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.

Design Wall Monday 2-18-13

Things are looking good.  Only 11 months till my birthday!  Yay!

The weather was just gorgeous this weekend.  For those who think Louisiana is all humidity, this weekend the humidity was 28% and the sky was crystal clear and cold.  What a nice way to spend the time.  Today the humidity went up because we have a front rolling across us bringing some ominous looking clouds.  We are expecting rain in the noon time.  And the current humidity is around 80%.

Oh, did you know that Colonel Sanders Secret Recipe of 11 Herbs and Spices was discontinued in 1964 after the sale of his franchise?  Interesting, that is why the chicken doesnt taste like it did when I was a kid!

Today I am working on my 50 Shades of Grey piece.  I like grey with an e rather than an a.  It just looks like  grey with the e.  The difference between the two is that gray is a color and grey is a colour!  LOL.  Like organize and organise.

Back to my piece.  I have done a sketch of what I want to do, but now I need to find the gradated grey thread to use.  I will call Red Stick in a moment and see what they have in the way of grey.

I also need to work on the next Quilt University Design Lesson.  It involves choosing color for the sketches we have made.  I have two I like and will choose very different color schemes for each of them.  She wants us to cut a strip from every solid or reading solid we have and sort them according to value.  That would take me a year!

The Bike of Squares looks like it needs to be bright primary colors.

The fountain looks like it needs more of a Southwest scheme.  In fact, I have some pots on fabric in a Southwest line.

The one on the left is the original drawing from a photo.  And the one on the right is the cropped, better version.

And the one below is even closer.  I kinda like them all so I am having difficulty seeing why one is a better design over the others just because it is changed.

We shall see.

Off to work on Grey!