beyond this stage of lockdown For us, me and my dear man, life is in many ways unchanged, we are both retired, but the loss of weekly markers, Bridge for him, various things for me, lends a sense of timelessness to days, a stasis which is quite hard to rise above.

The garden has provided a retreat and sanctuary space for both of us, and as I have sat out there I have been much more mindful of my surroundings. The extra level of hush brings birdsong to the fore; an aircraft passing above is something to remark on, rather than ignore; the textures of things around me, visual textures and sounds, are things to focus on and enjoy. So, I spent some time taking rubbings of things, first on paper with a simple wax crayon - some came I was very happy with,

So focusing on those I liked, I took some cotton out into the garden to collect again, this time with candle wax. The marks are there, but could be more definite, what you can't see here are the lovely contact marks the dye made on the back of the cloth. I will add more marks, and more colour, and see where we get. Had I thought, I could have left the first layer of wax on, taken a second layer of marks and then added colour, but I was too hasty with wanting to see what it looked like so it has all been washed away. I will do my best to overlap the rubbings so I retain some of those white marks

The other thing we did was to look at the imagery attached to the virus, drawing it in various different ways. I played with stitching and clamping, linen and ramie, to see what shibori methods could do to evoke that spiky ball - lots to think about here, and to play with some more

Dye and stitch and sometimes both

So a little free time focus and some fun with the dyepot. These below a set of fabrics variously manipulated in shibori fashion, stitched, pleated, folded, bound, crumpled.

Dyed with synthetic indigo, flushed through with a wash of petrol green towards the end - I enjoy playing with the parameters of what and when. The colours not quite right here, but you get the idea.

Then in a plastic tray, this scrumptious srcumpledness. Again, shibori stitched, dyed bright yellow a few days ago, then extra colour flooded in as a second process

And here it is unwrapped and blended together with three other bits of cloth from those long ago sheets. Some of my experiments in my first year or two with Christine top and third, second and fourth dyed very recently to complement. I intend spreading them out a bit onto a backcloth so each can have its own voice, but still be part of a whole

And the cities begin to grow in Mesopotamia - 

Assur, capital of the Assyrian Empire the latest to manifest as we flow down the Tigris, Dur Sharrukin, Nineveh and Nimrud nestled in the confluence of the Greater Zab and the Tigris

Holiday dyeing

I've been doing some holiday dyeing - which of course means the laundry and houswork are way overdue! I had some left over dye from a previous experiment, and wanted to see if it really was spent. So, a torn off bit of one of the endless "Connie and Harry sheets", soda soaked, folded and wrapped, the dye applied from the bottles it has been sitting in since I last used it - it all looked rather promising; lovely vivid shades, couldn't wait to unwrap

However, the dye really was spent, and most of it washed out - very pretty, but definitely not vivid; more delicately faded.

Christine's mantra is, "you can always stick it in a bucket of black" so, treating this as a test piece, out came the plumbers pipe and string and a bit of "sort of" arashi shibori. I'm not sure if I can really call it this, since arashi normally involves wrapping the fabric diagonally along the length of the pole. In this case I've placed it so the centre of the piece is over the end of the pole, folded it carefully down the sides, then spiral bound with thread. Into the dye vat it went - a mixture of turquiose, a touch of royal blue and black. I had hoped that the plastic bag on the end, firmly tied and elastic banded, would work as a cap to preserve the yellow centre but I may not have tied it tightly enough because the dye managed to soak through.

This is where I got to with stage two - notice how much more of the first layer of colour washed out with this second process. An interesting pattern though, and I'm learning all the time, but the delicacy of the inital image has been lost, both because of the first colour fading and because the second process has produced a much more definite pattern

I thought this looked a bit neither one thing or the other, in fact, a bit "meh" as my daughter would say so, back in the soda solution and on to stage three, and a stage one for a second piece of sheet - just to use up the second batch of dye

Refolded and bound in a similar way to the first process but this time with elastic bands rather than thread - they were harder to tie tightly, but I'm a bit wary of elastic bands!! Again, Christine's advice is; for multiple layers, using the same or a similar process allows the layers of colour to have some relationship with each other.

And the second piece of cotton, pulled out along its diagonal from corner to corner, roughly pleated and bound with thread, closely, criss crossed and more loosely as I worked along the length.

More dye applied, this time freshly brewed - and then the wait .....

Well, vivid has returned, and I think has integrated the arashi pattern better, it has more balance now - and the second piece makes me think of summer sunbursts and ice cream - I rather like it, and can see where the binding, tight or loose, has affected the pattern of the dye - more white where it was tightly bound - more learning

but what on earth to do with them both now?

I'm off to Studio11 tomorrow, so a bit of show and tell discussion might help.

Her Ladyship's trousers - update

What with all the travelling and a very significant wedding, of which more later, I've not been updating as much as I should. So, there will be an update on the tool packaging shibori, but first I have finished "Her Ladyship's Trousers". The shibori dyeing on the hems went really well. As I'd hoped, bundling them together allowed the dye to wick upwards in some wonderful wiggles that echo the shibori patterning. This is achieved by regular lines of running stitch pulled up tight; the way the stitches relate to one another determines the pattern, so all in a line would have given me a grid pattern, but here, where I have staggered the placing, I get a lovely irregular ripple

obligingly, (and of course, due to careful placement of trousers in bucket) these have stayed pretty well level across both legs

so I now have a lovely full pair of comfy casual linen trousers to wear around the house, with a graded dye effect from the hem upwards - oh, and a couple of incidental rainbows from the crystal which hangs in the window

Even more pleasing - I had to shorten the elastic round the waist; I'm slimmer than I thought :-)

Autumn skies dyeing

Another recent bit of dyeing, kept until now as it was intended as a gift for someone.  A silk scarf for my dear heart's neice who did so much to make our recent holiday a fine and full one, with so many excitements!

Shibori Mandelbrot

Remember them? The wonderful joys of fractal generation on early PCs!

Els, you'll like this one

And a sneak preview of the other - Autumn skies shibori

Her ladyship's trousers

I have been making myself a pair of linen, wide baggy trousers using salvaged linen from Aunt Cecil's home. Beautiful smooth sheets, taken in for repair, the job never done. They are thin in places, but there's still plenty of fabric, I love the way it feels. 

Why her ladyship's? Because they originally belonged to the family that she worked for for many years.

So, these trousers, the linen underdyed a soft bright green, with flashes of magenta to tone it down and restrain too much gaudiness. 

Waving

The inital intention was more complex, but I am simply dip dyeing them, with five lines of shibori stitching drawn up nice and tight, just above the hemline.

I flooded a wash of magenta again, then after five minutes a swoosh of deep turquoise, lemon and black. I've been practicing on another piece from here, the pole wrapped piece. I will incoporate my experiments with the other bits from here at some stage.

Here one is pinned against the leg as a sort of example - see how I used the beautifully hemmed top of the sheet as the trouser hem ...

Tool packaging shibori

Nearly there

I have been quietly busy. This year's final day with Christine, and I'd missed the previous two because I felt poorly. So, a pleasure, and some inspiration. I found time over the past few days to wrap up some fabric and see where a bit of shibori can get me.

A silk scarf, folded, clamped, rolled, clamped, Apply three blanks from some piece of tool packaging, aligned top, bottom and between, as perfectly as I could manage

clamped with acrylic shapes as well, so apply an even pressure across the ends.

Edges rolled and clamped to make small white marks I hope

And some little crescents, just to see

Different clamps, all submerged in turquoise, acid yellow and some old black, just to see

Then a piece of silk, scrunched, pushed together, wrapped tightly in a laundry bag, with some marbles to add extra texture 

I'm hoping for clear edges and spaces of white, all to echo the dark holes in the centre, and perhaps some patterning from the bag itself, and the elastic band

The marbles, in tune with the piece of silk shading I am working on now and again, very slowly, glasses off, eyes close to the frame, because it's the only way I can see clearly enough when using just one strand of embroidery floss! This was our "here's how" piece from the last Branch workshop.

I have no idea what will happen now

Time to unwrap

Homage update

No, I haven't stopped stitching on this, but other things have been taking precedence, like learning all about colour and dyes!

Here is where I am so far. The three maple leaves all stitched around now, some spirals

and some little seeds floating down.

I will add more of these as I like the floatiness of them. As ever, forgive me for the blurriness of iPad images - I can't work out how to improve, though I'm sure there must be something in the settings I can change!

I'm happy with how things are going but, as with all projects like this, the further along I get the more worried I am that I'm going to mess it up with the next thing I do. While I was away learning about colour I did a little trial with two types of thread, to see if I could stitch some maple seeds to tie in with the leaves.

Problem is, I love them both! Christine's very wise suggestion was that I scan the image in, cut out several and try them each to see how they look on the cloth. What a wise soul.

Quietly continuing

There's still a lot to be done on this, but I'm slowly finding my way along, taking each section at a time and seeing where it leads me next.

As I haven't posted about this for a while, here are a couple of close ups

and the whole piece in natural light

I love the delicate turquoise and the way it interacts with the eco colour. I'm aware that those leaf prints may well fade with time, so am accenting them with stitch. I think there may be some floating seeds scattered about at some stage, it has a feeling of Autumn about it. Hardly surprising considering when I started.

I haven't decided on a border yet, I'm waiting to see where I get to with the stitching first, feeling for what the cloth is telling me as I stitch it. Truly a slow stitch project.

Shibori too

Some very old bits and bobs, over dyed with a shibori layer. This one reminds me of the Aurora - night flowers perhaps

a tiny scrap with a little shibori applied to the "leaves", previously mono printed

another second layer on my Eco shibori - this with royal rather than turquoise to see what happens; the latest in the the Homage dyeing experiments. I've been stitching that as well but no pics to show at the moment

A bit of silk viscose dyed a couple of weekends ago

And these, given an initial layer yesterday, washed, rinsed, dried, ironed ready for today's layer. These are very small bits of fabric, test pieces to look at how the fabric reveals the dye. Satin viscose and silk velvet - I stitched both pieces with similar patterns.

the velvet was really thirsty for all that colour

Each cut in half. Now to add a next layer of dye. First stitching to re-shibori, echoing what has gone before. Again, I'm also testing to see how much dye each fabric will take.

above shows the backs. I try to echo or at least stitch in harmony with the layer below in the next layer of stitches. All pulled up tight.

Now sitting in a very small pot of mixed turquoise, black and a smidge of golden yellow

Again, I'll report later