Progress and Setbacks

Since I posted about finding a technique I wanted to explore, I had a bit of a setback.  I did a series of experiments and made various samples and, all of a sudden, it stopped working.  Cue a mild attack of panic and a series of unsuccessful experiments, followed by a quiet afternoon trying to remember what on earth, what tiny, seemingly insignificant thing, I had done differently before. Fortunately it dawned on me, I had an anxious day waiting for the test kiln firing to finish, but it worked... phew!

So I've been putting together some little glass-and-wire fences.  Or maybe trees.

The next issue to sort out was the wire; the first one I used broke when it was twisted tightly. The next one was a bit flimsy;  although I do want to channel broken down fences, not so much that I can't get the thing to stand up at all...

On to the next wire; this one is quite a bit thicker and I did think it might be too thick, but I'm pleased with the way it has turned out.  The pieces have a nice sturdy feel to them and I do like the black colour of the wire.  Although I might attack it with a little salt and vinegar and see what happens...

And so, on to the next challenge, to sort out the image printed on the glass.  Currently it's a bit too 'all over' for my liking.

First bundle

My bundles are looking pretty good, a much darker colour than I expected to get. And while they didn't smell too good while they were simmering away (a bit cabbagey) they smell lovely now, the essence of autumn distilled. The dark colour may be due in part to the fact that I had used the pan for tea dyeing in the past and it is pretty well impregnated with tea.

I've managed to last a week before opening one... I chose the second from the left to unwrap - I just had to open one of them to see what had happened!

This one is a strip of old sheeting.  Here are the leaves that came out of it - no longer the lovely dark red they were!

And this is the result, hanging up to dry after rinsing in cold water. I am absolutely thrilled with it!  There are lovely rich browns, quite a bit of yellow which doesn't show too well in the photograph, and even some pinky bits.  And some nice patterning where the thread was wrapped round it too.

It will be interesting to see how much of the colour stays when it dries and whether it fades quickly or not.

I'm leaving the others a bit longer... not sure quite how long before I can't resist opening them!

A new project

I know, I must be mad starting something new... but I am thinking ahead because I will need a project to show with my textiles group and I am trying not to be too last minute this year!  Our theme is 'Collections' and it seemed to me to be the perfect opportunity to try something I have been thinking about for a while.

I have been dying cloth for my embroidery with tea for a long time but I first became interested in dying cloth with other natural materials when I was making my vegetable paper.  I noticed that the brighter vegetables stained the pressing cloths, and some colour remained even after washing.  And sometimes when I re-used the washed cloths the vegetable colour in the cloth would affect the colour of the new vegetable paper, so the veg dyed the cloth which in turn dyed the veg...  A little while later I discovered India Flint and was completely awestruck by her work, if you don't know of her do go and check it out.

So I am going to do a series of experiments, bundling cloth with natural materials and other things that I collect (the shoreline turns up some interesting bits of rusty metal at times...).  Cooking it, leaving it, maybe even burying it, I'm not expecting spectacular results, I'm just interested to see what happens.  The bundles will be a personal record of my year.  And since the best thing I can do with my bundles is be patient and leave them alone I hope the project will fit in with the madness that is my life at the moment!

I've started with a few leaves picked up in my local park, wrapped in some well worn upcycled cotton sheeting, some butter muslin and a piece of my wedding dress silk (what do you mean it's not normal to cut up your wedding dress?!)




They simmered away for a couple of hours in some (rather murky) rainwater in an old aluminium pan which I'm sure must have come from my grandmother, if not even from her mother. And now I shall leave them for a while. I wonder how long I can manage before I can't resist opening at least one little bundle?

And, I had some lovely roses for my birthday last week.

 

 

It would be a shame to let all those leaves go to waste... I'm not sure if the petals will do anything, but no harm in trying!

Playing again

A few years ago I made a whole bunch of these...

I really liked them but I wasn't sure what to do with them... eventually I put them together into a series of mobiles which were shown in an exhibition with the textiles group I belong to.

They were well received at the exhibition, and then they came home again. And sat around in my workspace. The discs are not very robust so some of them got bent out of shape as they were moved from place to place. But I still really liked the individual elements - more so than the complete mobiles - so they stayed around.

I started to take them apart the other day and put some of the smaller elements together into 3-D forms. I'm not sure where I'm going with it but it is interesting to see the different character these strange things take on when put together differently.

I started off thinking I would make it into a sphere(ish) but it's beginning to look a bit like a football, so maybe not.  I dare say there is more taking apart and putting back together again to come!

Maybe I should go back to the mobile idea but on a smaller scale... The original mobiles were 6ft high, fine in an exhibition space but not so practical anywhere else. Certainly not cat-friendly! Or, a bit too cat-friendly, but cats would not be mobile-friendly...