Eco Dye on a Saturday Morning Walk in the Neighborhood

A break from the Europe trip.  Are you over it ?  Or would you like  to see more?

While we were on a dog walk yesterday, I began to pick up some oak and maple leaves, bark pieces, acorn tops, twigs, walnut hulls -- whatever I could fit into my poop bag.  It was clean, I bought an extra one!  LOL

When I got home, I dug out my aluminum stew pot I found at The Purple Cow and put on some water and vinegar to boil.

I went into the back yard and pulled some Purple Wandering Jew leaves and some Lorapetalum.  The Lorapetalum is a bush that new growth which is purple then the leaves turn dark grey green.

The stew turned a dark dark dark purple.  I was really hoping the fabrics would turn dark purple too  But you know it is all a guessing game as to what happens.

I used two different fabrics, both cottons. Before the flood I had several weights of dupioni silk, but who knows where they are now or if it even survived.  I know where the silks were and that was below the water line.

I rolled the bundles tightly using a cotton cord onto a few sticks from the yard that would fit into the pot, weighted it all down with a big rock (which turned purple) and boiled it for a long time.

When the bundles cooled and I unwrapped their beauteous selves.

Here is the array of all thee pieces.  But let me show you some special interest areas, well, that will be of special interest to you!

This is a gum leaf that was picked off the tree prior to being put in the bundle.  So it was green.  I also put one in the mix that had already fallen and was brown.  I am not sure which one this is.

I need to be more scientific next time.  It would help to know if there is a big difference either way, or if it really doesn't matter either way.

More scientific.

This was an experiment in stay, which failed.  '

Here is the gum leaf section as a whole piece.  It will need definition with using the sewn line, either hand or machine.  Carol does a lot of machine so

I might start there, since I need these by the 27th.

 Oh.  I am using this fabric to make journal covers for the 100 for 100 Show at the Art Council.  Hopefully they will sell there.

If you look closely at the patterns you can make out leaves.  I don't know exactly which one of the larger pieces were the lorapetalum, which was purple and had smaller leaves on a central stem.

But I can see several things that look like it could be them.









If you look deeply into the darker areas on each piece you can see some leaf designs.  The darker areas were the outside pieces.  So if you look at the ombre effect, the lighter areas are the close tight insides of the wrap bundle.

 

 The up and down lines are the string wrap lines.  Shibori, really when you think about it.  I did

Eco Dye Shibori! I might have a new thing!

 

You can definitely see the leaf branch here in the several  shots below.  I was trying to close in on the patterning so you would not miss the wonderful things.  Pleas go back to the top of the page and see if you can find the patterns now that you know what to look for.