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 Urciers

Urciers is the small village where I live, about 300 km south to Paris. Maybe it is better to call uUciers a hamlet, there are only 260 inhabitants!
After my dyeing experience in Bordeaux, i wanted to dye at home. I made a natural indigo vat, the reducer was fructose.
The first day the vat looked in a perfect condition but the blue was rather pale, even after 5 dips.
Two days later there was nu metallic shine, no flower on the surface of the vat, but the color was much deeper blue. I don't understand, there is still a lot learn about this magic indigo dyeing.

This week i will finish some children bags for the Christmas market, so next i will work with this fabric to make some bags.

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.......

Eco bundles and solar dyeing

When i told you about the solar dyeing in my last post, I did not talk about the bundles i made for the jars. In India Flints book she shows lots of beautiful samplers of eco bundles.

Some  leaves, i folded the fabric after placing the leaves, the print is a bit orange. 

In eco dyeing plants are enclosed in textile or paper , bundled by winding over branches , copper pipes, rusty nails, and then steamed or immersed in hot water, sometimes with plants, to extract the pigments and produce a print made with plant dyes.
You can use leaves,stems, flowers and seeds.
Lay the wet fabric on a flat surface and lay some flowers or leaves or whatever you want on the fabric. Roll the fabric around the branch to make a bundle.
I have put the bundles about two weeks in the jars, some jars were filled with dyeplants from my garden.
Then steam the bundles for two hours and then WAIT.
Eco dyers say: time is your friend. The longer you wait before opening the bundles, the deeper the color well be. But how difficult is that. I could only wait one week....

The bundles have been steamed.....

Waiting.

Eucalyptus leaves, the color is much more orange than on the picture.

oak leaf

eucalyptus leaves

onion skins

And of course there were some disappointed results. There are already new bundles in the jars. 

So the waiting begins......