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Archive for the ‘linen’ Category

Experiments and travel plans

Posted in crochet, dyeing, family life, felting, linen, sewing, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 10, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Everything here has slowed down as the weeks off school are progressing, leaving us all in an increasingly relaxed state. It feels good! To interrupt the lazy summer mood, though, I started trying out a few things with the aim of coming up with attractive and wearable jewelry pieces – bracelets, wrist wraps, pendants, necklaces – made out of yarn, felt and added beads, wire, metal pieces. I have a lot of ideas going around in my head.

NB: Click on the picture below to get to Habu Textiles’ website and be prepared to be amazed at their highly innovative products of outstanding quality – and the beautiful photography. Truly mouthwatering, if you ask me. Did I mention that I love Japanese design?

Apart from that, my Alabama Chanin skirt has stalled. I got as far as sewing the basic skirt and dyeing* (shibori, tie-dye, whatever you want to call it) a piece of the leftover fabric. I am going to cut out circles and appliqué them to the lower part of the skirt, using my favorite red craft thread. This will have to wait until after traveling (see below).

(*In small print: I didn’t exactly dye the fabric, I tied it with rubber bands and put it in Chlorox household bleach – although I hate the smell and toxicity of the product. But it does produce a very lovely washed-out hue, I must say.)

My secret project is finished and ready to be packed. It will all be revealed once it has reached its final destination, adorning my sister’s staircase bannister. I promise to take pictures!

In a few days we are off on our travels to the far-away shores of home to visit families and friends in both our countries of origin – Ireland and Germany. Many a thing has to be considered and put into place before six people can set off with everything they need with them, and everything in order behind them.

It will be (even) quieter here for a while, although I will try to get access to computer and internet while traveling to keep you posted. In the meantime I want to thank you all out there for following me so far along my crafty way, and look forward to reconnecting after my return!

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Om

Posted in cotton, embroidery, felting, lavender, linen, sewing, yoga, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 26, 2012 | 1 Comment »

The owner of a local yoga studio asked me to come up with some yoga-related items she would like sell in her boutique. I made samples of eye pillows in different shapes, with various outer and inner materials. I used linen and cotton for the exteriors and flaxseed, millet and sand (with or without lavender) for the filling material. Some of them are kept simple, some are minimally embellished.

Furthermore I suggested a felted luminary, which produces a very soft and peaceful light when you light a candle in the glass insert. I wet-felt these luminaries around a resist pattern that fits the glass.

The yoga studio owner is going to “test-drive” the eye pillows and luminary for a few days and will let me know what she would like to order. I hope she likes my offerings.

(Do you out there have any ideas what you would like to purchase in a yoga boutique?)

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Lavender sachets

Posted in cotton, embroidery, lavender, linen, sewing, spring, vintage fabric, woven ribbon, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 10, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

I have been working on these lavender sachets, using my recently plant-dyed fabrics . The woven ribbon and the fabric I used for the cross-stitch embellishments are from a trunk show with Anna Maria Horner I went to not long ago. She talked about her textile design process, her career and her children. It was most entertaining and especially some of her quilts were just fabulous.

Back to the sachets that have my studio smell delicious  - here are some pictures I took along the way. Feel free to visit my Etsy store to look at a few of them in more detail (think of  Mother’s Day, Easter Baskets, spring decoration…).

I cut the fabric into strips of various widths and sewed them together again to use as the front fabric. The back is some vintage linen (laundered, of course!).

The cross-stitch motifs are embroidered, then cut out and hand-appliqued onto the front of the sachet, before putting it all together with the woven ribbon and tag and backing fabric.

They are filled with lavender buds, imported from France. I didn’t add anything else for a filler, because I wanted them to be light.

Don’t these colors make you happy? They certainly delight ME…

Do you want to see my photo studio? Here it is! The Californian sunshine is my perfect lighting (except for the occasional shadow), a piece of white linen gets attached to my son’s chalkboard with clothes pegs and after adding some other props I’m good to go. Not quite professional, I guess, but it works for me for now!

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Dye Day Results

Posted in cotton, dyeing, linen, sewing, vintage fabric, wool felt, tagged , , , , , on March 1, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

As promised here is my lovely stash after having been laundered and dried. A lot of color washed out, as I first rinsed them in a hand basin and then put them on a gentle cycle in the washer. But at least now I know that that’s it and they will not bleed color after this treatment. Apparently plant-dyed cellulose fibers, which is what my linen and cotton fabrics are, do tend to bleach a lot in direct sunlight…

Aren’t these the most harmonious and pleasing colors ever?

Two more items got added to my shop – some fun flower pins. Have a look!

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Dye Day

Posted in Craftology, dyeing, linen, silk dyeing, vintage fabric on February 29, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

After the mordanting, the (so much more rewarding) dyeing. Four hours straight on a blustery day. I shared the dye pots with Annette who creates lovely needle felted things. She dyed roving, I dyed my linen and cotton fabrics and thread.

This was the set-up, on the sidewalk in front of Craftology: two heavy-duty gas camping burners, a lot of pots filled with the most interesting dye stuff and a clothes line. We switched out pots, as they became too cold and rotated colors. Indigo was definitely a favorite of both of us. It is just such a thrill to take out your piece and watch it turn the loveliest blue as it reacts with the oxygen.

This is the cochineal pot in front, the only not exactly plant-dye of them, since cochineal is a tiny bug, which, when dried and ground,  releases a deep pink (sometimes red, depending on water quality, heat, concentration and other temperamental circumstances).

This is Brazilwood. It yields this perfect warm shade of brownish-reddish-orange.

This was an experiment with lichen, but it didn’t give off a lot of color at all. It could be the way it was set up or our half-hearted try, distracted by the more flashy and vibrant colors we had available.

These are other trials Diana got passed on from somebody. They certainly looked interesting, but didn’t show stunning results. Same as above, I guess.

Despite the picture being a little dark you can see the bright yellow of Osage Orange in the back. It is the bark of the Osage Orange tree that performs this trick.

A good sunny spot for drying my embroidery/crocheting thread.

Brazilwood and madder root.

Cochineal – what an amazing pink!

This is how I felt after hours of dipping things into dye pots, exchanging rinsing water in big buckets, pondering about color combinations and sequences and withstanding the wind. Thank you, Diana, for a wonderful day and such a lovely result!*

*I will have to take pictures of my washed and folded fabric, the harmony of the colors is really something else…

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Mordanting day(s)

Posted in Craftology, dyeing, linen, vintage fabric on February 22, 2012 | 3 Comments »

This Thursday I am going to use Diana’s dye pots at her beautiful crafting space Craftology. She is a master of natural plant-dyeing and I have used her plant-dyed wool felt, silk and embroidery floss in many a project before. A few years back I took one of her dye classes that she co-taught, and hosted a dyeing party at my own house shortly after. But since I am (still?) a novice at this art I found it to be difficult to juggle different dye-pots at different temperatures and with different requirements, apart from the fact that you need a certain basic equipment to do this and my two flimsy camping stoves weren’t very helpful.

Now that I have collected a stash of table linens, cotton and linen yardage as well as cotton and linen embroidery thread that I all want to use for various KlaraLuna projects in the near and far future, I asked Diana’s help with dyeing them. She instructed me how to prepare my fabric and thread in order for them to accept the dye in the most favorable and lasting way possible. So, this is what I did started yesterday.

Above is the basket of above mentioned fabric; with the help of my nearly 12-year-old we wound 10 skeins of cotton and linen thread…

…and off they went to their first out of three mordanting baths, the alum bath. Simmer for one hour, let cool overnight. I used the stick for stirring and pushing the billowing fabric back into the water, which meant an avalanche of alum water onto my kitchen stove every time, until I had enough and wedged the stick between the dye pot and the ventilation hood above it. This kept the fabric down and I could actually step away from it for more than five minutes.

This morning I took out the fabric etc., threw out the alum water and started the tannin bath. This three-step process is necessary only for cellulose fibers, or plant fibers. It is a simpler process for animal fibers. The second bath asks for tannin, which I got by boiling oak galls, and soda ash, or sodium carbonate, which I could not find in two of my local grocery stores, nor a drugstore nearby. I had baking soda – so I learned through heavy googling that I can turn my baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) into sodium carbonate by cooking it at high heat (400 degrees Fahrenheit) for a long time (1 hour). I did that last night. This is what the “soup” looked like…

The brown color of the water doesn’t dye the fabric, by the way. Simmer for half an hour, let cool in tannin bath. And this is where everything is at right now. Tomorrow morning, after thorough rinsing, follows a second alum bath, and then I’m done and can take my wares to Diana’s. But I’m sure it will be all worth it! Results will follow.

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