Part 3 Tunis sheep felting experiment
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Here are the photos of the finished felt before dying. It definitely has a beige pink hue, like the sheep's face. When I got the felt in the dye pot, I added some acid to turn it more orange, but then I decided I wanted it to be red so I could make a sashiko piece with it. I added chalk to swing it back to a redder hue.
INDIGO! ...in Niltepec, Oaxaca, Mexico
(Oaxaca is a Mexican state on the Pacific coast; the harvesting and processing of indigo dye in the area is hundreds of years old)
While you're here: if you can, pledge a few bucks a month to your local PBS
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I made some natural inks and watercolors a while back and finally tried them on my acorn woodpecker sketch from a few months ago. I tried making my own vegan scratchboard, which did not go well, so I ended up trying out Ampersand "claybord", which was nothing like what I'm used to using. It was so hard I got streaks and shines, and it was too thin to scratch into much. I tried removing some ink with alcohol and got a happy accident of texture..
Part 2 Tunis sheep continued: felting experiment
I apologize for the last long thread--I'll post fewer at a time..I carded the waste leftover from spinning and made a felt sample. It wasn't great, but not bad either, so I soaked it overnight in Aluminum triformate, which is a cold-water mordant. I dyed it with madder root, which I'll share in the next post.
The felt shown here is not quite completely done, and I had to fix it a bit.
#handmade fingerless gloves using #Welsh #Wool yarn and #naturaldyes (apple tree leaves). Made this #Saturday afternoon.
In this outdoor nature workshop* along the Medomak River, we will seek inspiration for art from nature. Join teaching artist Katama Murray and ecologist Kit Pfeiffer at Riverbrook Preserve to connect to the current season, place, and this special ecosystem as we make designs using organic objects.
This scarf is a gift for my uncle, inspired by quartz clusters we saw together backpacking in Cottonwood Canyon in Death Valley. From what I've been reading I think they were formed by intrusive igneous rock forming around xenoliths, and by cooling very slowly forming the incredible quartz crystals we saw, which looked like rings around the darker xenoliths in the weathered rock face we saw. I'm not trained as a geologist though and would love to find more information about the geology of Cottonwood Canyon from someone with some real expertise!
The wool is targhee roving I got at the nor cal ren faire. I spun it on my small cross arm spindle and wove it on a loom I've been borrowing from a friend. It's plain weave set at 8epi. It looked very open on the loom, but fulled into a wonderfully bouncy and dense fabric.
After fulling I scoured the fabric, then used rubber bands to do this shibori inspired dye process. After putting on the rubber bands I gave it a bath in tannins I extracted from an oak gall, then in a bath of cool water with just a tiny bit of dissolved ferrous sulfate. It was so exciting to see the fabric turn grey in a a matter of just a few minutes when I put it in the iron bath!
#handweaving
#weaving
#handspinning
#naturaldyes
#dyes
#textiles
#handwoven
#handspun
#tiedye
#shibori
#oakgalls
#ferroussulfate
#naturaldye
#targhee
#wool
#geology
#xenolith
#quartz
#deathvalley
Time to fire up the dye pots!!!
Natural dyers, what plants, mushrooms, for good reds?
Anne Montano
azteclady
Candice Black
Candice Black
BrambleBearSnoring
LidoHZ
Soren