Four days til Christmas!

Where did the year go? If I look back on my blog, it was clearly filled with interesting and creative times! In January, I was weaving plastic strips into a bag. By March, I was making earrings and a bag, as well as getting the travelling suitcase exhibition on the road. From May until August, I was constantly doing breakdown printing – a fascinating process! And from August til now, I was dyeing like a madwoman, both with native plants and with fibre reactive dyes. And painting fabric, which is my fall back activity.

At this moment, I’m putting together the last jumper I knitted in the cool weather, making another bag, piecing quilt blocks by hand and dyeing anything that stands still long enough. Oh, and I have weaving on the loom. No wonder that I haven’t paused to update the blog recently!

So what’s been happening in the last month or so?

First of all, my friend Jennie brought me back some gorgeous presents from Canada. First, there was this beautiful trivet, which, contrary to expectations, is made of glass! It’s very light and a truly gorgeous colour, and of course, has the Canadian maple leaf.

Second, she found this fantastic French Canadian cookbook at a stall. Its title translates as “from the garden to your table”, which is very much my food preference! It tells you, in French, about the various fruits and vegetables and then gives you interesting recipes to make with your produce. I haven’t made anything from it yet, but some of the recipes sound delicious.

Third, she gave me this beautiful calendar of Inuit art from Cape Dorset, a village on Dorset Island in Nunavut in Canada. The style of art is simple but it has a luminousness and delicacy that I love. You can read about the history of this artists’ cooperative here and see their work here .

Meanwhile, I’ve been doing some more discharging, with thiourea dioxide. It will be the last time for 2012, because it’s an outdoor activity, due to the toxicity of the chemical, and it’s getting too hot now. It’s a shame because I have a pile of fabric I want to use for this process and I really love the effects I’m getting.

 I began with screen printing, using a paper stencil on the screen. I really like the interesting effects I get with very simple repeat patterns done this way. It takes an ordinary piece of dyed cloth and improves it out of sight. I made up a Thiox solution and thickened it with DR33, to make a print paste. The Thiox needs to be used quite quickly to be effective, so you need to be set up, ready to go, when you do this step.

This is the pattern on my screen.

(Ignore the blue tinge; in this photo it had a block out agent applied after printing, so I could save the negative of the screen and use it again next time.) As you can see, the pattern has been cut freehand in strips and taped on. My cloth was cotton that I’d deliberately dyed dark with leftover dye at the end of a dyeing session, thinking it would discharge in an interesting way.

Once it was printed and steamed, it looked like this:

It's amazing how the eye makes the lines join up, even when they don't.

 

I don’t have a “before” photo for this fat quarter of cloth, but it was also dyed very dark with a mixture of colours in a dyeing session. It was printed with a second screen in the same way as the first.

Then I moved on to printing. I bought an interesting potato masher that I thought would be good for this process. I used it to stamp onto another fat quarter of cloth from an earlier dyeing session.

 

Here's the dyed cloth:

...and here it is discharged:

It’s rather good, isn’t it? I think it makes a better print block than it does a potato masher!

I also wanted to experiment with adding colour to the discharge process. I didn’t have any appropriate dyes, but I did have some powdered pigment, which I used to make up paint for my kids, about twenty-five years ago. I wondered if it would be permanent on discharged cloth. I mixed some of the blue powder into the discharge paste and stamped with the potato masher again, onto a piece of dyed cloth.

 

It looked very dark when it was wet but once it dried and was steamed, it became much lighter, so I guess I’ll need to add a lot more powder to get intense colours.

I'll be experimenting further with this combination, when the weather cools down.

I’ve also been doing some natural dyeing. The Fibrecircle group got together for a dyeing day and the results are on our blog here. Here are some of mine that I really like.

Silk paj, tied on square blocks with E. cinerea leaves in the folds, dyed in ironbark E. sideroxylon bark and ferrous sulphate.

  Silk paj,concertina's in three, folded with cinerea leaves and tied onto Tricia's parallelogram perspex blocks, dyed in a bath of helichrysum petiolare and alum.

Silk paj, tied on tongue depressors with green twine, dyed in a bath of Eucalyptus pilularis Blackbutt wood shavings and alum

This one has delicate green markings from the twine that haven't showed up well in the photograph. I love it!

Silk paj, pleated and tied with green twine, dyed in ironbark and ferrous sulphate. This one wasn’t used at Tricia’s, because the twine was obviously bleeding green dye onto the cloth and we were concerned about contamination. But there was very little green on it or in the dye bath.

These three wool skeins came out in an interesting way. I pre-soaked a scarf which had brown onion skins tied into it, and I noticed that the water was coloured. So I left two wool skeins, 2ply and 8 ply in the water for a couple of days. They both came out a gorgeous pinky colour. Then I dyed them in cinerea, wrapped around tongue depressors. So there are areas of dark pinky-beige and then darker areas from the cinerea.

 

This darker one was tied the same way but with green twine, which darkened the colour significantly.

And then there’s the Drimarene K dyeing.

 

I over-dyed some prevous eco-dyed and fire-reactive dyed scarves. This scarf had beads tied into the ends, and was dyed yellow and orange. The mokume areas weren't very successful so I retied them and redyed. I really like it now!

This scarf was eco-dyed with machine stitching along the ends. It looked pretty ordinary, so I clamped it with large metal washers and over-dyed it with blue fibre-reactive dye.

It's much improved too!

 

This one was bunched and tied and dyed with diluted fibre reactive dyes.

 

I dyed more socks too (I'm loving these!):

…and a tee and shorts for my granddaughter.

I did a whole lot of other stuff too, which I expect will show up here sooner or later!

So another year is almost over. I wonder what the next year will bring? I’m foreseeing lots of creative messy times!

Handbag done, and more dyeing

Progress at last! I’ve finished my bag and shown it at the challenge unveiling. You can read about that and see all the challenge works on the challenge blog here.

 

So here it is, in all its glory.  

I’m really happy with how it worked out.

I’ve also been having fun with putting colour onto cloth and yarn, with various methods.

First, I’ve done some more natural dyeing. This white 2-ply wool yarn skein was rolled around two tongue depressors, which were folded back on themselves and tied at each end, not on the yarn. The wool was soaked in water before adding to the wattle dye pot.

The same white 2-ply wool yarn was plaited onto two tongue depressors, which were folded together and tied at each end, without tying the yarn. The yarn was soaked before dyeing in Eucalyptus cinerea.

The same white 2-ply wool yarn was twisted around a single tongue depressor and dipped into a bath made from sawdust from David’s workshop. I put about two cups of the mixed sawdust into a calico bag and poured over hot water. This sawdust is mostly from Samoan hardwood, with some Blackbutt mixed in. The dye bath almost immediately went very dark brown. I left it to steep for a couple of days. Then the wool was added and the mixture was boiled for an hour.

I also dyed some silk scarves. This white silk PFD scarf was concertina’d and ironed lengthwise into quarters. This was folded as a concertina to match a large diamond block and smaller diamond blocks were clamped on, so there was an area of fabric around the block. The scarf was soaked in water before dyeing in the E. cinerea pot.

A wool etamine length had seven rows of small wooden beads tied into each end in an offset pattern to yield diamond-patterned dots. The cloth was soaked in water before dyeing in the E. cinerea pot. The beads tend to lose a little colour with boiling, which transfers to the cloth.





This scarf was folded in half and clamped at each end with L-shaped blocks. It was dyed in a wattle flower dye bath.  

It was fairly ordinary so I blocked it again with triangle blocks and dyed in with dark blue Drimarene K dye.

I’m really enjoying the Drimarene K dyeing. This silk yarn was laid down on Gladwrap and dyed with a syringe, with rubinole, turquoise, blue and black.

This is a loosely woven silk yarn from Virginia Farm Woolworks. I syringe-dyed this damp, using red, orange and yellow.

 I tried out a different Shibori technique with this piece of cotton cloth. This long strip of quilter’s muslin was folded in 60-degree triangles. Two corners were dipped into rubinole and turquoise, with the tips dipped in black.

I can see a scarf using this technique in my future!

 

This silk scarf was concertina’d into four, lengthwise, and syringe-dyed blue, rubinole and turquoise.

 

These four fat quarters of cotton cloth were layer-dyed in a cup, by adding a little dye and poking cloth down onto it with a chopstick. The first dye was blue, then yellow, then orange, then red, then yellow again.

 

I’ve also been space dyeing some cotton socks. I am so in love with these!

This silk scarf isn’t finished yet. I tied it in Kanoko with large beads, which were painted with yellow dye. I had drips and bleeds, so I capped the beads with plastic and rubber bands and painted the whole scarf in yellow and orange. The orange also bled into the bead area, so, after batching, I washed the scarf out and dried it with the beads still in place. I replaced the rubber bands with another set of ties over the plastic. I plan to redye it darker, as it’s much brighter than I would use, and I hope the double tying and the plastic capping will protect the colour over the beads. We’ll see….

Next, taking colour out of cloth. Even more fun, I think.

Dreaming about the ideal handbag

Do you have handbag passions? Are there things you absolutely must have in a bag? Make or break stuff? I know I do. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve turned away from fabulous bags, even at ridiculous prices, because I know how cross I’ll be when I can’t fit my phone into a place that’s secure but accessible, or my keys somewhere I can find them. I know I’m not alone in wanting the perfect handbag. Here are my absolute must-haves:

• Single zippered top – I really can’t be doing with which zipper I have to undo to find the segment with my keys in. Statistically, it will be the wrong one 50% of the time. Not efficient.
• No top flap – you flip it open and get out your wallet; flip it closed (coz it’s in the way); pay; flip it open and put in your wallet; flip it closed (see above); pick up your shopping; phone rings; flip it open… it’s like a teenage girl with her hair. Flick, flick.
• Inside pocket for my phone – why the heck would you want your phone in a loose pocket on the outside? Just begging to lose it.
• Inside pockets for money wallet, card wallet and keys. I gave up playing Hunt the Thimble a long time ago.
• Outside zippered pocket for all those things we need to have handy, like the train ticket. I’m sure all those people really don’t mind waiting while I scrabble through my bag, do they?
• Long or adjustable straps – the point of a bag is to have your hands free to do other stuff. Hanging from your wrist is not hands-free.
• Must hold my sketchbook. It’s only A5. It’s essential to life but it’s also a handy repository for those stray bits of paper that come my way.
• Must hold my folding umbrella, even if it sticks out the end a bit. This is where those dinky mobile phone pockets can be handy, if they’re big enough. They usually aren’t.

If you’ll buy any handbag with a designer’s label on it or you don't much care about the features it has, all this must seem pretty weird. Obviously, your bag fulfils other functions for you than being just a pretty place to carry things. I get that. I just want a bag that suits my style.

 Lately, I’ve given up on bought bags entirely, except for travelling, so I make my own. I’ve shown bags I’ve made here in the past, but I don’t think I’ve had my bag rant before! I’m making a new one now, which is rather like the graffiti bag, but it has a couple of useful improvements on that one. The new one is made from a couple of the fabrics from breakdown printing and I think it’s going to be gorgeous.

 

This is the main fabric..

... and this is the lining.

When I make bags, I tend to think of them as modular units. I have to make six units, a bag body with outer pocket and some kind of stiffening, a bag lining (which may also be stiffened), straps, tangs to hold the straps on (optional but a style I like), flanges or tops for the bag (adds structure and generally looks good) and an inner base to strengthen the bottom (which may go inside the bag or between the bag and lining).

Here’s the bag modular unit, finished.

It’s interlined with a stiff interfacing that I bought at Spotlight for hat making, because I couldn’t get Sinamay at the time. It’s fabric about the thread count of Shapewell, but stiffened with something so it’s almost crackly like paper. I think it was sold as buckram, but it isn’t like the buckram I’ve used before. It has a zipper in the top and a welt pocket inserted in one side, so that it doesn’t interfere with the fabric print to much.

Construction was pretty easy. I inserted the welt pocket in one side piece first. I won’t tell you how to do that, as there are fantastic videos out there showing the method. Then I basted in the interlining and sewed the zipper between the top pieces while they were flat. Easy! Then it’s just side seams and that funny little seam along the bottom corners to make the base.

The lining was made in the same way, with double pockets added to flat pieces of fabric. I always add a little pleat in the bottom of my inner pockets, so they have some fullness. Great for fat things like bunches of keys.

 

This time, I added an innovation. I was going to add a collar of fabric to take my umbrella, so it would stand up at the opening end of the zipper. Then it occurred to me that I could add a plastic pocket, so I can slide a damp umbrella back into my bag without making everything else damp. I cut a strong snaplock bag to fit the collar and sewed it on at the top, with the open edge of the bag aligned with the raw edges of the collar. So now my collar was lined with plastic with the bag hanging down below the collar to the bottom of the bag.

 

I sewed the open edges into the bag lining seam, so the umbrella pocket hangs along the side seam, projecting out into the bag. I have no idea how long the plastic bag will last, but if it goes into a hole, I’ll be no worse off than having just the collar in the first place, will I?

 The top flanges were made to sit above the edge of the bag this time. Stitching them to the bag is always a little fiddly, because of the zipper, but it’s a lot easier using a zipper foot. I could have sewn them on before I sewed the bag side seams but after I put in the zipper.

The top flange in the picture is the inside, the lower one is the outside.

 

The tabs and straps were made by knife edging the fabric around the stiffener. I sometimes reinforce my straps and tabs with wire or other material that resists casual cutting, especially if I’m planning to take the bag overseas, but I didn’t bother this time.

 

I generally find it’s a good idea to leave about 1/8in fold of just fabric past the stiffener, as it makes the strap easier to topstitch. In the same way, I tend to trim the stiffener at the ends so I’m not sewing through multiple layers when it comes time to attach the straps and tabs.

 The bag lining is generally sewn in by hand, by folding over the top edge and slipstitching. I could machine stitch it in, but it’s a bit fiddly, especially with this very stiff stiffening. Sometimes I machine stitch after I’ve hand stitched, for extra strength.

So that’s it. I’ll show you the bag next time, once I’ve finished off the last little bit. I’m thinking that, next time, it might be good to add a hole with a large eyelet in one of the inner pockets, so I can put in a key ring. Then I can snap my keys on their extender to the key ring. At the moment, I clip the extender to the pocket and that doesn’t do the fabric of the pocket any good. I suspect I’ll be twiddling the pattern for this bag for a long time to come!