Stittsville Library Show

The fibre arts group I belong to, Out-of-the-Box, has a small show hanging up at the Stittsville Library for the month of November 2016.  So go and have a look if you can because it will be taken down at the end of the month.  The theme this year is "Celebrate".  I have a piece there called "Celebrate Scraps."  Here's a photo of the show hanging up at the library.  The first piece on the left is mine. 

Here's a closer photo of it.  The bird is a gray catbird which I had taken a photo of while walking in the Ottawa area.  The background is a mix of leftover scrap fabrics, chocolate wrappers and painted doilies that I put together into a collage.  That's why I call it a celebration of scraps.  These are all the little scraps that I find too nice to throw out!

Here's a closer shot of one wall at the show.  There's also a show case of three dimensional objects so go and have a look.   I'm currently working on a piece which will go into the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum show in December and January.  The show is called "Colour Unboxed.".  This is a much bigger show and will be the main exhibit at the museum.   So more to come.  Subscribe to my blog by entering your email address on the right hand side of the page.  Thanks for having a look!

Eco Printing in October

I did some more eco printing early in October because the weather was still good and there was lots of plant material around.  I did some on paper, on cotton and one silk scarf.  See below a photo of my table at home set up for eco printing on fabric.  I was getting ready to roll the material onto a dowel.  I have the Sunlight container there to add weight to the end so that I could roll very tightly.

Here's a photo of the bundles in the pot on the stove steaming.  I have the lid on a towel beside it because I was turning the bundles.  I use two elements because the roasting pan is so long.

Below are some of the results on paper.  The one on the left is coreopsis and the one on the right is goldenrod.  You can see some black bleedthrough from the rusted papers underneath.

Here's another set of papers below.  Another type of coreopsis (tickseed) on the left with a sumac branch.  You can also see the blue of the wild grapes.  On the right is smokebush leaves and sumac flower pieces which look pinkish.

Here's a photo of a rusted piece of cotton printed with smokebush leaves and rosebush leaves.  My smokebush has red leaves now so they print well. I tried them when they were still green and they didn't really print.

I printed some cotton with logwood on it, maple leaves and a sumac branch.  Photo below.  You can see the logwood dominated and where the chips were it is very dark.  I can see that this would make a good dyestuff.

Here's a silk scarf below also printed with logwood,some buckthorn leaves and coreopsis.  The purple logwood was even darker on silk but the coreopsis held it's own making some nice yellow marks. Thanks for having a look.