Shibori and fabric dyeing with madder

I am so fascinated by the Shibori technique that I wanted to try some more patterns.
I dyed the fabric pieces in madder/meekrap/garance. But before you can start dyeing there is a long way to go.....
First you need to clean the fabric, even used and washed fabric need to be cleaned . The fabric should be boiled in a solution of washing soda and a bit of dishwashing liquid.
The water will become brown/orange, an unbelievable dirty color!
Then the fabric need to be mordanted, to help the dye to become permanently fixed to the fibres.
For cellulose/vegetable fibres you need an other way of mordanting than for animal fibres.
I did three mordanting bath, the first with 20% of alum and 6% of soda ash. The second bath with 8 % of tannin and the third bath again in the alum solution. Between the bath the fabric need to dry and wash just before a new bath.
The color you get depends on a lot of things, the ph of your water, the amount of color you use, if you use cotton or linen or hemp, light weight or medium light weight ........
I dyed two linen scarf and some pieces for cushions or bags.

Here in France Christmas is over , we only know the first day of Christmas but I wish my Dutch readers a peaceful and 'gezellig' second day of Christmas. 

the Christmas market and some chocolates

I had a very successful market last sunday. We together sold for 1000 euro, most things were sold below 10 euro...... Tthe indigo tote that I showed you in my last post was sold five minutes after we opened the door. I also sold Jacobus and Karel.
We don't have separate stalls but everything is on large tables.

The beautiful painting of the castle at the wall is the view outside.........

Last week we also made our traditional Christmas chocolates at Lucy's house. She prepared the recipes and guided us to the delicious  result. 

To be honest....these were made by the chef herself.

Our work was not perfect at all and there was chocolate and marzipan on the floor and all over the table.

These were made by us! But we had lots of fun.

When we were ready Lucy's kitchen, looked like a battle field......

An indigo bag, a cushion, two knitted friends and a telephone case

Tomorrow is the Christmas market and I am ready.
These are the last things i made......
A Christmas cushion with a stitchery pattern that I found in the Quiltmania winternumber 2012.

An indigo bag with new and recycled jeans fabric and vintage kimono and futon fabric from Japan. I also did some sashiko stitching.

A telephone case with some sashiko stitching on vintage futon cover fabric .

And two knitted friends, Jacobus and Karel.

Weather is not bad tomorrow so wish me luck!

Quiltmania Christmas squares, I made 5 more

I made 5 more squares, so fun to do....

I am also busy finishing things for the Christmas market on sunday the 14th. I need to finish a bag, a cushion, some mittens and a knitted monkey...........