I am suffering from overweening pride this afternoon. I got all obsessive over the last couple of days and worked a lot on the rust-dyed piece, and now it's finished! I mounted the quilted, stitched pieces on artists canvas that I had painted to resemble a patinated rock face, and added a few embellishments. Some time in October or November I'll arrange a photo session with Rick Wells to record a few larger pieces. (My overweening pride is tempered by frustration as I cannot get my phone camera to send the photos to the computer so I can put them in this post. I will keep trying.)
The cotton being mordanted is hanging in its second iteration; tomorrow I will soak it again and rehang.
I have finished fermenting avocado pits in an ammonia and water solution, and today put white cotton pieces (not the same ones undergoing the mordant) into glass jars, firmly wrapped around the pit remnants, and submerged them in the dyebath. I will leave them for a month or more, occasionally moving them around in the jars. Pam said she got the best blotchy apricot color on the parts that were exposed to air. Only time will tell; certainly it's hot enough on the patio all the way through September and most of October to encourage color migration. I can honestly say that I'm "working on dyeing with natural materials" when really, I'm just letting stuff sit out in the sun and occasionally moving it around. That's one of the beauties of slow cloth--there's a lot of time you can sit reading a book while the process goes its leisurely way.
So, what to undertake next? The Mae project is still amorphous; it needs to sit in my brain a while before things coalesce. I think I'll do some patchwork with indigo and yellow-dyed pieces, maybe some green as well. Making squares is very satisfying--grounded, concrete-- and allows the back of the mind to simmer ideas about more intellectual projects.
The cotton being mordanted is hanging in its second iteration; tomorrow I will soak it again and rehang.
I have finished fermenting avocado pits in an ammonia and water solution, and today put white cotton pieces (not the same ones undergoing the mordant) into glass jars, firmly wrapped around the pit remnants, and submerged them in the dyebath. I will leave them for a month or more, occasionally moving them around in the jars. Pam said she got the best blotchy apricot color on the parts that were exposed to air. Only time will tell; certainly it's hot enough on the patio all the way through September and most of October to encourage color migration. I can honestly say that I'm "working on dyeing with natural materials" when really, I'm just letting stuff sit out in the sun and occasionally moving it around. That's one of the beauties of slow cloth--there's a lot of time you can sit reading a book while the process goes its leisurely way.
So, what to undertake next? The Mae project is still amorphous; it needs to sit in my brain a while before things coalesce. I think I'll do some patchwork with indigo and yellow-dyed pieces, maybe some green as well. Making squares is very satisfying--grounded, concrete-- and allows the back of the mind to simmer ideas about more intellectual projects.
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