Tag Archives: E Scoparia

November 9, 2015 · 10:49 am

Workwear for a suburban guerilla gardener

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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…

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November 2, 2015 · 2:02 pm

Dye bundle results

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My recent dye bundles came out less well than I’d hoped.  Some went well…

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I got some great string resist marks on others…

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Still others were delicate and pale.

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This rather promising looking print of sheoak in flower largely washed out, and so did several others.

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I think there is something about using a dairy milk mordant that I have failed to understand.  I have tended to use soy more and so this was a bit of an experiment.  Or perhaps part of the trouble was that these were new fabric offcuts, and I am used to using well washed and worn recycled fabrics, which present a different kind of substrate for dyeing.  But I have been using them nonetheless… and finding places where these prints work for me.  More soon!  So much more 🙂

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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.

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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:

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After:

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And here’s the banner!

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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!

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

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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.

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

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Done just in time to see her today!

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And… here is the banner in situ.

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

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August 17, 2015 · 4:26 pm

Birthday gift

It came to my notice that a niece who was shortly to visit us also has a birthday approaching. I put on the dye pot.

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I went out to visit a favourite tree.

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I had ordered the scarves with this kind of occurrence in mind, so I pulled one out and pulled out the new silk thread as well.

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In they went (and so did the stems that were left from the leaves I’d used)!

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The transformation is always amazing in the dye pot.

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But the contents are even better fun!

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Shown here wet from the dye bath…

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And here hung out to dry.

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Yes, she does like it….! And we took her out on a walk to see the tree that contributed its glory to her gift.

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August 4, 2015 · 12:49 pm

Another bundle of beautification

I had another undergarment that could use improvement… here it is before.

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I liked the back better.

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E Scoparia got the job again.

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It looked so good afterward…

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While I was at the dye table I realised that the woad bundle I had left tied was still there… I unwrapped and this one had prints. Green leaves and contrasting stems.

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And here are the ‘after’ pictures… clearly the light was not as good as I thought at the time!  The front:

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And… the back.

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I’m not sure.  I might go again!

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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.

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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.

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Others are a lot more random!

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

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

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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!’

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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.

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Home again, home again!

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

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

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

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

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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!

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And this is the back.  No regrets from me!

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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.

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One is probably silk scrim.

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

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

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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.

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Out they came…

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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–

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

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

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

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

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May 27, 2015 · 4:48 pm

Rhubarb leaves and tamarind

I haven’t found a lot of joy with rhubarb leaf mordant so far… but I do grow rhubarb and often wish I could use the leaves somehow before they reach the compost heap. One chilly day I wondered whether they might just be good in the dyepot–if I heated them surely they would release oxalic acid into the dyebath and even if that is all that happened, raising the acidity level of the bath can be a good thing.  Why not?

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Then, in with E Scoparia bark.  And eventually, two mesh bags full of polwarth fleece.  In fact, the last two!  I seem to have reached the end of the polwarth fleeces, which seems well nigh miraculous–though they have been just lovely to work with, these are BIG sheep.

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The rhubarb leaves did produce a deeper, burgundy shade–than the citrus acidifier in the other pot.  Is this a quantity effect, sheer luck…?  I am not honestly sure, but I will certainly try it again.  The water has to be heated for the dyebath anyway and letting it steep a little before removing rhubarb and adding eucalypt is not too difficult.

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In another acid experiment, I have been cleaning out the kitchen cupboards (well, some things over a decade old are leaving the cupboards)–and found this:

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Wasn’t I in Brisbane at least 12 years ago the last time I cooked with tamarind??  I put it into a big jar and topped up with water.

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Then, into a dyebath with E Nicholii and some of ‘Viola’s’ fleece–she’s a local pet sheep who seems to have some English Leicester parentage.  Another gift fleece.

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Tamarind on the left, citrus acidifier on the right.  Curious!  I have another bath with the exhaust dye baths and a second round of leaves steeping (also known as waiting until I have time and inclination…) now.

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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.

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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.

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I collected leaves…

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I made bundles…

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I made experiments…

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

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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!

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I applied heat as the sun set…

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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.

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Oak leaves on silk

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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.

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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!

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Maple leaves on linen.

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E Scoparia is awesome yet again on cotton.

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

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A happy day all round!

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April 10, 2015 · 9:46 am

Drawstring project bags

These are the bags that really started the party.  Fully lined drawstring project bags.

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Recycled suit linen with E Scoparia print; linen with an Australian designed print; cotton printed with prunus leaves and maple leaves.

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Indigo prints from the indigo dyeing day last year… paler prints went into the linings.

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While I was on indigo prints I used up the last of my own indigo dyed fabrics making this.  And finally, a gratuitous photo of a bee enjoying a street tree in flower taken on my way to a lunch meeting.  Glorious!

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