Tag Archives: cotton

December 10, 2015 · 1:07 pm

Spring Sewing Circle 2

This time, a little more about dyes and dyeing at the Spring Sewing Circle. In the main street of Mansfield, there was a great two colour display of pansies. I am not sure what the passersby made of me deadheading the purple pansies… I suspect no one noticed from their car. I took them along to the day’s sewing circle with me after they had spent a night in the freezer and this produced an impromptu class in dye chemistry from India.

Once a selection from the three kinds of water available had been made, I tucked the remainder of the blooms into some raw silk (the pocket bag from an op shop suit).

Into a clean yoghurt tub they went with some silk thread.

The colour got bluer…

Overnight it became turquoise.

It came home in my bags, and surprise! The water at home really does have the capacity to create greens. My last experience of this was not an accident or a one off. Thread that had been quite blue and fabric that had been purple and blue went green immediately on rinsing. I’m not complaining–these are great colours!

There were many incidental marvellings at the beauty of plants and fabrics…

I had a lesson in mordants I hadn’t used before, and some help with my issues with milk. Very exciting. Sure to lead to all manner of future experiments.

I had an unexpected visit to a laundrette (laundromat?) on the day I left home, and found one just doors from a rather good op shop that benefits Medecins Sans Frontieres. I spent the time my quilt was washing there and scored a long sleeved t shirt, which was the subject of these experiments. Greens… oranges… iron…

Using this technique for all-over colour and pattern is something I notice others doing to great effect but often don’t attempt. I’ve realised that when buying fabric I tend to plain colours or picture prints, and evidently I have carried this over into my own dyeing. Workshops are for learning so I tried stepping away from my habits a bit. It’s interesting to observe how entrenched some of my habits are.

The back of the t shirt. These last two photos show the garment laundered and dry.

For those who can’t resist the idea of pictures of food… picture this as afternoon tea! Extraordinary. India turns out to have the kind of fine cooking skills capable of making everything delectable. She also has the capacity to turn a few ingredients that might be mere sustenance in other hands (I am not knocking sustenance) into something irresistibly delicious. Macaroni and cheese much better than a restaurant meal. Just saying. We have an onion, garlic and dairy free household and India was kind enough to load me up with garlic and butter and other fabulous things we can’t share at home for the duration. Such happy pleasures for me and such generosity and skill from her.

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Filed under Dye Plants, Leaf prints, Natural dyeing

Tagged as catalpa, cotton, E Crenulata, friendship is the best form of wealth, India Flint, pansy, silk, silk thread

November 25, 2015 · 9:53 am

Summer festival of mending 2

I followed all that mendbroidery up with replacing the pocket bags on a pair of pants I made, apparently in 2010 (there is a cryptic note in my notebook but no fabric scrap stapled beside it). They are Vogue 2698, though I have no aspiration to the studied ennui of the model on the envelope, nor her slenderness. I butchered the welt pockets when I made these pants, and haven’t made a welt pocket since! Just the same, there are some nice touches, like the home made bias binding made from recycled ties. I went all out on some of the finishing.

The pocket bags were made from one of my grandma’s many scarves. No one wanted them after she died. So I took her scarves home and have since used them for all kinds of things. I am not close to running out, and years have passed.

She had some real commitments in fashion of which her dedication to scarves worn with a gold coloured ring to hold them in position at her throat was only one. In her lifetime she was an accomplished dressmaker and had trained in millinery. She had made many a lovely outfit as well as curtains and every other household requirement. In my lifetime, she loved things that didn’t crease above all else. She adored crimplene from the point of its becoming available (she was an early adopter!) and made herself 100% polyester caftans. Perhaps some of those long shapeless dresses were even muu muus! As she lost her sight she kept sewing until it became impossible for her. Even after she became unable to use her machine, she had a friend thread needles for her and kept a stash in a curtain in her bedroom where they were easy to find with her fingers, for little jobs. She taught me how to hem a handkerchief when I was a small child and set me to English (paper) piecing with her scraps. After she went blind, she gave me her overlocker, which I am still using (she’d love that, and expect no less). She had taught left handers to crochet, and it was a lifetime achievement she mentioned to me more than once. She had made more coathanger covers from polyester ribbon than anyone else in her town.

But I digress… The pockets had given way most spectacularly in places. There was nothing for it but a complete rip out and retrofit. Not my idea of a good time, I confess. Off with the belt loops! Out with the pocket bags! And on and on it went until I had nice, plain, bottle green, intact pocket bags. The mending doesn’t remedy any of the original defects of the garment, but that’s a pair of work pants for summer I can wear without showing off parts of me that shouldn’t be on display. I did a quicker, less dramatic mend on the other pair I made the same year to address small holes in the pockets, and that’s some big items off my list. But there are more, my friends. There are more.

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Filed under Sewing

Tagged as cotton, mend and make do, think globally

November 23, 2015 · 10:58 am

Summer festival of mending 1

Since the weather began to turn, it has felt as though every second piece of clothing I want to wear requires mending. One of the good things about having this place set up for sewing is that I can mend seams that have come apart while the iron is warming up, and put a stitch here or a stitch there, replace a vanished button or stitch down a hook or eye very quickly and easily. However, some of my favourite things require quite a bit more attention. I warmed up on a calico bag that turned out to have unfinished seams fraying on the inside. How many years has this been kicking around? I have no idea, and my beloved who presumably brought it into our mutual stash didn’t either. Brisbane community radio’s little image of radio lovin’ will be with us for some more years yet.

Then there is the dingo flourbag shirt, made from Fremantle flour mill flourbags that once had red dingoes printed on them. It took some effort to track down my notes–I made this shirt in 2004 from bags a friend gave me when she left for the US for some years of international peace activism and adventure. So long ago! Before I learned to spin. Before socks took over my notebooks! No sign of the red dingo anymore, it washed out years ago. McCall’s 9579 in M is now a gardening shirt with a collar that has worn right through. I didn’t really want to turn it because the other side is thin too. I added a strip of well worn, soft kimono fabric and stitched it down.

Then there was the matter of the upper fronts. This is where the flour bag was stitched closed with a large gauge needle and string. Just the same, it has lasted for many years, but I think not much longer.

So, I basted down some patches on the inside (this one is part of a threadbare napkin) and started stitching. Thanks to Jude Hill for this fabulous basting technique.

And kept stitching with madder and eucalyptus dyed thread.

Then moved over to the other side and kept going with carrot top thread and eucalyptus and madder dyed thread. I am rich in lovely thread! It makes me want to stitch!

In all honesty, I am not sure I’m finished stitching. But this is the prettiest mending I have ever done!

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Filed under Sewing

Tagged as cotton, silk thread, think globally

November 9, 2015 · 10:49 am

Workwear for a suburban guerilla gardener

Some months ago I had an idea. I thought I would embroider my gardening shirt, or one of them. Once I had the idea, I couldn’t let it go.

I had my beloved’s gift of Japanese indigo dyed thread and it felt so perfect for the job…

But when I spoke with a friend about it she gently suggested that investing so much time and effort in something on the verge of falling apart might not be wise use. She is a wise woman and gentleness is her way.

I began thinking of the fabrics I already had, offcuts of linen, canvas and stout cottons. It occurred to me that I had a Merchant and Mills pattern (The Top #64) that struck me as pieced, and that called for quite stout fabrics. I thought over a kind comment here on the blog about using more than one type of fabric as a potential feature rather than a problem (thankyou!). I started dyeing more fabric.

And so two sets of offcuts from different generous friends found their way into various dyepots.

I found that I didn’t have pieces big enough for the pattern pieces anyway–even with front and back each being made up of 4 different pieces of fabric, some parts of this garment were still pieced together from smaller segments.

And now, here it is. Embroidered with dye plants of the neighbourhood and the names of plants I have been propagating and planting.

And a few other phrases of note. There may be more yet to come! And now you know how I came by so many scraps that I needed to Make patchwork as I went…

20 Comments

Filed under Leaf prints, Natural dyeing, Neighbourhood pleasures, Sewing

Tagged as cotton, E Cinerea, E Scoparia, friendship is the best form of wealth, guerilla gardening, linen, maple, prunus, woad

November 4, 2015 · 12:11 pm

Scrappy patchwork

In the strange cauldron that is my mind, what Block Party calls ‘wonky log cabin’ and what Slow Stitch calls ‘distorted log cabin’ suddenly became very compelling recently. This was the first one.

I think the triggering factors were some dyeing that really didn’t work out as I had hoped (as you heard in my last post)–some of which became the foundation for foundation piecing and some of which became strips for the log cabin itself–and cutting out and piecing a garment.

I don’t know what it is about offcuts that is so distracting to me that they take precedence over the garment or project that they are offcuts from… but this has become a theme. I think I am beginning to understand that these themes in making are not problematic and don’t require resistance. They might instead be what makes my work my own and not someone else’s. I love that this piecing strategy lets me use the odd triangular shapes that I have been struggling to use, and sometimes regretfully trimming off in the creation of squares or rectangles.

Here, they are perfect. In fact, they drive the effect in a rather lovely way.

The other happy feature is that instead of sighing and thinking ‘this is all I have left of that piece of fabric’, I can think…

‘Here is the start of something wonderful’! It is also an opportunity to use really well worn fabrics. In this case, a cotton kimono sent home from my mother-out-law. She clearly struggles with throwing away treasured threadbare fabrics and so I have been receiving gifts from her more and more regularly as the wish to have her cupboards clear has been growing in her. High quality fabrics that have seen decades of use. Damask napkins that have worn right through and which I’ve been using to interface embroidery. Cottons that make a great foundation fabric but no longer have enough integrity to become a smaller garment or even a lining. And the occasional treasure that she just can’t figure out how to use.

I am really not sure what she would make of these blocks! She loves the eco prints and has an eco print bag I am told she uses a lot. But it might still be tough to see her cherished kimono become an underlayer!

11 Comments

Filed under Natural dyeing, Sewing

Tagged as cotton, linen

October 12, 2015 · 9:18 am

Small sewing achievements

I had a triumph with the rolled hem foot for my sewing machine recently. (I celebrate all victories great and small). I weakened on my pledge not to buy more fabric when I saw William Morris lawn, and bought 40 cm. Home made hankies. I haven’t made any for years. I remember hand hemming handkerchiefs as a project with my grandmother. She knew children should be seen and not heard! But she also liked to share her skills and upgrade ours, and I think she loved the fact that I was keen to learn. My sisters were less enthusiastic, and better at sport than stitchery. The other grandmother thought playing in the garden was a fine thing for children, and her garden had chooks and passionfruit in it, always an incentive!

Another recent project has been dealing with the ironing board. How did it spring a hole??? No one here is claiming responsibility.

The new one is a bark cloth I’ve had for years since it came home from an op shop. I can’t tell whether it was a little curtain or perhaps a cloth for a small table. It was hemmed in a very parsimonious way, presumably by someone else who thought this was a pretty lovely fabric.

So easy and satisfying! Instructions can be found here, and demonstrate that my last cover lasted only a year. Hopefully this fabric hasn’t been pinned over a window… or I will be making another cover all too soon.

And finally, all the bits and pieces of upholstery weight fabric that have been slowly coming together into this

I mean, this… (we have this cat on loan. Most of the time she is delightful, though she has different ideas than I do about what should be done with paper patterns, yarn, thread, fabric and other things that cause us both excitement).

Have now become yet another bag, of suitable heft and gloriousness. I have a feeling it won’t be warming my place for long.

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Filed under Sewing

Tagged as cotton, gifts, linen

October 4, 2015 · 2:55 pm

Laptop sleeve

It all began with a whirlwind surprise visit from my daughter. She was not especially interested in going out or doing anything special. The special was spending time together, and I shared her point of view, so we ate from the garden and lurked about. She asked about this:

It’s part of a pram, or perhaps a baby carrier for a car… abandoned by the tram line some time ago. I picked it up a week or two ago thinking I could at least put it in our bin. But then I got to thinking about whether there could be re-use for the straps at least, and recycling of some of the parts (there is quite a bit of aluminium). Picturing the effort required led to delay! However, since we were sitting chatting and the weather had turned warm, out came scissors, screwdrivers, the hacksaw… and soon I had three piles for rubbish, re-use and recycling. Company and conversation are wonderful.

Then we had a chat about whether there was anything she would like me to make and she asked for a laptop sleeve. So some of the polyester batting came back out of the bin!

She chose some of the upholstery fabric offcuts I still have lying about, and a cotton flanellette covered in little birds that must once have been a cot sheet for the lining.

There was measuring calculating and and ironing and quilting of the most basic sort and mitre-ing of corners. Pretty soon, there was a laptop sleeve.

It fits and it will protect… and she loves it!

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Filed under Sewing

Tagged as cotton, gifts, hemp, think globally

October 1, 2015 · 1:37 pm

An outbreak of bags

Apparently one bag leads to another. At least, it does for me! Part of this rash of bags was brought on by a bit of op shopping–I found a packet of venetian blind cord and having such suitable cord made my fingers itch.

These are linen scraps gifted to me some time ago. The lining is recycled, eucalyptus printed raw silk.

Maple leaf prints paired with scrap denim from making jeans. One pair of jeans led to several others–but that was some years ago now and I lost my nerve!

The lining is from the lining of a second hand jacket.

Can I stop at three???

12 Comments

Filed under Leaf prints, Sewing

Tagged as cotton, linen, silk

September 27, 2015 · 4:01 pm

Stitching up a storm

It began with a beloved tree banner for a tree that lost its long standing banner during the Royal Show. Hopefully it went to another beloved tree. The whim took me one night, so I found some calico gifted by a friend and interfaced it with a handkerchief that had passed the point of no return.

Pretty soon, I had a banner ready to tie on. The silk thread was dyed a little while back, wrapped around a piece of E Scoparia bark from the very tree this banner is destined to adorn. Before:

After:

And here’s the banner!

Somehow the same night I machine stitched the banner together I decided to finally break out the glorious Japanese indigo dyed cotton thread my beloved brought home from a recent trip to Japan. With pictures of the master dyer and his family, and of the workshop. And some hand woven indigo dyed fabric. Oh my! It could take me years to decide what to do with it!

Pretty soon I’d made this panel and started to have all kinds of ideas about what might happen to it next.

But in the meantime I was keen to make a gift for a friend who had recently given me all the linen, canvas and cotton left from her days in art school.

It’s lined with part of a raw silk suit a different friend found for me at an op shop.

Done just in time to see her today!

And… here is the banner in situ.

The tree is in the process of shedding bark right now. And just as beautiful as ever.

8 Comments

Filed under Craftivism, Leaf prints, Natural dyeing, Neighbourhood pleasures, Sewing

Tagged as cotton, E Scoparia, silk

September 3, 2015 · 9:39 am

For the love of simple embroidery

This is the last in my series of three little bags rendered much more lovely through embroidery (and indigo).

I have been really surprised to find that I can embroider on the bus (and of course, at the bus stop). Admittedly, there is nothing complex about my embroidery!

Also, it is easier than I thought to travel with simple embroidery, once you decide that is what you want to do. I have been tucking a reel of thread or two into the bag along with an old dental floss sample (for the cutter), digging my needle into the work, and wrapping the whole lot around the needle. Then into bag or pocket and we are away.

It has slowed down the public transport sock knitting somewhat. But I am back to the regularly scheduled public transport socks now!

I ended up virtually covering this bag in stitches dyed with indigo, indigofera australis, plum pine, eucalyptus, osage orange and random other local plant experiments. I realise this is super simple embroidery… but for most of my life I would not have considered doing it, and nor would I have thought it possible I would enjoy it. I do love the plant dyed threads. I have enjoyed turning this lowly calico bag from a container for soap nuts into something worth looking at twice. But I think I have to credit India Flint, Roz Hawker, Jude Hill and Isobel McGarry with persuading me that hand stitching is pleasurable and worthwhile. Not that they were trying to do this… But sometimes people rub off on one another, in a good way, even at considerable distance!

18 Comments

Filed under Natural dyeing, Sewing

Tagged as cotton, indigo, silk thread

Tag Archives: cotton

Spring Sewing Circle 2

Summer festival of mending 2

Summer festival of mending 1

Workwear for a suburban guerilla gardener

Scrappy patchwork

Small sewing achievements

Laptop sleeve

An outbreak of bags

Stitching up a storm

For the love of simple embroidery

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