Local & Bespoke

January 12, 2015 · 5:54 pm

Home made mending kits

On a visit to relatives not so long ago, I discovered that an entire family were depending on a single tin of buttons and needles and thread for mending. When we visited, I was called on to assist in mending and when the tin could not be found–repairs could not be made. I decided that this was not good enough. So when we got home, I made up two mending kits to add to the family resources, as two members of the family are reaching the fledging stage of life. Each comes with a Pohutukawa-leaf needle case, a seam ripper, thread, buttons, and a few other basics.

Pohutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa) is native to Aotearoa/New Zealand and widely grown in Australia. Here is the interior view of one of the needle case. They are simple: two layers of leaf-printed wool blanketing, blanket-stitched together. The leaves gave completely different prints on each side, so the outside of the needle case is one side of the leaf and the inside is a print from the other side.

This kit makes use of a tin left behind by recent Austrian visitors. It contained a rather delicious Austrian chocolate covered delicacy, but not for long! I’m delighted to find the next use for this tin. This kit was big enough to also fit a pre-loved darning mushroom.

These little kits have found their way to their new homes by mail–I received a text message of thanks today. And now, I’ll finish on a gratuitous koala picture.

The appearance of this amazing creature on a Manchurian pear tree at my place of work is not a good sign. It arrived in a period of extreme heat and little rainfall, no doubt seeking water (and fame, I’m sure–in the bush, koalas are much further away and very hard to photograph effectively–JOKE!). Over the years a koala has turned up in this spot once in a while–presumably the same one–and water is provided. In a day or two, it heads back to the nearby eucalypts, since koalas have a very narrow dietary range. Sometimes one or two can be sighted from a glass walkway up on the second floor, hanging out in the treetops, to equal fascination on the part of passing humans. Enjoy!

8 Comments

Filed under Leaf prints, Natural dyeing, Sewing

Tagged as dyeing, friendship is the best form of wealth, think globally, wool

January 11, 2015 · 3:35 pm

Summer Indigo 3: Happy endings and learnings

One of the fun things about doing a vat dye is watching the transformation through its many stages. With indigo, even more so–because of the magical qualities of the dye–yellow while in solution in the vat but turning blue as soon as the fibre enters the air and oxygen reaches it, paired with the process involving multiple dips to build up depth of shade. Given my friend’s generosity with the camera, here are a few efforts to follow specific items through the process.

Cotton t-shirt with rubber band and loom band resist: before…

After…

Lacy shirt rolled around a bottle and tied:

Pair of pants wrapped around a piece of garden hose and tied:

Screws tied into calico:

Really tightly tied!

There was a spectacular effect when they were untied–but it was temporary–the binding was so tight that air hadn’t reached the inside pleats despite rinsing and time on the line!

Marbles and rubber bands in a yellow t shirt:

So, given that all indigo vats are going to be learning experiences for me, possibly for the rest of my life… what did I notice and what did I learn? Preparation of the fructose vat a day earlier worked well and this experience gave me confidence to try this process again and keep experimenting.

This time, I tried to hold onto what I learned from the last one: to trust my judgment about when to stop. I am a beginner at this process. But, limited as it is, my judgment is what I currently have, and judgment is there to be developed. In my experience as a teacher, judgment is one of the most difficult, yet most important, things to acquire–but at least in dyeing the repercussions of poor judgment are more limited than in an operating theatre or a court! This time, no evidence of crocking.

Some things were pale blue even after several dips. All of the calico items that went into the fructose vat, for instance. I like the colour, but had not expected this. I noticed that most of the items that only went into the fructose vat remained pale shades. Some went from there to the colour run remover process when the fructose vat needed a rest–they were deeper.

This might have been because the natural indigo in the fructose vat gave a different outcome to the synthetic indigo in the colour run remover vats. It might have been due to the difference in processes or some failure of my understanding of the fructose process resulting in the oxygen not being sufficiently removed from the vat–though the colour of the vat was good. It now occurs to me that I could have tested this by adding hydrosulphite to the exhaust of the fructose vat when I really couldn’t get much colour from it two days later. Next time?

It might have meant the calico had a treatment that resisted dyeing–but other fabrics also came out pale. We did dye a LOT of materials–and perhaps the fructose vat ran low on indigo. It was in a bigger container so may have received more fabric (and more oxygen). But I had an exhaust vat extravaganza two days later and the colour run remover vats still gave colour–one in particular dyed quite a quantity of wool (after adjustment of the Ph to a level more suitable for protein fibres).

Mmm… the indigo vat curiosity and the love continue… here, the fructose vat gets a cuddle as it warmly rests.

12 Comments

Filed under Dyefastness, Natural dyeing

Tagged as blue glorious blue, friendship is the best form of wealth, indigo

January 9, 2015 · 3:34 pm

Summer Indigo 2: Dyeing and the colour run remover vats

When the big day arrived, I had more company than initially expected, with two of our beloved friends staying with us and keen to try indigo, and more coming over. I have to say, I am intimidated by indigo and it was a holiday project that kept me nervous, planning this indigo dyeing day. What if it didn’t work out? What if my ignorance trumped my effort? What if people were bored? What if nothing worked and people’s things were ruined? The funny thing about fret is that so often it has me focused on myself and my overdeveloped sense of responsibility, and that’s neither sensible, nor fun, nor realistic. How could I even temporarily forget how wonderful my friends are, in the face of fret? Everyone who came knew at least some of the other folk and it was such a generous and friendly gathering. One of my near and dear spent the day taking photographs, so a big thanks to her for those that follow…

We practised our skills at getting fabric into and out of the dye without adding needless oxygen.

This time I had a dependable thermometer and used it!

I also now have a Ph meter. My dear Dad asked what I wanted for my birthday last year and when I said I wanted a Ph meter but wasn’t sure where to get one he had the answer!!! You don’t know him, but eBay, my friends, is the answer to a shocking number of things for Dad…

There wasn’t just the fructose vat. I have decided that aiming for fermentation and fructose vats is a good long term goal for environmental, health and all kinds of other reasons (pure curiosity, for a start…) and I am growing woad and indigofera australis and Japanese indigo. However, I have decided that in the interim, colour run remover (mostly sodium hydrosulphite) can rescue failures in my judgment and experience and save wastage of indigo. Since I have some synthetic indigo, I decided to use that in any hydrosulphite vats as it may not be so suitable for fermentation or fructose vats. There was a lot of fabric when everyone piled in–so I set up two hydrosulphite vats and was delighted not to need to use hydrosulphite to troubleshoot the fructose vat.

This is something-or-other coming out of one colour run remover vat quite yellow and beginning to turn blue as the air strikes it. For these vats, I tried Jenny Dean’s recipe for a colour run remover indigo vat from Wild Colour. It worked really well and uses washing soda, a much milder alkali than some proposed in other books. It’s also designed for colour run remover and not pure hydrosulphite–and that is what I had. The fructose vat smells MUCH better!

I love this process of transformation! The best item of all for this effect was a pair of pants tied around a length of garden hose. It was long enough to be yellow at one end, green in the middle and various shades of blue as it slowly emerged from the pot. My friends had been out researching techniques for resist–so there was stitching, wrapping, bundling, string, thread, rubber bands–and even wax resist, some applied with a biscuit cutter and some freehand.

With three vats going, and regular monitoring of temperature and Ph and so on, the scene at the clothes line kept changing.

There were whole-garment makeovers, a purpose made bag, scrap fabrics, an opportunistic bag makeover and the pieces for a pair of pants yet to be made.

The shades kept changing–wet to dry and dip to dip.

…Until finally we had done all we could do and time to head to our various homes started to arrive. Then there was a lot of undoing and exclaiming… and I’ll save that for another post!

18 Comments

Filed under Natural dyeing

Tagged as blue glorious blue, cotton, friendship is the best form of wealth, indigo, linen, rayon

January 7, 2015 · 3:29 pm

Summer Indigo 1: Preparation of fructose vat and fabrics

I’ve had indigo on my mind (oh, and on my fingers, too!). I’d been planning a summer indigo dyeing day with a bunch of locals–and there are folk at the Guild who want to try indigo too. I was keen to try the fructose vat again. My last experiment with the fructose indigo vat involved some errors on my part… so I decided on treating it (and all other indigo vats) as a learning experience and trying again. I love the idea of being able to run an indigo vat without using sodium hydrosulphite, and I also love the idea of being able to use local fruit and even the leftovers from jam or other uses of fruit to prepare a vat, thus wasting nothing. This is what the fructose vat has to offer… So, I took up Maiwa’s instruction sheet for Michel Garcia’s fructose vat, and began. I am just so delighted to have access to Michel Garcia’s wisdom on this subject. You can see the instructions as a blog post here or a downloadable pdf here.

I decided to make a starter: beginning with a concentrated solution first and adding it into the larger vat later. The instructions on hydrating the indigo with marbles in a plastic jar are just such genius… so I started there. I also decided to start the day before I planned dyeing with my group of friends–this was one part of the instructions I missed last time. Soon my strong solution was ready. Freshly mixed:

And then… the magic started!

I mixed the starter into the larger vat and then contrived a very sophisticated system for overnight: a very big bucket with a towel and my two woollen dye blankets inside for insulation, then the vat. Wrapped for the night!

Next morning… it all looked rather fabulous!

In the meantime, I’d been plying my needle during various festive gatherings.

Can you see the half-circles in the half-light?

I read Vivien Prideaux’s A Handbook of Indigo Dyeing and tried out some of her ideas in a rather less precise manner than she proposes. Essentialy, I decided that anything I could prepare to dye in advance was a bonus and precision was the least of my concerns. her ideas were very helpful.

I had so much calico from my most recent inheritance I really just stitched whenever I could find time and interest…

And piled up a little stack of fabric in preparation.

13 Comments

Filed under Natural dyeing, Sewing

Tagged as blue glorious blue, cotton, indigo

January 5, 2015 · 8:19 am

Plant loving action with galahs

One of my beloved tree banners came down a while back, so I have laundered it and decided to re-apply it. The leaf print border has faded very much over the months it has spent in the full sun and weather, but the eucalyptus dyed silk thread I used to stitch the lettering onto it has remained a good strong colour.

As I stood holding string, arms spread wide, I looked up in appreciation of the tree and realised we had supervision, or at least, company!

One of the women who was part of the government department managing the infrastructure project that took hundreds of trees from our neighbourhood organised dozens of bird boxes. She negotiated a collaboration between primary school children, who painted the boxes (this one has a frog on it) and scientists, who are studying the birds in our area by checking on these boxes (hence the number on its base).

It looks like these galahs have been taking advantage of her foresight and dedication. I had noticed galahs in our neighbourhood, and an even more unusual pair of yellow tailed black cockatoos who have been passing through, but did not realise these galahs might have taken up residence here. Wonderful!

Another part of what has happened in the aftermath is the roll out of revegetation. There is an area nearby where lots of plants have gone in, but at critical times, like when the farmer’s market is operating, cars park on the smaller plants or simply ignore the larger ones and bend them over. Last week someone dumped garden waste on two more. I have collected all the garden waste over two visits and the plants have survived that… but we don’t want any more to die. In fact, as you know, we’ve been adding to the existing stock, quietly…

So this week I decided to get onto the project. I pulled out the bunting I’d used to protect my plantings in another spot during the royal show, ironed and mended, and when we had fellow plant lovers visiting–all of us went down with tools and gloves and created what I hope will be a friendly reminder that this is a garden and not a parking lot. The ‘no standing’ signs in the next street over haven’t stopped people parking there… but hopefully this will help some of the low growing plants survive to get big enough to be visible from a car and let people know the neighbourhood cares for this patch.

10 Comments

Filed under Craftivism, Eucalypts

Tagged as E Camaldulensis, friendship is the best form of wealth, galah

January 3, 2015 · 10:40 am

Some endings

Before the end of the year, we had a trip to Melbourne and I finally finished some socks I’ve been carrying around for quite a while. the triumphant moment when I grafted them occurred in a wonderful tea house our niece took us to. She humours me as much as her aunt, so I recorded the moment for posterity (that would really mean, your viewing pleasure).

I should admit that I don’t drink tea, so was very surprised to find myself relishing an iced peppermint and liquorice tea. It was a lovely afternoon. I have also finished the last of 2014’s (or was it 2013’s?) indigo dyed wool. The last was polwarth. I seem to recall I ran out of patience, which is always bad when you are handling wet wool, worse with fine wool, and possible only made still worse if also dealing with indigo. Let me further confess, some felting resulted, which will not surprise other spinners. This was the last of it, and I decided to just card it up and spin it lumps and all. I have been drawing batts through a diz to make a roving.

Rolled up roving:

Spinning in progress, including lumps as promised! I feel sure there are more felted slippers in my future…

So, here they are. The last 3 skeins… all different shades, some first dyed with coreopsis or osage orange, and some involving quite a bit better spinning and plying than others!

2 Comments

Filed under Fibre preparation, Knitting, Natural dyeing, Spinning

Tagged as blue, coreopsis flowers, polwarth, wool, yarn

January 1, 2015 · 4:40 pm

Solstice bag extravaganza

As alert readers may have noticed, from time to time I get onto a theme and just keep going. Bags are one such recurring theme, and in the quiet time on this blog a lot of bags got made. You have only seen the first few. It went on to become what I whimsically refer to as ‘a bag jag’. I am susceptible.

I started on scraps that were on the floor and scaled up to long saved remnants and fabrics bought as offcuts, garments saved for re-use… and from there just kept going.

Why not use some of the bark cloth curtains? What am I saving them for? What about those bits purchased at the op shop? That rolled up set of print scraps I picked up at a garage sale one time? Why not interface the openings with the scrap canvas I collected when I used to dumpster dive that canvas place on the way home from work? You get the picture. Before long there was this.

Then I made more and some went to be Hannukah and Solstice and Christmas gifts so quickly they were not even photographed. In the end I decided to go for it and just kept making with a view to taking them to my friends’ solstice party/picnic/clothes swap/pinata in the park. It was a fun thing to do, and a fabulous evening as always, it made me smile to see some folks’ surprise that someone had made them just to give away, and I now have none of these bags left, and a marginally smaller stash of fabrics!

6 Comments

Filed under Neighbourhood pleasures, Sewing

Tagged as bags, canvas, cotton, friendship is the best form of wealth

December 30, 2014 · 4:30 pm

Leaf print experiments

I’ve been trying leaves I don’t usually use and some different strategies for cooking them up. Prunus leaves, kindly contributed by this block of flats. I am sure they wouldn’t mind!

Maple… I think this is Japanese maple.

I have tried several different sheoaks.

Some of the results are really spectacular. My favourite is quite green, very exciting.

Here it is beside the prunus prints.

They are pretty pale…

The maple leaves were interesting, and I love the impression of the string ties. And this sheoak came out better than any other so far. I tried 6he leaves out on a linen collar, and wrapped it around a rusty spring I found in my leaf gathering travels. This bundle was so small I overlooked it, so this one had a long time in the pot, which is no doubt a clue for future experiments.

Some results were less exciting. I did get a pale green print from our birch leaves, which is a first and might be promising.

I went back for more juvenile E Polyanthemos and this time, not so great prints resulted, but I did get some that were quite green, and that’s promising too.

Meanwhile, the saga of the neighbourhood bees continues. The lorikeets moved out of this nesting box, and the bees moved in weeks ago. There is now honeycomb visible in the opening.

8 Comments

Filed under Dye Plants, Leaf prints, Natural dyeing, Neighbourhood pleasures

Tagged as agonis flexuosa, cotton, E Polyanthemos, linen, maple, prunus, sheoak

December 28, 2014 · 4:21 pm

Bark dyes

What with all the bark collecting there’s been… there have been some bark dye pots too.

I smash the bark up small, the better to create a nice, strong dye.

After heating, I get something more like this…

For some reason the light out the back is making things look less spectacular rather than more spectacular (as is my camera’s usual tendency) as we head into summer–but as you can see I have scaled up to colour separation… grading the colours and carding them separately. One of my friends put me onto this strategy and I just love it. She’s very clever about colour and I feel lucky to have the benefit of her wisdom.

And then carding…

And more carding… and finally spinning, which is underway. I hope your holiday season has treated you well and the new year is looking promising. I think this kind of preparation, time consuming and sometimes boring as it is, always makes me think that promising things are in the future, and this is a year in which the collective project at our place involves focusing on optimism. I will gratefully accept tips!