Eco printing on fabric with embroidery

 Hi everyone. It's been a few months since I last posted as we have very sadly had a family bereavement and I was dashing to and from England for hospital visits and a funeral. To be honest I didn't feel much like working anyway.

However, I am now getting back to work - and play. I have listed several more felts in my etsy shop. I was delighted that three sold within days ! Two of them went to repeat customers which is always nice because I know that they must have been very happy with their original purchase to have come back for more.

I'm waffling. Let me tell you about the eco printing. In case you've not come across it before it's a process where you mordant either paper or fabric, place leaves and flowers on it and steam it for a couple of hours. The leaves and some flowers leave a print on your paper / fabric. 

I have had a lot of success with printing on paper before but been disappointed with the results on fabric so I decided to take an online workshop. What a difference! Instead of looking like someone screwed the fabric and rubbed it in dirt I have leaf prints.

I started with cotton. It's not the best for this method but it's inexpensive and I had some. The prints were there but quite faint so I decided to add embroidery. I love the result. Here are photos of my samplers.

This is the first one. It was done on plain, white calico. I added both hand and free machine stitching. I also put some wadding on the back to make the stitches give more depth.

This is the second one I made. The background is actually a peachy, beige but doesn't show well in the photo. It started as plain, white calico but I dyed it with coreopsis before printing. Coreopsis gives a bright orange but the iron water I used as a mordant modified it.

Close up of stitching. Both machine and hand embroidery.

Close up of the second one which was all hand embroidery.

After having a bit of practise I treated myself to some silk noil. Gosh! Look at this.

The prints are so much clearer. I think it is a little too dark so today I am trying more silk with less mordant. It's so exiting when the time comes to unwrap the bundles and see what has happened.

I've no idea what I shall do with all of these prints but I'm sure I will think of something. I'll keep you updated when I do.

 


 

Dying with madder

Hi, I just thought I would keep you up to date on my 'slow stitch' blanket. I have made some more felt, this time from a sheep called Speckle. Her  fleece is not quite as soft as Sally's. It has a few more guard hairs in it but it's fine for a blanket.
The pieces in the photograph were all dyed with madder. The one on the left was only left in the dye pot for about half an hour which gave me a brilliant orange, the on the left was in the same dye pot foe a couple of hours and turned out a little bit darker. The brownish one at the bottom was also dyed in the same dye pot but I put it in an iron modifier afterwards to 'sadden' the colour. Three different colours from one dye pot!

Now that the days are beginning to get longer plants are starting to spring to life so I am going to wait until the docks and nettles appear before I try any more dying. I think they should yield greens but I will let you know.