Tag Archives: E Cinerea

February 1, 2016 · 9:44 am

Experiments with E Cinerea

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It all began with a trip to the Adelaide Hills to visit a friend who had just moved into a new house one weekend. On the way, I saw a massive E Cinerea with a huge variety of leaf types and sizes. On the way back, we made a brief stop to harvest a few of the leaves overhanging a car park.

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That evening, we went to my parents’ for dinner, and I asked my father if he had any metal disks. He helpfully offered quite a range of recycled washers and then asked a lot of questions. I underestimated his interest in understanding what I’m doing and how he could help me out! This led him to suggest bottle tops (up there for thinking! Why didn’t I have that thought? Surely I have heard this idea before…). He also offered me clamps. He really felt that bulldog clips (my suggestion) might not be strong enough. He had a collection of tired old clamps he didn’t want, so I chose some and headed home with all kinds of ideas.

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There was ironing and folding and general faffing, until I crammed all I could into the pot. The pot, it must be said, is not designed for G clamps in large sizes and numbers.

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I like the results a lot, though when you try any approach new to you, there is always a lot to experiment with. Perhaps the bulldog clips would actually be better?

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In this piece the holes in the piece of metal I used have allowed the dye bath in to create dots…

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I tried some silk…

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And I love these strips, inspired by Jude Hill’s indigo moons. Only different. I found myself wondering what shape I would really like to create, and answering with the thought that the shape of a leaf is very difficult to improve upon. I love leaves so much. The second round hit the dye bath in double quick time!

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22 Comments

Filed under Dye Plants, Leaf prints, Natural dyeing

Tagged as cotton, E Cinerea, silk

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

July 24, 2015 · 3:17 pm

Bundle of beautification

I am still thinking about the difference between my toleration of ugly but functional things–and observing friends and companions at Tin Can Bay who instead, make everything within reach more beautiful. I have a perfectly functional merino underlayer that is a fairly ordinary shade of mauve, and as I wear it every week at this time of year, I have had it in contemplation. I finally decided that the time had come, only to find a little ladder. That was quickly mended with logwood dyed thread. This picture gives a fair sense of the colour of the garment.

I have mended this top quite a bit due to the monster season of m*th activity a year or two back. The darns are in various colours, some quite tasteful. These ones are still pale blue and pale purple, as they were after early washfastness testing in 2013. I dyed these threads with plum pine.

Others are a lot more random!

Having darned over breakfast, I set out to plant boobialla and saltbush, with a plan about collecting dyestuffs.

I feel sorry fr these plants going into such sad looking land…

But I have not lost a single plant in this patch and if they all grow it will make such a difference. Those that went in a few months ago are much bigger already. Someone stopped as I planted and said ‘You are such a good public person!’

Plants in, weeding done, I headed out to this E Scoparia. It’s a beauty with particularly slender leaves. The people whose fence it overhangs don’t like it tickling their hair as they pass and resent it hanging over their fence. So hard to understand! I selectively cut to minimise their struggle with it when I want to use this plant. I make it shorter over the footpath and then trim the lowest hanging parts over their fence.

Home again, home again!

The tree is in flower, but the flowers are small. Love those pliable red stems.

I settled on a pot full of dried E Cinerea leaves. This rainwater tank finally has rain in it again.

Then for the bundling part… I always think I’ll be neater this time, and then make the usual scruffy bundle.

Some time later, the leaves have had a head start and in goes the bundle.

Well, I think this is an improvement! Here is the front. The logwood didn’t really survive the dye pot very well, which works. The eucalyptus dyed threads have stayed their previous colours, but now blend in. The indigo dyed thread is still blue!

And this is the back. No regrets from me!

22 Comments

Filed under Eucalypts, Leaf prints, Natural dyeing

Tagged as E Cinerea, E Scoparia, mend and make do, merino

July 9, 2015 · 5:03 pm

Whimsically cabled socks

Socks take a little while to knit. Maybe 20 hours or more of knitting for a pair in 4 ply (fingering). To be honest, I’m not sure. Needless to say, I don’t sit down and time myself knitting them. I don’t knit them on a whim, they way I do hats, which just sit about waiting for the right head to come by. I want them to be well received and they need to fit in more senses than one. So, a little while back, there was a tracing of the foot. Then I checked the preferences of the intended recipient, ordered BFL/silk sock yarn, and dyed it with eucalyptus. To get a good strong colour, I dyed the 100g of yarn in four dye baths. These socks have travelled, because in those hours of knitting, socks-in-the-making are my constant companions, which is one of the lovely things about them. I enjoy the knitting, and I enjoy holding the intended recipient in my mind for the time the knitting takes. Here is the first sock, and that week’s reading for theory reading group.

They came with me to hospital to visit a complicated relative who had a near death experience, twice (she is still alive). They may not have brought her comfort but they brought me comfort. The second hospital visit was so dim I did something quite inappropriate and had to rip back a bit. They have been to some high level meetings. They came to a very informal meeting with a workmate which was interrupted by another knitter (otherwise, a total stranger) who was beside herself to see socks being knit right there in front of her eyes. My workmate is a generous man who didn’t flinch! I have walked along knitting them from my bag. They have been fondled lovingly by the odd stranger. I was getting to the heel of the second sock when I went to Sydney. Here we are in a cafe reading political theory (with relish).

In front of a sculpture at a university in Sydney where I attended part of a conference where my beloved did a wonderful job of presenting.

In a hotel room with a banksia cone.

Waiting for a bus outside central railway station in Sydney. Ask not what the other people waiting thought of my photographing a sock. There is a lot going on outside Central at night and no one blinked.

Almost done at Coogee Beach.

Maybe you wanted to see Coogee beach? Glorious!

Toe grafted and ends darned in, in the Sydney airport.

Here they are in better light after a nice steam press!

I hope that they will be snug and long lasting… (non knitters: that is a reinforcing heel stitch you see there).

And I hope that the whimsy of these cables will tickle India‘s fancy the way it tickles mine! This design was suggested by one of my nearest and dearest, who first told me about India’s work years before I first saw it. He was the first to have a whimsically cabled pair of socks made by me… and now there are two such pairs! It is an absolute delight to be able to turn the generosity back toward someone who has been so exceedingly generous to me.

4 Comments

Filed under Eucalypts, Knitting, Natural dyeing

Tagged as BFL, E Cinerea, gifts, silk, socks, wool

July 6, 2015 · 9:51 am

Eco-printed scarves

I was rifling through some of the wool and silk items that I packed away protectively during summer, (when clothes m*ths are breeding) and realised I still have three scarf blanks that were given to me by friends. One is a wool gauze, I think.

One is probably silk scrim.

And the other looks like a finer grade of still quite open-weave silk.

I had an idea for how they might find happy homes, and after some days of wishing but not finding time…

These leaves were collected in the neighbourhood as they fell from trees lining a driveway. And of course, eucalyptus! One pot had a madder exhaust in it, because madder is never really exhausted as far as I can tell.

Out they came…

The silk scrim will need another dye bath, I think. The other two made me very happy–and this is good, because I planned for them to be part of my daughter’s birthday present. I tried a different folding and wrapping strategy on the wool and love the way it came out. The tie resist marks were great–

There are leafy parts and abstract parts, parts that are burgundy or grey-black and others that are more orange.

I tend to get more muted colours on silk, and this was no exception. Still lovely, and just as important in this case, different.

I hope she will like them both. She lives in a colder part of the country and she does love a good scarf.

And now… they have been folded, wrapped, tied with hand made string and placed in the post!

19 Comments

Filed under Leaf prints, Natural dyeing

Tagged as E Cinerea, E Scoparia, gifts, madder, prunus, silk, wool

June 22, 2015 · 8:24 am

Himeji Gardens in autumn

I love the Himeji Japanese gardens, which are in the parklands that surround our city, on the southern side.

I was passing on my way home from something, in the daytime, by myself (no passengers to convince)–so I pulled over and went in to see what I could see.

The gingkos had turned yellow and begun to drop their leaves.

The maples were in various stages of colouring and falling.

The camellias had begun to flower (the same is true at home).

The water features were as glorious as ever. I managed to glean a few dead daylily leaves which made lovely string.

I collected fallen leaves and the odd twig that had come down in the wind. At home, I added prunus leaves from trees in the neighbourhood and some dried eucalyptus leaves… and rolled experimental bundles too.

I love the maple prints on linen.

The prunus leaves came out pretty too–and in some places I did get gingko leaf resist prints. If you look carefully!

This bundle was an experiment–maple/prunus/eucalypt on some gifted silk fabric.

I tried woad leaves (and japanese indigo leaves and the odd soursob leaf for good measure) but clearly I’ll have to try that again! The fabric is wet here and by the time it dried there was almost nothing to see. On the other hand… the woad is leafing up, and my woad seed is germinating!

11 Comments

Filed under Dye Plants, Leaf prints

Tagged as E Cinerea, maple, prunus

May 22, 2015 · 1:19 pm

Bundles of the week

One of the things I noticed at Tin Can Bay was that some people identify that something is less lovely or less suitable than it could be, and go about transforming it into something lovely or suitable. I have been known to do this… but it made me conscious that often I just live with the ugly version or wish that thing was different every time I wear or use it. I also realised I don’t have a lot of confidence I can improve on things. What if my intervention makes them worse?

So it occurred to me that I could change the little calico drawstring bags I have acquired full of soap nuts and the odd other item. They are useful but ugly right now. Why not dye them? This idea happened along in a week when there was cow milk in the house (unusual these days), so I decided to try using it as a mordant. If it doesn’t work–it won’t be too late to use soy another day, I decided. Duly treated, I applied E Nicholii leaves. The leaves my friend gave me are full of buds, splendiferous materials for leaf printing goodness.

There were three bundles in all in this dye pot, and I chose this one to unwrap. Nothing special had occurred.

I’m not sure whether this was due to the mordant (poor application, for instance!) or whether I just paid too little attention and the bundle didn’t have a long enough, hot enough time in contact with the dye. I had left it dyeing and gone out to play guitar and sing and generally be a flibbertygibbet–occasionally something suffers through this kind of neglect (but I had a good time)! I was undeterred, because if at first you don’t succeed, try again later with tried and true processes you understand on a day when you are paying enough attention.

I rewrapped, and decided to reheat the other two bundles as well rather than disturb them, when their companion had not done well with careless treatment.

The other bundles were another calico bag and an infinity scarf destined for a friend who loved the one I made at India Flint’s Melbourne workshop. I am seeing my friend soon and I have another gift for her too.

This time, E Cinerea and E Nicholii…

The other milk soaked calico bag–had rather nice beads on its drawstrings. Here are the bundles prior to heating.

Here they are after the first heating–the silky merino looks good–but I had hoped for deeper colour. The filthy artisanal plastic bucket in vibrant green is an extra special touch, I feel.

After some further cooking, the calico bags all looked darker but still pretty awful and the whole bucketful was strangely blurred (joke, Joyce!). Back to soy mordanting for now. However, that big bundle in the middle is the infinity scarf–looking good.

The calico bags still require improvement. They look better here than in real life!

I really like the way the scarf turned out. The colours are rich. There are some nice ochre and deep grey sections for contrast.

I really like some of the details–as I had hoped, the E Nicholii buds have left their mark as part of an overall pattern.

Now to see if my friend likes it–but I have some quiet confidence that she will…

14 Comments

Filed under Leaf prints, Natural dyeing

Tagged as cotton, E Cinerea, E Nicholii, India Flint, silky merino

May 15, 2015 · 9:42 am

Winter dyeing

I had some rather pallid silk embroidery thread. That bag it is sitting on came from an op shop and has been through eucalyptus dye pots so many times it is a very deep shade now!

I had some white and tan polwarth fleece.

Eucalyptus cinerea leaves… I have sacks of them and decided it was time to get them moving!

With wool going in a bit later…

Then a gift of E Nicholii leavea arrived from a fried whose keen eye and quick wits diverted council prunings from going directly to mulch. Thanks!

Here they are after some serious cooking.

My tour of the dye stash also uncovered these, sitting in a bag I used to use for gleaning the neighbourhood. Perhaps I could use it again if it wasn’t storing these leaves…

I thought I remembered them being unexciting. They are clearly ironbark leaves, but presumably I confused my ironbarks. I wasn’t sure and decided to try them out.

There has also been E Scoparia bark dyeing.

And here we have, fresh from the dye bath (a day later): E Nicholii at the top left; the unexciting ironbark, and E Scoparia bark at the bottom.

Later still, some of that polwarth fleece sitting on the piano like a fluffy flame…

First pass through the carder…

Second pass… ready to spin!

And now I have some thread with a bit more colour in it, too!

9 Comments

Filed under Eucalypts, Fibre preparation, Natural dyeing

Tagged as E Cinerea, E Nicholii, polwarth, silk thread

May 6, 2015 · 11:24 am

Returning home

I decided to celebrate returning home from Tin Can Bay with some local bundles… and knitting, and a visit to the saltbush plantings… and time with my beloved and our friends, and music… but here I’ll focus on the bundles! If I can restrain myself that far…

I took my new found knowledge and experience of bundling paper, which built on my reading of India Flint’s Bundle Book. There is a cheap and simple e-book version available –or go for the glory of a solid object! I tried a different kind of paper, acquired in the last few weeks, and I used scrap metal my Dad cut me. I tried op shopping for flat metal with remarkably little success in previous months. But there are quite a few priorities on my personal list and some progress slowly.

Happy results! These are E Cinerea leaves–different to what I would get on fabric and very lovely. Like all bundle dyeing, part of the mystery and part of the joy is trying out what is local and seasonal. Everyone’s selection is different. My garden is heavy on calendula and marigold right now and I had some lovely little geranium flowers and all sorts of local leaves to try too.

I decided to use my flanellette string for bundles despite it being unnaturally dyed. I loved seeing some of my retreat companions loving their bundles enough to use handmade string to tie them. And my much re-used string collection is getting to the end of its tether.

I used all kinds of fabrics–raw silk from a recycled garment, calico, linen offcuts, and a little piece of silky merino given to me by a retreat companion (should she be reading, thankyou again!)

The silky merino gives such vibrant colours, but actually the linen was a bit of a standout too.

Meanwhile, the string making continues. I have decided to try using this process of making string as a point of reflection on my obligations under Indigenous law–and of so many principles of earth care that might come under that set of principles. The importance of things that will biodegrade and that will not last forever, the way plastic will. The intertwining of all life. The cycles by which nature does its magic. Our dependence on plants and water. the way things and beings come into closer relationship with one another. I keep sharing the string–as people admire or ask about it, I have a little stash right here by my hand and I can give them some. Sharing is a primary principle too.

I have in mind something like what Grackle and Sun might call atheist prayer. But different, of course. Do read her post and be inspired. I love her idea of chantstrands, but my experiments along those lines didn’t work for me the way taking a few wet leaves out to a tree to twist together into string and considering things has so far. So I have taken inspiration from her and begun to make cordage from it…

A few people have been asking about how to make string. I have put a link to an online tutorial in the How To tab at the top of the blog, but you could learn from a basket weaver (as I did) or from any basic basketry text. Or put yourself near India Flint, who shares string making everywhere she goes, as far as I can tell (having learned how from Nalda Searles). Or go to YouTube and be among survivalists who do something similar! Meanwhile, the garden is growing as rain begins to fall.

The first poppy of the season is out and beyond lovely.

And I had a new insight about this especially beautiful saltbush which I have so far not managed to propagate. It has taken a lot of observations to figure out when I might be able to collect seed, but one day at work recently I pulled out a seed envelope I happened to have with me (as you do) and amused bystanders by rubbing the ends of these silvery stems gently into it. Who knows what might come of that? I have high hopes…

8 Comments

Filed under Dye Plants, Natural dyeing, Neighbourhood pleasures

Tagged as cotton, dinner, E Cinerea, India Flint, linen, saltbush, silk, silky merino, string, wool

April 21, 2015 · 9:12 am

Autumn leaf prints

I went to a wedding in the hills recently… a very pleasantly relaxed and extremely celebratory occasion. On the way home, I stopped in a small town because… many European trees grow in the Adelaide Hills and it’s wonderful to see.

And of course, I had hopes and plans. If you don;t want to look at pictures, stop now. This is a post of MANY pictures.

I collected leaves…

I made bundles…

I made experiments…

I tooled around the neighbourhood on my bike collecting tried and true leaves.

I unwisely tied my bundles with coloured string for the first time ever. I sorta kinda knew this was stupid but did it anyway and was rewarded with blue lines, most of which happily washed out!

I applied heat as the sun set…

And the next day! These images are of fabrics still damp and freshly unwrapped. Even the flannel rag I had used to create a bit of ‘padding’ on one bundle took dye.

Oak leaves on silk

Maple leaves on silk. So green! they are still green after washing and ironing. This silk is from a pantsuit a friend scored for me at an op shop. It is well washed and work raw silk.

The ever faithful E Cinerea on linen. A friend gifted me linen offcuts and these are the first that have made their way into the dye pot. Am I ever blessed with generous friends!

Maple leaves on linen.

E Scoparia is awesome yet again on cotton.

Sheoak from the neighbourhood on linen. This has so much potential…

A happy day all round!

15 Comments

Filed under Leaf prints, Natural dyeing, Neighbourhood pleasures

Tagged as copper, cotton, E Cinerea, E Scoparia, eucalyptus, iron, linen, maple, Oak, prunus, sheoak, silk

Tag Archives: E Cinerea

Experiments with E Cinerea

Workwear for a suburban guerilla gardener

Bundle of beautification

Whimsically cabled socks

Eco-printed scarves

Himeji Gardens in autumn

Bundles of the week

Winter dyeing

Returning home

Autumn leaf prints

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