Nearly Finished!

Well after nearly three years and an awfull lot of fun and felt I am working on the design of my final City and Guilds project. It will be a natural dyed textured wall hanging. Well actually I am going to make two , so I can made good use of my dye pot !

The inspiration comes from this photograph .

Which has been manipulate many times via collages and photoshop.

Actually I have so many images it really hard to decided which to use but eventually I have chosen these two.

 

I have started sketching parts of these images to be the base for my hangings and so far I think these are my real starting points.

My fabrics are all prepared and mordanted and I am ready to go .

 

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A splash of colour

This week I decided to give natural dying a rest and try using my pleated technique with coloured fabric and fibres. The fabric was all hand dyed. I used a small element of a filterstorm manipulation below as my inspiration.

 

I deliberately went for bold and bight colours , some lime green , hot pink , sunshine yellow and bright blue. My plan as to have these colored elements on a black background.

The elements are bright and bold.

I am very pleased with the finished piece.

Well maybe it's finished or maybe not as I am just contemplating whether to add some stitching!

 

 

 

 

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A paler shade of dandelion

In discussion with Artybirds tutor Kate regarding my previous strange dying results , she mentioned that dying mixed animal and vegetable fibres simultaneously is very tricky and might be best done with natural dyes. I was pondering this advice when while out on my bike near my home I saw a sea of dandelion flowers. Perfect for a natural dyeing experiment. Nothing too big, or complicated just some fabrics and fibres as a test.

So I returned to the field of flowers with my collecting bag and picked dandelion heads . Well I quickly picked rather a lot 650g. Rather more than I needed for my small experiment.

 

I then tried simply boiling the flowers to extract the dyes. No mordants, additives were added, which I know is probably wrong. However in my enthusiasm for this totally unplanned a experiment it had not thought to get any suitable chemicals.

After straining I simmered my fabrics and fibres, mixed vegetable and animal sourced for 30 mins .

I left them to steep over night and then rinsed and dried the dyed samples.

Very pale , but quite satisfactory for a first natural dying venture.

A bit more research is needed now into mordants etc and then I will dare to dye a combined felted piece again.

 

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An unexpected and peculiar colour

Continuing my pleating theme. I made yet another foil masking tape piece. Still the old boring white but this time more integrated mixing the two techniques together.

Quite effective. But not dramatic enough for me, pleats need to be more bold and I would prefer larger gaps between the pleats.

As I was making it I decided I would dye it after finishing to see the effect of the different fabrics and some yarns that I had incorporated. Below the scrim was silk , cotton and alpaca.

Green I decided would be good. I mixed a nice kind of khaki green which I hoped would give lots of shade possibilities. I read again about mordants and modifiers thought I understood and went for it.

Not really the expected results . In fact very peculiar all together.

 

Not a sign of green. I have to admit that I mixed my khaki from orange and turquoise blue , but if was definitely green in the pot and on a piece of paper. What seems to have happened is the cotton has become dirty blue , the wool and alpaca dirty orange and the very small amout of silk very dark green. So unexpected and peculiar. I better read my dying books again.

 

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Wild at Woolfest?

One year on , I returned to woolfest. No longer a newbie.

I was far less wild the the previous year, not wild at all in fact. I did not buy a fleece , as I still have loads left of last years, and I did not have to make numerous trips through the rain to store my purchases. Even more bizarrely I did not even buy any knitting wool, just some needles. What has happened to me?

I did buy some Gotland fibre , as I tried a sample last year and liked it so I need more for the dark dismal tree picture I have in my head. I hope there is enough.

I bought some yarns and fibres to dye.

After a great demonstartion by classic carders of a way of making fibres mixes I was treated for my birthday to a finishing brush for my machine.

 

It's resting on a small wooden felting block I want to try out.

Not much colour at all in these purchases. But I did splash out and got some dyed silks ---maybe for a water related item.

I really enjoyed the whole atmosphere and many many stalls.

Here is the Artybird stand with my Shyrdak on display , alongside some other wonderful items.

Here is Kate enthusiastically demonstrating in front of Paula's wedding rug.

So not a wild day just a wooly day!

 

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Blue

This week I have been really challenged trying to dye prefelt blue. Not yellow or red that was easy just blue. The problem was disguised at first. I successfully dyed a yellow and a orange piece along with and a mottled pink. I then mixed some blue into yellow and orange to make I hoped a brilliant lime green, an olive green and a brown. They were rather disappointing , in that instead of making green , I made shades of dirty yellow and instead of brown a rather reddish orange. But I thought I could make it work and continued to try and make a dark blue and a pale blue. What I made was two quite large pieces of very pale blue. It was then I realized that the problem with the green and brown was that the blue in the mixtures was virtually invisible. This was happening to both brilliant blue and turquoise. This is overall colour combination I had made. A totally dire mixture I am sure you will agree.

So I began to think about what had gone wrong. Was the concentration of the blue dye too weak, had it not dissolved properly, was the vinegar solution not acidic enough, had I not steamed the prefelt for long enough , had I rinsed it too soon... Endless possibilities of were the process could have gone wrong.

So I tried increasing the concentration , slightly better but still nothing like the effect I was looking for. Testing different vinegar concentrations, no discernible difference. Steaming longer and cooling down in dye mix before rinsing. At last this seemed to have cured the problem, perhaps not the vibrant blue I hoped for , but not a total wash out. So I have now redyed all the samples containing blue except the olive and now have this collection of prefelt to work with.

Now I only have the challenge of making a piece and felting it in the washing machine !

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One year on

Today is the anniversary of the first blog I wrote over my adventures with ArtyBird.

What an voyage of discovery it has been, always something new and challenging to think about and to make.

I have drawn and painted . I never imagined I could draw at all. I have dyed fabrics and yarns and even experimented with making my own colours by mixing dyes together successfully.

I have made lots of felt and started to explore the world of different fibres with their different properties. I can even name quite a few different sheep breeds.

I have made and given felted gifts and have requests for slippers, hats , pictures and bags waiting until I have more time to do them.

I have written 45 blogs, nearly one/week and have more than 1000 views - mostly my mother.

But I think most amazingly I have started to look at the world around me in a different way and to explore with my eyes the texture and patterns in nature and in man made objects. To record this I have taken many photographs , often times looking into the micro landscapes that I year ago I would not have even seen . From this I already have a wealth of ideas I would like to use in designs and I see more all the time !

Here is just a few examples of ideas for the future.

 

 

 

 

So overall it's been a fantastic year of discoveries and I think I will continue my journey by signing up for the next course , which will give me the excuse to continue this blog which I have also really enjoyed writing .

 

 

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All packed up

Well I have spent the last few days packing up items to send to Kate for assessment.

It quite amazing how much I have accumulated in the last few months.

I have been making boxes for my paper manipulations.

 

I have been sorting through masses of sketches some I remember drawing on the train.

I have collected together all my felted items showing texture and dying techniques.

There is a collection of needled felted items.

My 3D objects

Finally my scarfs. I am very happy with my green scarf especially as I made the green dye myself by mixing the turquoise and yellow. I would happily wear it. But the hooded scarf, it might remind me of the beatiful waters of the Hebrides , in its colours, but in terms of style , My god its a disaster for me and it is something I would never wear!

 

 

 

 

This lot all needs to be packed up safely and sent off to the UK. Though bulky they are all very light so the costs should not be totally excessive. Thank goodness.

And the big question is now , what am I going to do with myself?

 

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Dying again

Well here I go dying again , and this time I can't be banished to the garden as I need to heat everything up to boiling point. I have a brand new, to me, pan to use bought for euro 2.50 from the local charity shop. 

So collect my BFL fleece, Shetland white snd grey fibre and merino fibre , merino half felt, silks, an alpaca yarn , some yarn of unknown origin or fibre , but wool I think and extra special lace weight Jamiesons shetland yarn .



Trial weight 80 g. Near enough to 100g for an engineer to be perfectly satisfied.

What colours to dye. Well I was very uncertain , especially when I thought how the planed second and maybe third dying would turn out. But in the end I I decided on scarlet ,yellow and green, 

Wet out fibre.

Place it in the pan. 

Bring to the boil, slowly , how slow is slow. 

I have no idea, but I think on my lowest setting it would never boil. 

So I turned it up to middling. 

After boiling turn off and sprinkle the dyes. 

Quite simple really!

All without dying the kitchen .

The first batch

LOVELY

The second batch is more muted

but still interesting.


The third is is all too muted for me and its  time to stop , before I dye any more of my precious fibres mouldy looking pinky grey.

Lot of felting opportunities ahead!.

Sunny Dyeday

I was banished to the garden for my first experiments with dying. 

Lucky for me we were having such amazing weather. I had to set up the umbrella in order not to get sunstroke. I chose orange and turquoise two of my favorite colours and in full protective gear started to dye.

Stirring two washing up bowls with chop sticks constantly for 10 minutes is quite challenge . But after that I sat back , continued my twisted sock knitting , that been giving me so much stress and stirred randomly.

I was allowed to rinse in the bath, otherwise I am sure I couldn't have managed at all to rinse, as I discovered dying uses alot of water.  

I loved the colours I had created. But what tangle my fabrics and yarns were in. I think I had been too vigorous in my stirring, probably a lot too vigorous. I was able to unravel the fabrics but the yarns were and still are in a complete knot. My 5 subsequent batches of dying a got stirred in a more gentle wafty type of a way.

What a mix of shades and colours, yet to be ironed and analyzed, but don't they look lovely.

A wonderful way to spent a sunny Sunday