Stitching News February 2021 /2

Good morning to you all. A really spring like photo to start off the blog.

We have several of these miniature clumps of daffodils in our garden, and they really make me smile!

A member of one of the textile groups I belong to, emailed me during last year saying how much she was enjoying the weekly blog on the textile artist.org website: https://www.textileartist.org/ I must admit, that I put it on one side at the time as I had delved into it several years ago and not being terribly inspired at the time. However when I did revisit it a little later last autumn I was not disappointed! I signed up for their weekly blog again, and I really look forward to its arrival. I find it often has something relevant and interesting with some inspirational interviews with different textile artists. It is a terrific resource. So, many thanks Anne, you are a star.

Their blog which dropped into my inbox on 8th of February, really excited me. It is about a textile artist called Jude Kingshott, who lives in Kent. In the article, called “dyeing to stitch” she very generously shares the story of her background, her influences, sources of inspiration and working practice. She is also fond of eco printing and listed some of her favourite leaves. I noticed that Bamboo leaves were on her list and strangely enough I had recently been thinking of trying it out. We have an old, thick bamboo hedge, so, I am not short of the resource, but have strangely never given it a try! That is to come!

A final quote in the article is one by Maya Angelou which really resonated with me: ‘You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.’

I completed a “matchbox sketch book” in late 2019. The matchbox we all bought is the The Original Cooks Matches box, which is 5.75″ long, by 2.5″ wide and has a depth of 1″.

This is a project that each member of Textiles + was challenged to do, and it would become a feature at our next exhibition, which should have happened last year, but has been rescheduled for the Autumn this year. We are very cautiously hopeful that this will go ahead, but of course as we are all well aware, nothing is certain!

As you can see from the photo on the left this is a concertina folded sketch book. I have just shown three pages here, although I have 24 in total. It is incredibly difficult to photograph anything that is long and narrow to show any detail!

We could all decided on our own “theme” and I decided that the developments for mine would all derive from eco prints.

I didn’t make a cover for the box at the time, so have been considering that recently. The obvious cover to make is from a paper which I have also eco printed!

I decided to use a strip of Indian rag paper as this is reasonably flexible, certainly far more so than the paper I print onto normally. So I did a trial, and my method was also totally different as well!

This time I soaked the strip of paper in white vinegar, also soaking a length of fine cotton fabric which was the same width and length, in the vinegar. My reasoning for this was that it would give a measure of protection to the paper! II think I will have another go, just using the paper, as it is very durable.)

I laid the cotton down on a work surface, placed the paper strip on top of it, and then placed my chosen leaves over the whole surface. I carefully rolled it all firmly around a short length of copper pipe securing it together by winding some cotton yarn around the pipe and fabric to hold it all in position. I steamed it for about 1.5 hours but I did not open it up for several hours, finally leaving it to dry over night. I am reasonably pleased with my results, as I was really not at all sure what to expect! I am looking forward to seeing whether left open to daylight for several weeks, might strengthen the prints! I was really surprise to see that the prints are purple. (I like that very much!) I shall use a section of the paper, or a section from another attempt, for the matchbox cover, and will stitch into it, prior to gluing it to the box.

The cotton fabric results were totally uneventful, not that I was expecting anything different! I had added some myrtle twigs to the water right at the beginning of the process. I like to add some plant material (Cotinus or Rose of Sharon leaves, being my favourite. (I always use a dedicated pan when working with leaves, in a well ventilated area.) so I put the fabric strip back into the water, allowed the water to simmer for about half an hour, before rinsing the fabric in cold water, and leaving it to dry. It emerged giving the appearance of tea dyed fabric!

A little project I have been meaning to do for a while, is to space dye a ball of “craft cotton”. Craft cotton is also sold as “dishcloth cotton, depending on where you source it. I had promised to do this for a friend!

I wound it around the straight upright of a chair to start with forming it into a hank. I tied the hank loosely in three places which would avoid it becoming very tangled during the dyeing process. Then removed it from the chair back and soaked it in a soda solution. I use 1/2 a cup of household soda crystals or powder, to 4 pints of water. As long as the soda water doesn’t become coloured, I return any solution that his left in the receptacle that I am soaking my threads, or fabrics in to the 4 pint container I keep it in. The red blue and yellow ensures I can obtain an interesting mix of colours. I squeezed the soft dishcloth cotton all over to make sure the whole hank was absorbing the soda, which is the fixative for the dye. Then I made up three dye solutions a red, yellow and blue, from which I could create several different hues.

The photo above shows a selection of the yarn that I have dyed over the years. The one I have just dyed is bottom left in the photo!

I have also been making up scrap bags again, as I had not used up the wonderful selection of scraps that many of you very kindly posted to me a couple of years ago. We sold MANY scrap bags at the charity events, we organised, and I am aiming at using up the rest of the scraps in a big boost now.

I am also very hopeful of getting back to my Machine Embroidery course, and using my sewing machine again!

Finally here are three more of my hand stitched eco prints, that I have completed since last time.

The small Ginco leaf print top right is in progress and that will be its position in the top book.

The two lower stitched prints are for the blue mark making book.

I am hopeful that I shall soon be stitching all the contents of the top book together!

So, until next time, stay safe, and happy stitching.

Di

February 2021/1

Good day to you all.

Today (25th January) as I start thinking and making notes for this first February newsletter I have just checked the pond for frogspawn. We had our first couple of batches on the 21st January. Several more batches have been added since then! Whether it will survive is another matter! Who knows! It has been bitterly cold with hard frosts too.

On a day when the sun shone brightly in a bright blue sky I felt really energised, and I decided to try some red cabbage dyeing for the first time!

I cut up half of a large red cabbage and put it into one of the “dedicated” saucepans I keep in my sewing room specifically just used for non kitchen use. and brought it to the boil, allowing it to boil for about 45 minutes. (It was not essential to use my dyeing equipment as nothing toxic or potentially dangerous was going to be used, it was more habit for me, to be honest!

A potato masher squeezed out any remaining liquid from the cabbage before discarding the cabbage into the compost.

I then measured the remaining fluid, 1200 mls, and removed half of it into another receptacle. It was quite noticeable to me that the solution seemed particularly pale, and I made a mental note to add less quantity of water for boiling the cabbage initially, than I had done on this occasion (that is if I was ever going to repeat this exercise!)

I immediately stirred 1/4 of a cup of salt into each 600mls, and stirred it until it had dissolved. (On reflection I would probably double that!)

Into one of the saline solutions I added 3 heaped teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda, adding one at a time and stirring it in. This started to change the pink solution green/blue, as it made it alkaline. I have to admit I had very little bicarbonate in my stock, and so I was limited in quantities! I stirred another teaspoon in and felt the solution turned a little bit darker, so I upended the container tipping in the last teaspoon, stirred it in, and that was all I could do this time! I put it on one side.

To the second container of red cabbage water I added 2/3rds of a cup of white vinegar. This created an acid solution, turning it, in theory, a darker red. I was guessing quantities at this stage, but made a careful note of them as I went along.

While all this was happening I had gathered a selection of different weights of cotton fabrics, and a couple of silk scraps, as well as four skeins of cotton thread and had soaked them in hot soapy water, to help remove any dressing in them. I actually knew that the white cotton fabrics had already been washed as they were in my “ready to dye stash”, but I wasn’t sure about the silk. I rinsed them and wrung out as much of the excess water. The soaking also meant that the dye solution would have a much better chance of penetrating the fibres, than if the fabric was dry. The addition of the salt was to help to drive the dye into the fibres.

So at this point I inmmersed my fabrics, plus two skeins of cotton thread to the two different solutions.

As you can see I also weighted them down with a stone from the garden. The green bowl’s stone is just resting against the side of the sink in this photo so that you can more easily see the colour.

I then left everything alone for 24 hours before rinsing it in cold water.

The results are in the photos below. I am reasonably pleased, with them. I have only shown a couple of the pale pink fabrics here as the others were all the same as the palest pink. The silk took up the dye solution well as you can see the lovely dark pink result!

There are three different shades of green, and I am pleased with the threads. The pink thread has a slightly grey tint, which I really like.

There is no mordant with this cabbage dyeing, so I have no experience of whether they will fade any more, so as I have no project in mind at the moment, it will be interesting to see how they maintain their colour, over time!!

Over a year ago, I experimented with dyeing fabric using Avocado skins and stones dyeing, and was delighted with those results. The link below will take you to that post.

https://stitchingnews.wordpress.com/2019/10/20/stitching-news-october-2019/

I have continued stitching into my eco prints, and have decided that the stitched marks in this second mark making book will, in the main, be taken from natural marks on the prints or marks that are often there as a result of the print process. I have been looking through one or two plants books and there is a vast resource there; leaves, tendrils, tiny seed cases, etc. That seems very appropriate to me, after all, as any marks on the pages have already come from plant life!

I revisited one of the pages I showed in the last post and worked out how I could create some cross stitches alongside the cross formation I had already stitched. I wanted each cross to stand alone and work on both sides of the page! I also had to try to begin and end each one in a manner that was as inconspicuous as possible!

To the left is the reverse side of the previous page, which shows the cross stitch in mirror image

Next to that on the right I have stitched a bare outline of cotinus, and then used stitch to emphasise the grid pattern resulting from the steaming process.

The next six prints, are just laid against the pages. They are yet to be attached. I will secure them all to their pages when I have completed them all!

The far left print in the photo here was one of the end papers with evidence of one of the round weights I use in the printing process to help with the contact of leaf to paper. Each little stitched “comma” mark began as an obvious dot on the paper. So it had a “speckled” appearance initially. I decided to use each dot as the start of my “comma”. I decided not to stitch the “string” marks inside the circle, but outside the circle I did stitch them and used a dark brown fine silk thread. I was really drawn to the lovely soft greys and warm and creamy peachy colour mingling with the cinnamon. The yellow print on the right was originally printed from leaves of the Rose of Sharon plant.

I loved the grid lines in the print on the left, and chose to work inside them after emphasising them with long stitch. I used a grey cotton thread for the darker colours and a soft brown silk thread for the thinner section on the left of that print. The stitched motif over the whole piece is a small dried seed case.

I cannot recall why the division in colour occured on the right hand print, but the creamy soft mustard colour of the eucalyptus leaf sits very well alongside the milky pale coffee colour.

Finally I have completed the stitch study on the right of this pair, having shown the left one last blog!

Initially I outlined the long thin triangle, in the centre of this print, in orange thread. I then continued with the same imagery throughout the little study.

The size of an individual page in this book is 3″ x 4″, and in the photo above, the pair of stitched prints measure 2″ x 2.75″.

I have also also given some thought to the “wrap” for this second little blue book.

On the left is the colour palette I have gathered from which to select patches, and threads to apply to the denim strip, shown on the left side and the top.

Rather than using blues and white thread on top of the denim strip as I did for the first book;

https://stitchingnews.wordpress.com/2020/11/

I have chosen a colourful mix of fabrics and threads which reflect the colour palette of the eco printed pages and the threads used within.

The fabrics are of various weights, and I have also included some scraps of silk within the selection.

I began by tacking some patches onto my denim strip and have started to stitch them in longitudinal rows across the denim now. stitching a tiny blanket stitch around each patch to secure them in place and reduce the possible fraying of their cut edges.

I actually now have four small books in progress, so plenty of work ahead! My best wishes to you all, as we continue with the lockdown, vaccinations, and maintaining the rules which appear to be making some difference now. Perhaps we can begin to see a glimmer of light in the distance.

Until next time, happy sewing.

Di