Posts filed under ‘Eco printing’
Some fun with ATASDA
It has been nearly a year since I have blogged here and a year since my mum died. The past year was very mentally challenging and I feel I have just come out of a fog. Cleaning out 60 years of accumulated possessions was a very long process.
However I have not been idle as all that textiles art stuff is great therapy. I will work my way backwards and hopefully catch up on all the textile art of the past year. First up, last weekend we had a wonderful eco dyeing day in Melbourne with some of the ATASDA Victoria group. I unwrapped my bundles today and had some interesting results with the most vibrant being on some silk/wool broadcloth from Beautiful silks.
I also folded up some concertina book pages (A3 mixed media 210gsm) and experimented with a variety of garden prunings: ornamental grape leaves
Sheoak needles butterfly:
Purple leaved prunus, rose and E. cineria
Instead of string ties I tied up the bundles with silk sari strips
And my recently returned home recycled book called ‘Wild Silk’ from the ATASDA In the Making exhibition in Sydney. The theme of the exhibition was ‘Look Inside’ and I thought a book was ideal for that!
Many of my artworks relate to environmental themes and this relates to the two ways of sourcing silk threads/woven fabrics. The commercial production of mulberry silk entails feeding the cocoons in mass production and boiling the moths alive to preserve the single thread. On the other hand, ‘Wild silk’ allows silk worms to remain in their natural habitat with the cocoons being collected after the moths have exited (tussah silk).
Inside were more items to look inside!
Tussah silk paper ‘Chinese secrets’ (thread holders) boxes
A middle section for the tussah moth to hide:
And a little book with silk paper cover to read about making ethical and responsible choices when shopping for clothing:
The tussah moth joins a bogong moth in my growing moth family:
2021 Round off
For the last 6 months of 2021, I was working 3 part time jobs as once gain the research project for the PhD stalled due to Covid restrictions and lockdowns. The jobs were interesting and all consuming so not much was created on the textile front. Here are a few items that were completed:
This year we resurrected the ATASDA VIC group under the enthusiastic guidance of Caz Rogers as Convener. Due to Covid restrictions, we met once a month on zoom and completed a few challenges and swaps. Below you can see the results from our latest challenge/swap which was for an ATC on the theme ‘girl power’.
I forgot to take a photo of mine before they were posted, however this is the base fabric before they were handstitched with v’s in a variegated thread. The base is needlefelted and Free Machine Embroidered (FME) with ‘suffragette’ machine stitched all over.
The previous and first challenge was about ‘My Place’
Mine was the gum blossom as we are literally surrounded by gum trees, not a good thing if a bushfire ever comes through! Below are also my set of gum blossoms ready to be finished off and posted to the swap partners.
To announce the arrival of the VIC group into ATASDA we held an Australia wide challenge. Each member of ATASDA was posted a sheet of mulberry paper to make into a Paper bag shaped Luminary. There were some quite interesting and beautiful luminaries created. ATASDA members can view these on the website members’ gallery. Mine was based on the endangered orange bellied parrot which visits wetlands close by:
My upcycle is based on an apron I found in an op shop. I coffee dyed the apron, cut it up and tacked on some ecodyed and printed fabrics. I did attempt some shibori stitching but the coffee wasn’t strong enough to dye it clearly. I will make it into a ‘button bag’ and use up some of my collection of buttons. Quite often if I am ecodyeing I will pop some of the dye liquid in a jar and add some bits and pieces like threads and buttons:
Lots of hand stitching to go.
I was struggling for inspiration with the items I was given for the name badge when I saw some Art Deco brooches that gave me an idea, just waiting for my dremel to arrive!
Apple leaves for dyeing and printing
As the apple tree was losing its last leaves I decided to collect those newly fallen and about to fall for a dyepot. I had planned to try to get a green dye from my deciduous fruit trees but left it a little late and most leaves were fallen and mushy after recent rain. That will have to be an experiment for next autumn (2022 here in the Southern Hemisphere).
Instead I added some of my collection of brown onions skins to bulk up the colour. I ended up with three stocking leg ‘tea’ bags of dye material and cooked these up for an hour, then left to rest overnight. The next morning I removed the ‘tea’ bags and heated up the liquid, added a few lengths of gauzy cotton and silk, some with apple leaves to imprint, to the the pot and gently simmered for an hour. The result was a variety of yellows from bright to mellow.
I then decided to use some pieces of op shop cream blanketing as there appeared to be still dye in the pot. These were tied in bundles some had red & brown onions skins tied inside, others had some untwisted copper electrical wire and gum leaves tied in. One piece was wrapped around a twisted copper pipe, the others were thick enough just to roll up and tie. The pot was heated up, the wool added and very gently cooked for an hour, turned off and left in the pot for two days (I was busy with other activities).
The gauzy materials were very subtle, the wool was quite vibrant-I wonder if the copper acted as mordant to make these intense colours and prints.
Just one more stitch
I have finally called time on my Teatowel stitching for the India Flint ‘Sailing the Armchair’ exhibition at Fabrik Arts + Heritage, an historic woollen mill in Loebethal, South Australia.
My teatowel was a very old, faded linen with a few holes that was destined to become a cleaning rag. I popped it in a madder dyepot with a few other threads and fabrics to brighten the colour. This has been a slow stitch project over the last 6 months. I added ideas and bibs and bobs as they occurred to me. It has emerged as a story cloth around the central motif of mother earth and the need to nurture our sustaining planet before it is too late. My almost daily beach walks with my dog continued throughout this covid on/off year as did my habit to ‘take three for the sea’, generally being various bits of rubbish, plastic and many, many sharp pieces of broken glass. Several of my beach pick ups are included including a helium balloon with attached string. All of the threads are ecodyed from my own dyepot, Rita Summers kind contribution and Arlee Barr’s lovely threads. It is currently making its way to South Australia.
Scraps and more
I am calling this one finished. Thank you Anne Lawson for the suggestions. I am very happy with this and need to stop before it becomes overworked. Knowing when to stop can be the most difficult decision!
I am calling this Phases of time 1 as I might revisit this concept to complete some more stitcheries of different shapes and sizes. Mostly completed from the stash except for a couple of sashiko threads in blues ordered online Wafu Works. This will be sent off to Rita of Gone Rustic in Tasmania for her ‘Marking Time’ exhibition.
Two more projects on the go at the moment:
Finishing a receptacle for my partner’s treasure in the ATASDA Challenge and
Continuing to work on an artwork for the 2020 Biblio Art Prize.
Design finalised for the piece inspired by The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey, just auditioning some metal threads.
Some beginnings and a finish, maybe!
Many events this year have been cancelled or postponed and many more have sprung up. There are so many virtual and online offerings it can be overwhelming. However, I have chosen a couple, such as India Flint’s ‘In Place, Voyage of the Armchair’ which has been delightful and meditative. I continue to dip in and out of her wonderful offerings when I need a break from working online. I am also working away on a piece for an exhibition with India resulting from this online adventure.
It has been inspiring following textile artists’ blogs during this time. I have been using my Armchair voyage journal to respond to the many ideas and thoughts flowing from so much wonderful inspiration.
Rita from Gone Rustic Studio & Gallery in St Mary’s Tasmania has an exhibition happening in October called ‘Marking Time’. I have started an entry for that based on phases of the moon:
The base is from an indigo dyeing class a few years ago. The moon is beautiful silk velvet natural dyed by Arlee Barr. Just waiting for a selection of blue threads from Wafu Works in Tasmania, hopefully it won’t take too long to arrive, though the post is very erratic at the moment. Yah, Threads have arrived and this piece is now finished (maybe)! It is a little more picturesque than I was going for. Now I am thinking I might need to break down the strong vertical with some short scraps of horizontal red, any thoughts?
Another one I have just signed up to is the Blarney Books and Art Biblio Art Prize. Blarney Books is a Port Fairy institution and the Art prize is where artists create a piece of work in response to a book, this year all Australian authors published in the last 12 months. My book title is picked from a hat and emailed. Still waiting for this one. Covid-19 has taught me patience!
Lucky me – I have received my book title- The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey. Now ordered from the bookshop and I will pick up later in the week. Now how to create an interesting labyrinth!
Some dyeing and stitching
Here we are in another school holidays with a little time to create. I am currently working on finishing a ‘treasure’ for the Challenge with ATASDA. When I finish my treasure I will post to my challenge partner who will make a receptacle to contain it. All the treasures will be part of an exhibition in various states of Australia. ATASDA is an Australia wide group that encourages experimentation with textile art and surface decoration through social days, workshops, various exhibitions and challenges. Due to Covid many of these have been forestalled but in the background much has been happening. The website committee are putting the final touches to a brand new contemporary website, hoping to launch in mid July.
I am also preparing an exhibit for the ATASDA Bi-ennial exhibition at The Calyx, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. The exhibition, Interlude, has been postponed to the first week in November. For the theme I have been dyeing fine cottons and silks (fabrics and threads) to create a bojagi type cloth. The cloth will depict the regeneration of the earth between the five mass extinctions. It is designed to be both a warning to humanity and a source of hope.
Over the lockdown I enrolled in India Flint’s wonderful ISO class, In place :: sailing the armchair around the village well. It is/was a wonderful class that started as 23 days (continued well past that) and continues monthly at the moment. The meditative stitching/actions in this class are so very good for the spirit/soul in these very difficult times. Below is a journal cover I am continuing to stitch of an evening:
A tickle of feathers:
Just a little taste of where we sailed in our armchairs. Also in progress as slow cloths are a Wayfarer’s cloak and a cloth for a group exhibition in the new year.
Eucalyptus and onion skins
It is school holidays in our neck of the woods so I have been busy brewing up a few different concoctions and natural dyeing and printing. At the moment I am participating in India Flint’s latest online stitch gathering which has been very grounding given the worldwide pandemic shutdowns.
An old teatowel was suggested to create a journal cover so I decided on one that has been used as a cleaning cloth. Mordanted for 24 hours with soy milk and bundled with eucalyptus prunings discovered on my walk and red onion skins. See the before and after below:
The eucalyptus prunings were a happy find as I walked past just after the owner had pruned. I soaked them in an aluminum pot with a splash of vinegar for a couple of days. I cooked up some other old eucalyptus leaves and brown onion skins with a couple of bits of metal for the dye bath. I also popped in a few other bundles:
And then these very subtle prints on some sheeting which had been soda ashed and stored.
Such a huge variety from the same pot. They were left overnight to cool in the pot and then I poured the liquid into a jar to save.
You might have noticed the lovely strips of silk under the collar above. I had a hank of sari silk ribbons I had picked up a year or so ago from the TAFTA Geelong Fibre Forum traders. I decided to give it a wash with the trusty eucalyptus wool and delicates liquid soap. OMG the first wash water was putrid, I think they were the dags of the sari silk industry. I washed again using the eucalyptus wash and then rinsed twice. Finally they all had to be ironed. At this stage I was wondering if they really were silk. However as I ironed them dry the silk sheen came back- only took me two hours all up! About 5% of the strips were still marked and stained but most were pretty clean. Below shows the process from a tangled mess to silky strips.
Now off to make some oak gall soup to do a proper mordant on a heap of cotton and some precious strips of hemp.
Some slow stitch
I have been housebound the last two weeks following surgery so slow stitch by hand has been very therapeutic. I recently purchased a download version of India Flint’s bagstories self publication and have three bags in process. India has also started a Facebook group for sharing the results which provides lots of inspiration. The first two need finishing details. The first one I made from a remnant of linen and appliqued fragments of my ‘eco-printed’ silks and cottons. I added a strap using a cashmere and wool sample but find it a little long so I am thinking about how to remedy that. The lining is silk dyed/printed using iron water. It will have a closure added, still browsing the ideas on Facebook to decide on that.
The second is hand stitched using squares of natural dyed and printed silks and cottons. It needs a closure of some kind and a strap, I will hopefully finish these over the coming days. The squares had some disappointing natural dyed cottons used like paper piecing in quilts so I will also add a full lining to finish and strengthen it, maybe cotton or linen as the outside is all silk. This is a picture of some of the squares in process:
The third bag is a very slow stitch one: a boro bag with lots of vintage indigo and sari bits, my own ‘ecoprints’ and I will also add some naturally dyed fabric and threads I purchased from Arlee Barr (be warned these took almost a month to arrive by post-blaming Australia post dis-service for that) once the base fabrics are secured.
As well as these projects on the go and cogitating, I have just finished my contribution to India’s ‘gardens of the heart’ project which will culminate in an exhibition in South Australia early next year and also a publication of the resulting poems. Each participant is allocated line 1,2 or 3 of a short poem to stitch. Here is mine below using whipped chain stitch on natural dyed and printed bridal silk remnant, photographed among the she-oak and grevillea this morning (very dull morning today):
Rosellas and spring
These blossoms and leaves were collected beneath the red flowering gum tree as a flock of rosellas (or pandemonium of parrots) feasted above. They are very messy eaters with blossom and branches strewn all around.
There are signs of spring everywhere: daffodils, blossoms and new growth, but also the chill of winter still in the air with snow falling not too far away and torrential rain the last few days.
They will be cooked up and rolled in various op shop cottons (with a soy mordant) to see what colour the spring will bring, perhaps a little iron water in a second batch. I have a sprig of dried cineraria from the florist that will be soaked and added to the bundle for comparison. Results will be posted in a week or two.
Carlseapatch's Weblog 