Exhibition piece - Part 2

As I prepared to post this post, I realised that this is my 150th post !!! I never would I have thought when I started blogging I would be still here after so long. Probably time for a review ? ! That will have to be next time. As first I have to complete the story of my exhibition piece.

So having prepared all my fabrics :

and having laid out my background.

It was time to start felting.

 

After just a little work!! I had this final felted piece.

I treated myself to a thermometer before I started dying and a few tests told me that what I'd thought was less than 60oC was in fact hotter. So with my Ithermometer I was able to control my temperatures to better exploit the red dyes in the madder.

Here is the final result.

Very textured, and very red !

 

Off in the post to be exhibited by Artybird Carnforth.

 

 

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Feedback please

I am a novice at natural dyeing. The chemistry of the reactions with the animal and plant based fibres. The use of mordants. The actual process of the dyeing , of extracting the dye out the plant material and getting it into the fibres to enable them to react. The whole process fascinates me. This is not really surprising as these kind of process have played a large part of my career as an engineer.

So I recklessly decided that my final C&G wall hanging would be naturally dyed. I decided to use madder. I didn't not grow the plant in my garden , although this is possible , I bought ready ground roots. Madder gives orange to red colours depending on the conditions of the dyeing. I determined not to try and be too clever but just dye my two pieces in my madder bath and wait and see what happens.

I am pleased with the results and one of the requirements of the course is to obtain feedback on the pieces. so I am requesting readers of this blog to please give me some feedback on the two pieces below. So I hope you can spare me a little of your time to tell me what you think .

Photographs © courtesy of Dave Mercer.

Thank you

 

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White , at the start but not at the finish

In September 2011 I nervously wrote my first blog , about a piece of white felt I made at the start of my Artybird courses. Very basic !! I was quite happy about the felt but I was nervous about becoming a blogger. Since then I have written another 139 blog posts and I am no longer nervous at all.

This week strangely I return to all white again for my final pieces of course work - two wall hangings.

These have been made from Blue faced Leicester , as was the first piece . But that is were the similarity ends. The first was just BFL , flat felt , these last two have many many additions. First silk fibres and alpaca yarn , followed by scrim , silk chiffon and mulberry bark . Cords made of BFL wrapped in silk fibres were added next and on one piece fibre balls. The final additions were mixed fabric pleated pieces .

Here are all the elements prepared and ready for adding to the fibres before feltIng.

 

The two pieces felted.

All ready for this glorious madder dye bath.

I can't wait to see how they will turn out.

 

 

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