experiments in fresh indigo - part 2

i still had a lot of indigo growing in the garden, so i decided to conduct another experiment dyeing with fresh indigo. i'd read about another method, where you blitz the leaves up in a blender with ice water, so i wanted to try that.

i had a piece of fine, very light cotton and i painted it with soy milk doodles, hoping to get a different color in spots. then i poured the indigo ice water mixture over it and massaged it in and let it sit for maybe half an hour (i really should have noted my timings a bit better).

it didn't feel like enough to just dye one piece of cotton, so i got out the silk i had dyed down in randbøldal and over-dyed it with the indigo ice water bath. 

it had a very cool effect with the regular indigo and the fresh. tonally, they are totally complementary, but they give very different shades of blue green. lovely.

it was a bit hard to rinse off the bits of the leaves, so i just hung them up to dry so that i could shake it off. i even over-dyed the one i had dyed with the salt dye mixture because it had ended up quite a light color when it was dry. 

i had found a nice piece of woven silk that i dyed as well - it has come out much more green. i don't know what i'll do with it, maybe make a top? i haven't decided yet. the dyeing is the fun part. and i stuck all my indigo stems in water and they surprisingly quickly sprouted roots, so i'm going to have even more next year!

and i planted them in the bed next door to the first bed of indigo. we'll have a blue summer next year if they take off. we have some unseasonably warm temperatures, thanks to the tail-end of the hurricanes on the east coast of the US, so i hope they have a chance to take hold.

dyeing for some creativity

on the last night of my vacation, i went to a shibori/tie-dye dyeing session with my local creative group. i took some odds and ends of cloth. most of it from the fabric we used at sabin's confirmation in 2014, which was a bit stained by food and wine. now you can't see any of those stains. the piece on the left was a remnant of white linen. i put it in the second round of the dye bath, so it came out lighter, but still cool.

i played with shibori techniques - folding in triangles and using cardboard and plastic as resists, as well as putting a ton of small rubber bands on one piece. i wish it was indigo, but it was navy blue batik dye. i really love how it turned out. i brought them home and washed them. the smaller piece is one of the fabric bags my sister made for wrapping everyone's christmas presents a couple of years ago. 

i've been saving husband's old shirts to make a quilt for some years now and i think they would look great with these bits and pieces, since most of them are shades of blue. and i already pinned about 50 inspiration pins for the next time we have a dye evening. i think it would be great to work with some natural dyes the next time, rather than commercial batik dyes. 

these are a couple more of the linen bags my sister made. i used the second round of some red dye that the others had used - i really love this salmon color that came out of the pot. this is giving me so many ideas, i definitely want to do some more. and the next time we do an indigo pot down at the museum, i'll definitely be taking some cloth along. i feel like being on vacation opened up my creativity again. now, to try to hold onto it and keep it going. 

if i were a designer...

...i would make munisaks - a central asian garment worn as an outer robe - with luxurious silks or ikat on the outside and beautiful, soft russian printed cottons on the inside.

these are shots of the lush and gorgeous russian textiles by susan meller.

i picked it up at the library yesterday and devoured it in one sitting.

this would be so easy to make, i just might have to get out the sewing machine.

sometimes the linings were patched together of several fabrics.
but i think that makes them that much more charming.

such a marvelous collection of pattern meller has put together

in most cases, i like the inside better than the outside.
they lined the silks with cotton because it was considered too ostentatious to have silk next to the skin.

it's also possible to make other things, not just munisaks - here's a skirt and a top and some folded bags.
so much inspiration in this beautiful book. i'm already dreading giving it back to the library.

collecting III: the fabric stash

probably my most extensive collection is of fabrics. it's gotten a bit better since i began to focus on organic cottons with bee charmer, but still, it's pretty crazy. i have repurposed the wooden boxes our weekly organic food delivery comes in and they make great storage. plus, they bring a new one every week, so i can keep adding to the stash and always have enough storage.

some months back, my mom expressed disbelief that i had all that fabric without knowing what i was going to make of it. but i don't need to have something in particular in mind. i choose colors and prints that i love, and feel a nearly giddy happiness just looking at it and knowing that whenever inspiration strikes, it's there, waiting for me.

at the moment, i'm totally enamored of the cloud9 fabrics that i made the dresses out of. and i'm working on that big cut out & keep quilt again. i wasn't happy with some of it, so i uncharacteristically spent a lot of time taking out some seams and rearranging a bit and now it's getting there.

being surrounded by beautiful fabric makes me happy. i can sense a nearly audible hum in the air...the hum of potential. and at times, i swear the fabrics whisper to me and tell me what i should make of them. so it would be crazy not to have plenty of their little voices at hand. right? right?  ok, i do realize this makes me sound like some kind of crazy lady, but still, the stash makes me happy. and it begins to be evident that happiness is what's at the heart of all of this collecting.

ikea is more than just meatballs

i hadn't been to ikea in several months and i went the other day to stock up on the throw pillow cases i use for my etsy pillows. i wandered into the fabric section and fell in love with several fabulous fabrics. ikea has some seriously great fabric designers. in addition to the one that i got to make a bedspread for sabin's new and improved big girl room, i found these beauties as well (please forgive the pictures, our light sucks this time of year):

this makes me think of dr. seuss.

this has a dr. seuss-ish quality as well and i love the colors

birds and cages in cheerful colors. i can think of lots of good things to make with this.

and a seaside scene to remind us of warmer, lighter times.

i've finished sabin's bedspread and made a couple of pillows as well. i "quilted" the fabric to a fleece (also from ikea) and put a binding around it, which i sewed on with the machine to save time. i've decided that what kills me about binding is that hand sewing takes forever.

#86 - bedspread for sabin's bed

the fabric is designed by lotta kühlhorn for ikea.

it's so cool i decided she needed credit.

i know this picture is blurry, but the light is horrible these days and i wasn't patient, nor can i hold still.

also blurry, i realize. again with the lack of light. yet i show you the crap pictures anyway

because i want to count #87.

stacks of inspiration

this gorgeousness arrived right before i left for singapore. it's the latest stacks of anna maria horner's fabrics. i had ordered them and K brought them home from the US right before we left. it was pretty tough leaving them behind all by themselves, but there was no time for sewing on the road. but today, that will all change. an old friend had a baby girl recently and i'm going to make her a bright, cheery little quilt. i'm even more inspired to do so after reading this post on anna maria horner's blog.

are you going to do something creative today?