Tag Archives: cotton

December 9, 2013 · 10:31 am

Of leaves and linking opportunities

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It was a weekend of leaf printing… and more about that later, since there were some expected outcomes as well as some surprises!  But meanwhile… India Flint, whose techniques I am trying to use to create these prints (though as they say in the classics, all failures are my own work), has a brilliant blog.  It is just as interesting and informative as on previous occasions when I’ve linked to it, but currently India is inviting people to post what they would like her to write about.  So, should you wish to take up this opportunity, click here and contribute to the conversation!

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November 27, 2013 · 5:09 pm

Handwoven cotton shirt

I have had a shirt in progress for a few weeks, and recently it reached completion.

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I bought this handwoven cotton at Beautiful Silks in Melbourne some time ago.  It takes quite some skill to go into that treasure trove of beauty and colour and come out with something so plain (and not made of silk), but apparently that is one of my superpowers.  I didn’t have quite enough for all the pattern pieces, so used some scraps from my skirt for the inside cuffs.  I have made this shirt in order to have more than one top that works with the skirt, so I think this is a great feature, rather than a flaw.

The pattern is Vogue 2592, purchased many years ago. I worked back through my records, such as they are, and found I first made it in red linen (it turned out to be stretch linen–which I did not appreciate in the shop at the time)–in 2004.  I am still wearing that shirt with just one hand mend where the lower edge of the button band had come adrift.  Turns out I am still wearing shirts I made as far back as 2002, though some have worn through or gone to other owners in that period .

The buttons came into my stash from the op shop.

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Not only had they been saved from a shirt that has presumably gone to become rag, but they had been lovingly stitched onto recycled card.  I think the women who tend the Save the Children op shop on Goodwood Road must have been responsible for this thorough act of rescue.  The craft supplies section of their shop is organised and priced by people who know what they are dealing with and who value recycling.

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I appreciate their efforts.  I didn’t have enough of these buttons for the cuffs, but it’s likely no one will ever notice that the cuffs have round buttons unless one of us tells them…

I ran out of thread just about buttonholing time and so had an unexpected trip for more thread.  In case anyone from southern Adelaide is reading (I know there are a few!)… only blocks from Spotlight Melrose Park (near Castle Plaza) and just off South Road is the independently owned Tricia’s Discount Fabrics.

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In case you don’t know it and want to–Tricia has been running this shop a very long time.  It no longer focuses on dancewear and knits (though there are neon and metallic look knits and chiffon to be had).  Instead she caters to quilters as a priority, though there are plenty of other fabrics too.  She has a gigantic range, far bigger than Spotlight or Lincraft (these are our ‘big box’ stores, if you’re reading in North America).  She’s in an old industrial building, one of several she has occupied over the years, with a suitably glamourous entry:

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She also has a huge range of notions and quilting gear, quilting books and thread.  She rivals any quilting shop I’ve been into in our city for range but without associated glamour.  And she gave no glimmer of a frown when I just purchased my reel of thread.  She is knowledgeable and I live in hope her conditions of work and pay are a whole lot better than those notorious at Spotlight.  I guarantee the queue is a lot shorter!

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October 9, 2013 · 10:10 am

Leaf print bags

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The bag making has been continuing.  This is a simple, unlined bag made from recycled heavyweight garment fabrics–parts of an old pair of hemp shorts and some recycled men’s cotton twill trousers.  Last year I went to a huge Red Cross sale where entire secondhand garments were $1 or $2.  I acquired all kinds of stained and/or worn pale coloured garments which I have been transforming.

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This, on the other hand, is a lined bag made of silk.  When I first bought and read India Flint’s Eco-Colour, I was immediately inspired and keen to try out her ideas and techniques, but finding silk and wool fabrics was quite a challenge.  I had been dyeing sheep fleece and woolen yarns.  I started out eco-printing with some fine gauzy silk and that was exciting enough to keep me going, though I was less than clear about how I could use it.  Then I found a length of Thai silk clearly purchased in Thailand and brought home to Australia which had somehow found its way to an op shop I like to comb through.  Many experiments followed, and they have been sitting rolled up in the sewing room for years now.

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The darker colour on some sections is red wine.  The splotchy random pattern–clearly not a leaf–on one piece really had me puzzled until I ironed it.  The smell was a giveaway.  Ah!  Onion skins!  That is what you can see on the top right of this bag.

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And the other side (with red wine on the strap)…

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I have constructed the linings from samples and less successful printing efforts on cottons…

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It’s very satisfying finally to put these samples to use.

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September 16, 2013 · 2:32 pm

Hatchling silkworms and other thrills

Last year, I bought five silk worms at a school fair and raised them into moths. Later, when I was wondering what to expect next, I had quite a conversation with a delightful woman in the Button Bar in the Adelaide Arcade, as you do.  I can’t remember how we got from the tea cosy she was knitting to silk worms, but somehow we did.  She told me to expect the eggs that resulted from a dalliance between a couple of my moths to hatch in September.  I remember thinking about this on 1 September.  Then on Friday 13 September I realised I had taken no action and sprinted down the hall to check on them and lo!  There were tiny black creatures wiggling around!  I made an immediate mercy dash to the nearest mulberry tree.  Can you make the hatchlings out?

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The hatchlings are the tiny black lines.  Those spots on the cardboard are eggs.  Today I conservatively estimate I have 50 silkworm hatchlings, and I have started working on finding some of them new homes.

Meanwhile, I have been on a bag jag… sewing loads more bags and taming [some of] my scrap collection.  I decided to photograph a lining in progress on the weekend, because what is more thrilling than a lining?

 

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Well, one of our chooks seemed to think so.  She could tell whatever was happening on the table was worth looking into, so she flew up immediately to check into it.  Regrettably, this was not an edible thrill from her point of view.

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Thrills come in very disparate packages, all depending on perspective… or so it seems to me!  Audrey finds earwigs a lot more thrilling than I do.

Meanwhile, I have taken the nettle stems back out of the retting bath (which this time certainly did go to the garden–) and set them out in the rain to rinse.  Since so much of my crafting takes place in crevices of time and is ordered by whim rather than a linear plan, I hope you’re managing to follow all these emerging themes …

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September 9, 2013 · 4:41 pm

Waste not, want not, with a side serving of the election

I live in a society so wealthy and so wasteful, in global context, that any selection of actions I make about waste reduction can feel a bit arbitrary.  I see so many missed opportunities every day!  But still the principle that waste should be avoided is beyond criticism, and the principle that I should do what I can, is likewise sound.  So this election night, I took the eucalyptus-printed silk/hemp scraps from my previous foray into shirtmaking (I was piecing them together back in this post) and the scraps of my skirt adventure, and created bags from them. I love bags.  I love making them, giving them and carrying them around.  I seldom leave home with less than three, a curious fact I’ve decided to relax about.

Skirt bag 1: has already gone to an enthusiastic new owner who cooked a fabulous dinner for us last night:

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Skirt bag 2 is with me now and soon to be introduced to someone I am confident will like it:

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I decided to line the hemp/silk bags on account of the method of piecing I had chosen and being unsure of the fabric’s propensity to wear.  I had leftover silk noil from various workshops and from making pillowcases.  Apologies for the dodgy pictures taken after dark, indoors, with a flash.  Some bloggers are so impatient!

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There were some small sample pieces that had indigo australis and local eucalyptus leaves printed onto them and then an iron afterbath in the Blue Mountains.  I took these pictures just before they vanished into the interior of the bags to be seen only by the new owners, whom I hope will enjoy having this treat inside their bags!  I personally am the kind of person who revels in pocket linings made of treasured fabrics, whether they are organic flour bags or were formerly part of my late Grandmother’s extensive scarf collection.  Needless to say, I love a bag lining with a story.

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I like these bags a lot. The weight of the fabric with the lining works well, to my way of thinking.  I could feel the urge to give these away before they were off the sewing machine, so here are pictures on an overcast morning!

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This next one has been rated suitable as a gift for my mother-out-law, who is apparently generous enough in her assessment of my skills to talk to her friends about my crafting sometimes.  She has friends who have been weavers and dyers for years.  She herself has been a wonderful garment creator for decades and keeps thinking she has given it up and then changing her mind, so her judgment may not be unbiased but I am flattered by it nonetheless.  Her bag has been finished with a strip from a heavy weight ramie shirt found at an op shop (thrift store)–beautiful fabric and sewing skill but an appalling garment I felt no compunction about cutting up and redeploying.  Most of it became another bag complete with interior welt/flap pockets which had been a beautifully crafted feature of the front of the shirt.  Sadly they were an offence against fashion even to me, and I don’t hold with fashion much!

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And for gratuitous images, I have these of our hens.  They don’t stand around waiting for their photos to be taken when there are earwigs to be found.

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However, they are glorious, and they are also blissfully ignorant of the election that was taking place the day I snapped their pictures.  We were planting and pruning and mowing and they were seeking insects and seeds.

I feel deeply sad that the people of my country have elected a government that thinks we need to pay less international aid to fund infrastructure here; that expresses routine contempt rather than compassion for refugees taking desperate measures to escape their mostly war torn homelands and get to our shores; that thinks roads are a higher priority than public transport; that cares little for renewable energy and plans to fund it less; and that has expressed little interest in participating in global efforts to halt or turn back environmental devastation or climate change.  Here’s India Flint on the subject, should you wish for more.  I haven’t made a habit of commenting on the state of our nation here, but I felt the need to mark the day.  There will be some serious further consideration given to the forms of action that might be needed in the coming period at our house and in our community of friends.  Thinking about the state of the world and our impact upon it, in all their complexity, will continue to be crucial.

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August 26, 2013 · 4:03 pm

A new skirt

I am not much of a skirt wearer, so I have not made myself a skirt for well over a decade.  I do remember making one for my daughter that she wanted to be very long and very swishy… I remember that hem going on forever!  Well.  Last summer I acquired a lovely skirt that I enjoyed wearing, so I have decided to branch out.  I found this beautiful fabric at The Drapery, a newly opened and lovely little shop I was keen to see and keen to support.  I am so glad I went.  It has a lovely selection of fabrics in fibres and designs I loved.  There are far fewer choices than in Spotlight… but far more I would like to actually sew with or wear.  And the women who are running it are delightful.

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This is a first instalment in my plans to make anything new I need for my summer wardrobe.  So far, so good, I think!  It is cut on the bias and lined.  I drafted the pattern from the skirt I like to wear. I bought enough fabric and then some for a simple A-line skirt but not quite enough to cut it on the bias.  I’ve pieced in a small section near the waist and I think it will work just fine.

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August 9, 2013 · 1:02 pm

Indigo dyeing

A while back, I did a workshop on Nigerian Indigo dyeing with CraftSouth.  The tutor was the fabulous Oluwole Oginni.  I highly recommend this workshop, part of a series of Traditional Craft Workshops.  Indigo dyeing wasn’t offered in 2012 but hopefully there will be another opportunity.

We used wax resists and then dyed with indigo, using several dips.

I turned some of the fabric I worked on into these fully lined bags.

The denim is from recycled jeans, one pair to each bag!  This pair are a hemp blend.

And since we’re here… a couple of gratuitous pictures of a poppy that came up in my garden.  I can’t really claim to have planted it, though it bears a strong resemblance to some blood poppies I grew years back from a gift of seed.  But it was beautiful, and the bees love these flowers.  It is winter here now and I have just a few of these poppies beginning life in the garden, which have escaped the caterpillars.  So here’s hoping for more flowers later in the year!

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August 5, 2013 · 8:11 pm

Small things…

They say ‘small things amuse small minds’. I think that if you can be amused by small things, you can be amused and delighted on a regular basis.  And that small things are often delightful.  Moss, for instance.

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This is such a small thing. I loved Cossack Design’s needle safe, and what with all the embroidery going on round here, I decided to make my own needle case.  I think the last one I made was created in my primary school years–both long gone. 
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I decided on golden stitching for the edges, so dyed some silk with Silky Oak (Grevillea Robusta) leaves.  A nod to Ida Grae of Nature’s Colors fame for the recipe, wherever she may now be.  Hopefully hale and hearty and dyeing away though apparently no longer publishing.  How wonderful that she figured out this dye plant–which is native to Australia–from California!

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Here is the thread…

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And the inside of the needle case. These two fine scraps of recycled woolen blanket and that lovely piece of cotton string saved for just such a special occasion have found happy homes at last.

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July 29, 2013 · 12:36 pm

Plum Pine 4: Washfastness

I decided the obvious way to test for washfastness was to wash.  So I embroidered with the plum pine fruit–no mordant–silk thread, and with the plum pine fruit-with alum and cream of tartar on a piece of cotton… and added a little eucalyptus dyed silk thread for good measure.  Not the best example of embroidery ever seen, but it will do the job.  The two upper examples were purple (like the thread on the cards) when they went into a normal wash–30C with eco-detergent.  One wash later, the no-alum sample is grey and the with-alum sample is green-grey.  Eucalyptus shows its true colours yet again.

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Yesterday I tried washing my sample cards at 40C with eco-balls (we have laundry variety here, as you will shortly understand) and they were still purple when they came out of the wash.  Interesting… this made me wonder if part of what is going on here about Ph.  Detergent would be more alkaline than eco-balls.

After 4 more washes:

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You might remember that I did some darning with my early silk samples.  They have not fared well either–but the mending is still doing the job!  The pink is still pink, but much faded after what I would guess as being about 8-10 washes.  The purple is blue, and paler.

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I knit some test samples from my yarns.  They fared better, washed with other woollens, cold with soapnuts rather than detergent (if anything, a slightly acidic wash).  The sample on the right has two shades of plum pine with alum and CoT on BWM alpaca rich, with a band of cotton used to tie the skeins in between because this yarn took so much colour during the dyeing I was curious.  The sample on the left has two shades of plum pine on patonyle (wool and nylon superwash sock yarn and a sample of handspun Wensleydale).  One has gone from purple to grey and the other from purple to blue.  Blue?  Before:

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After, with unwashed BWM Alpaca Rich in the background for comparison.

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Well then.  Not what you’d call really excellent washfastness. And some new mysteries to ponder, as usual.

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July 19, 2013 · 10:58 am

Who knew embroidery could be so much fun?

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I have been so inspired by other dyers’ work with naturally dyed embroidery thread that I decided a while back that perhaps I could include some silk thread in my many dye pots.  I dyed a large quantity of wool in small batches over the last few months, so there have been quite a few opportunities.  Really, I had friends who like to embroider in mind at the time.  I thought I could gift them my little lengths of dyed thread.  However, a vast new plan has sprung into my mind.  I dug out the embroidery hoop I brought home from an op shop years back, but have never used.  It helps enormously but also makes embroidery rather louder than I had anticipated, as if the fabric were a drumhead!  I did not expect to find embroidery so thrilling, or so noisy.

This new project has had me out and about in the neighbourhood visiting species of eucalypt I use less.  There have been some  surprises.  The two spindly E Websterianas with their minnirichi bark and their heart-shaped leaves are gone!  They were not thriving in that location just a few blocks away, I admit.  But I am sorry to have lost them (let alone that someone probably took all that leafage to the dump).

Another day I went to two different E Scoparias, walking further to get to the one which dependably hangs low when I couldn’t reach the leaves of the closest.  Gone was the lush straggly undergrowth that used to surround it, and gone was the low hanging branch.  I am not sure whom it had offended.

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At least the tree is still there, snuggled up to an equally large carob tree.  Since major infrastructure came to my neighbourhood and trucks became a constant form of traffic through streets large, medium and small, the low hanging branches of many of my favourite trees have been removed.  Apparently no one was considering the suburban gleaner at the time…

On a subsequent trip, I discovered that the largest, most luxurious E Scoparia in my neighbourhood, whose tree hating neighbour had me worried when I was collecting bark, has been pruned with a chain saw so that no longer do its lovely leaves hang anywhere I will be able to reach them without a ladder.  Luckily, the bark will fall where I can reach it, and the tree is still there despite having such a determined human enemy.

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