Ecoprinted Silk Scarves – Working With The Seasons.

As you know, if you read my blog regularly a lot of what I do is seasonal. I like to use plant material in much of my work.

Autumn has sneakily crept up on me rather quickly this year, I have fallen behind with so much going on at home. Also it’s a bit of a paradox as I have been waiting patiently for the leaves to fall in order to get some bare tree photos to use in an artwork, but also I need to collect leaves before they are all gone.

If you read my last post about my walk in Dubbs Moss looking for inspiration here is the finished piece. I have another one to make inspired by another walk and a rather special (to me) tree so I can hang them as a pair.

On the other face of the paradox I am rushing about collecting leaves for ecoprinting before they are all gone.

I have managed to get some ecoprinted silk scarves made and into my shop before the Christmas rush.

Hopefully the rain will stop soon and I can get out with my camera and get that bare tree photo to finish the diptich, and collect some fallen leaves along the way.

Enjoy your day.

Eco Printing – Autumn Colours From The Final Leaf Flourish

I am making a push to complete my leafy journey this year before the leaves are gone, I do enjoy working with the seasons.
I went out gathering leaves on Friday as the wind was getting up and they are starting to fall. There’s an acer tree in the village that has lovely small palmate leaves, it’s in a garden but near the wall, I’ve waited for them to start falling over the wall onto the path so I could gather some.

Whilst collecting leaves around my garden I couldn’t resist taking some photos of the trees, Sorbus Cashmiriana is colouring up nicely, and you can see the hosta leaves are golden now, soon they will turn to mush and be gone until next year so no more hosta ceramics until late spring.
I decided to try a new dye blanket as the iron blanket gave such great results, this one is myrobalan also known as harde powder. The other bundle at the back has the iron blanket. I could see colour forming around the leaves as I rolled my bundles so I couldn’t  wait to unroll them once they had been steamed and cooled.
The colours looked great as I started to unroll the bundles.
These scarves didn’t have a blanket, the leaves were dipped in iron water (for comparison).

The little acer leaves turned out nicely.

I love the lovely rich amber colour from the myrobalan, in reality these scarves are much brighter than they are showing on my computer screen. The whole scarf is a warm amber colour, some areas deeper than others , the leaves left delicate but beautiful prints.

Here are some closeups of the leaf prints.
These are the scarves with the iron blanket, these are my favourites.
Some of the leaves were dipped in myrobalan, they are the ones that printed orange. The leaf prints are very detailed, I love the dark outlines on some of the blackberry leaves. The spleenwort printed orange from the myrobalan. I wish it wasn’t so dark today as the colours are richer than they are showing here.
I will be boiling some bundles today, I will tell you how it went in my next post.

Enjoy your Sunday.

 

New Eco Printed Silk Scarves

I have been working busily to get my shop stocked with ecoprinted silk scarves before the leaves have gone.

I have some listed in my Etsy shop now, there are more to follow. My plan is to stock up  early for Christmas so I can spend more time with family in November and December.

These are the scarves that I have managed to list so far. There are a few more already printed and I plan to print another batch this coming week. I want to play more with blankets, to see what happens, watch this space.

I got some lovely rose leaf and geranium prints, also some pretty light greens on this scarf.

Such a contrast with these strong bronze green and dark purple brown prints, you wouldn’t think these were processed together.

A pretty scarf with delicate prints from geranium and onion skins.

The veins are prominent in these leaf prints.

Mostly olive greens on this purple scarf.The cotinus leaf usually prints very dark but this time it’s almost a shadow leaf.

I have saved my favourite until last, this one was printed with an iron blanket, the prints are well defined and the scarf has rusty speckles which I love.

Even the fern fronds printed green, thay have always come out very pale in the past.

Hopefully I will be boiling more scarves this week, I have been collecting leaves around the village, I think everyone might think I’m crazy . 🙂

What are you planning on making this week?

Eco printing on silk

My fish kettle arrived so I was keen to try it out for eco printing . I bought some broom handles and cut them to the right length. I found plastic pipe would collapse when it was steamed.

There aren’t many leaves about now but a lovely lady sent me some vine leaves to experiment with so I was keen to try them, especially the purple ones, I know cotinus gives a lovely purple print so I was hoping these would do the same.  Also I had picked up a bag full of leaves on the way to the shops the other day, I might be getting a reputation as the village mad woman. The mix included oak, beech and sycamore leaves, and fortunately my garden is full of geraniums so plenty of those leaves which print very well.

Here’s some closeups of my new silk scarves which are now in my Etsy shop

I love the element of serendipity involved with eco printing, opening the bundle is like Christmas morning. Look at the detail and colour on this vine leaf, I love the way the colour has bled, just like a watercolour.

Geraniums, (that’s cranesbill, not pelargonium) are my favourite leaves to print with, you never know what the colour will be, look at the chartreuse one above and the mottled one below.

These geraniums are different again, and do you see those seed heads they are burnets. I used to gather those with my Grandpa, he made a wine with them that was a deep purple red like port. I hoped to see that colour but maybe they were picked at the wrong time so I will try again next year.

I found some beautiful papers that were in my flower press which I’d forgotten about. I would love to have framed them up but in the end I listed them as craft packs, or folks can frame them themselves.

I’m still waiting for the arrival of the eucalyptus leaves which I ordered ages ago, I have given up on them so if anyone has some I’d happily pay the postage for them.

Enjoy your day 🙂