Indigo, Shibori and some Sashiko

Met de indigo en shibori werkstukken van vorige zomer heb voor de markt een viertal kussens gemaakt.
Ik verf altijd met oude lakens die ik koop bij de Emmaus kringloopwinkels. De oude Franse lakens zijn vaak gemaakt van een linnen-katoen binding , soms zelfs met een hennepdraad erin. Mooie stevige lakens , vaak nooit gebruikt en geel op de vouwen van het in de kast liggen.  Veel hebben nog geborduurde monogrammen.
Soms zonde om te verknippen.....
Je kunt ze natuurlijk ook als tafellaken gebruiken of er een dekbeddenhoes van maken , zoals ik gedaan heb. Als je in Frankrijk bent  deze zomer ga eens rondkijken bij een Emmaus. Er is er altijd wel eentje in de buurt. Op de site van de Emmaus kun je ze vinden.

 

 

 

 

What I made for the Christmas market

Warning....... lots of pictures!

Several different eco printed pouches

Three sloughy hats

Some dolls, the pattern is from While she naps.

Different bags, i only show you two, i made ten....

Bags for children, I made 15

I knitted two lefties, a blue one and a purple one

I made three free form crochet brooches, another one in red/purple and one in teal

And i made lots of more things, in all 150.

The market is tomorrow, wish me luck!!!!!!!

Ecoprint scarfs for the Christmas market

The Christmas market is already on the 13th of december. I need to finish some small things and then I am ready. I am really proud of the things I made this year!
Th scarfs that I show you today are printed with eucalyptus leaves and some other leaves.  I made ten in all. They are 2 meter long and 40 cm wide and made with a wool/silk blend that i bought in a small weaving mill near St Etienne.
I already bought several times by telephone, the old weaver does not have a computer. Some weeks ago my friend Lucienne and her husband , we went to visit the weaver, such an extraordinary experience. We made lots of photoos, i'll show them soon.

Eco bundles and some champagne

With my friends Brigitte and Lucienne, we made some ecobundles. After two weeks of waiting we organized a 'party' to open our treasures.
Weather was still beautiful so we could do it outside in Brigitte's garden.

Our bundles

We started picking figs, the tree gave kilo's and kilo's this year, we picked the last ones....

And then surprise, surprise

Lucienne was happy with her silk scarf. I was not completely satisfied because the iron had colored the silk too dark.

 Detail of another scarf

And then , there was champagne........

Indigo dyeing in Bordeaux and in Japan

Oh my it is so long ago that I wrote a blogpost.
There are so many things to tell and to show you. At the moment I am working for the coming Christmas market . We had a splendid summer but weather was too hot to do any crafting, so i am far behind..........
But let's start at the beginning of september.
As you maybe remember i went to Bordeaux last year for an indigo workshop , given by Caroline.
I told Caroline that I really wanted to go to Japan for a ten days workshop. For several reasons I cancelled my registration but Caroline took my place and she went to Japan in may this year and it was a fabulous experience for her!

This was the view from her bedroom window.

The group was located in the house where the workshop teacher lived, an old traditional wooden house , rice paper on the walls, handmade traditional fabric everywhere.

The group learned several shibori techniques.....

Back home Caroline invited me to come again to Bordeaux to share with me the techniques she learned in Japan and of course to show me lots of photo's.

Her indigo vat was in a very good condition and we started to work .....

I made this masterpiece, it measures about 1.50 x 1.10.

The fabric was folded around a pole, that took me about three hours.

Caroline showed me how to manage the fabric with elastic rings,  while folding.

After folding the fabric was pressed together and ready for dyeing.

I dipped seven times........

After the unwrapping we were both very happy with the result.

Last weekend I dyed fabric to make bags for the Christmas market. I will show you some photo's soon.

Eco bundles and how you could use the eco dyed fabric

Some of you asked in my last post which were my projects with all those small and bigger pieces of eco dyed fabric.
Here are some examples.

A cushion cover.

a bag for the christmas market

the back

another bag

the back

I even used the fabric with no good prints and i am very glad with the results!

More eco bundles

In my last eco dyeing post i told you that there were already new bundles in the jars.
They stayed two weeks in the jars for some solar dyeing; Weather was hot and sunny, a real heat-wave.
After those two weeks the bundles were steamed for two hours, in the dyepot war rain water with some rust water. When i lo oked at the bundles after half an hour,  i got a fright! All the bundles turned black! So i threw away the rustwater and changed it for only rain water.
I opened the bundles after one week...... yes ,I know 'time is your friend', but i could not wait longer.
Eco dyeing is so magic and i am so happy with the results!

 

These are laurel leaves from my garden. The fabric is silk/wool blend , mordant with Crème de tartre and alum.The bundle was wrapped round a copper pipe and before steaming,  two weeks in a jar with some logwood.

Leaves from the Rhus tree; the ordinary one that everybody in Holland and in France has in her garden.

The fabric is a silk, wool blend. The bundle was wrapped round some wood and for two weeks in dried hibiscus flower dye jar.

Eucalyptus perriniana leaves , my friend Natacha has not only 350 fruit trees , but also some eucalyptus trees. The bundle was wrapped around wood and for two weeks in a jar with some, already used, rhubarb roots.

These leaves i found in a village nearby , i don't know the name of the tree. The bundle was wrapped around a piece of rust and for two weeks in a jar with dried hibiscus flowers. 

In the same village i found these leaves, wrapped around wood and in a jar with some lac.

The same eucalyptus leaves , wrapped around wood and the for two weeks in a used madder jar.

And of course there also were bundles with almost no print or only some colored spots. With eco dyeing you need to do lots of experiments. and you shall be disappointed several times; 

But eco dyeing is MAGIC and I am already addicted.......