Rust dyed cotton handstitched on top of a handwoven stripe and sashiko inspired print
I was happy to find this scrap of a Japanese print inspired by Sashiko patterns. The color picks up the different rust tones of the indigo scrap below. At the top is a bit of screen printed canvas that was a failure, but cut up and overdyed one would never know.
Pieced and patched indigo cottons
I just got a small bit done today, working in the same area as yesterday.
Block Printed Indian Cotton Stitched in the Boro Tradition
I found a nice bit of an indigo dyed block print twill from India that was the perfect weight to cover the pocket. It's sturdy enough that it will bear up to repeated rubbings. I think I'll add some more stitched in the other direction.
The water left from an acid rinse after dyeing fabrics in an iron indigo vat
This post will probably only interest dyers who use an iron indigo vat, or a 1-2-3 vat as Michel Garcia calls it.
The iron vat is a great one. It requires very little maintenance. The blues you can get are deep and rich. The vat stays at room temperature so you can use clay or rice resists without fear of them boiling away. The downside is that it's got a ph of about 11 and needs to be soaked in an acid bath to get the ph down. Iron is used as a mordant with vegetable dyes to "sadden" them. You can get gorgeous warm tones that are a bit drab and toned down. In the indigo vat this makes your whites a bit dingy, and your blues a bit dusty.
After 20 minutes in a pot of hot water (ideally boiling, but I'm often lazy) the whites are clear and the blues are keyed up and vibrant. And the rinse water, which started out clear, looks like this. I did 4 loads in the bucket today, so it's murkier than usual, but it's pretty remarkable that this came out of the dyed fabric that looked pretty white. The good thing is that you don't need to do the rinse immediately. As pieces come out of the vat I toss them in a basket and periodically take a sunny morning, like today, and have a rinse session. I use a white construction bucket, hottest tap water and a few shakes of citric acid. I test to be sure the ph is around 4 or 5, although you can tell if it's working by whether the rinse water takes on the iron color after a few minutes. Some things I'm very specific about weighing and measuring. When eyeballing works, I'm all for it. I let the pieces soak in the acid rinsevfor about 20 minutes and then rinse them in clear water. S
Shibori and ikat fabrics pieced, patched and stitched in the boro tradition
I just got off a few stitches today.
Rust dyed cotton mixed with ikat, shibori and hand loomed textiles
I finished a bit more work on the same area as yesterday so took a photo from a different angle. I do love that little rust-dyed triangle.
Shibori dyed stripe fat quarter for quilters by Carlyn Clark
I've been working on stripes this week and came up with some new options that will be great in the striped quilt I'm working on. I'm dyeing on both Kona Cotton and on a poplin that I've fallen in love with. More stripes are coming, and soon they'll be available for sale to quilters. Sign up for my newsletter for a sneak peek, coming soon.
Block printed cotton, ikats, and shibori fabrics patched in the boro style
I'm finding some little spots to add variations in scale. The small triangular piece of cotton is a leftover scrap from a piece my daughter did years ago in the Pre-College Summer Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She used steel wool to rust dye cotton which I dumped into the indigo vat. There are little pieces of her all over the jacket. It will be lovely to brush up against them and think of her as I do. And knowing her, I expect she'll be wearing it once it's finished.
