NATURAL DYES....my new obsession

So Ive always loved loved all natural things and since textiles is my life! Ive decided that natural dyes are my thing. I would say I got super excited about it last year when I did a natural dyes workshop at my studio. I loved it. I had a recent client project to work on and the client Karyn, from the workroom 
Its a lovely sewing store in toronto where she sells fabrics and many other textile things as well as sewing classes which is super exciting. Anyways, she loves natural dyes and so I decided to experiment a little myself....these were some of my samples:

These two were dyed using eucalyptus leafs. The first one had no mordants and the leafs were fresh and only soaked for one day. The grey tones came from an iron mordant added to the bath while cooking. 

The second one had dried leafs and the were soaked for two days and the fabric was also pre-mordant with alum and left over night soaking. The colors were def brighter with the second batch and the wools came out orange. :D The grey tones once again come from the iron mordant added to the batch.

These are my samples from my avocado batch. I presoaked and smashed the pits and boiled them before putting in my fabric. No mordants were used. The peachy colors come from the pure avocado pits and the more pinkish colors have a bit of LAC also a natural dye, It is a resinous substance produced mainly on the banyan tree by the Laccifer lacca, a scale-shaped insect. 

These are prints made with fresh eucalyptus leafs and seeded eucalyptus branch pounded on wet fabric.

 

The prints above are made by smashing the avocado pits into fabric directly. I used stencils for some of the more defined shapes.

I decided to try dying with the eucalyptus bark so I soaked it for one day and pre cooked it. Fabrics were pre mordant with alum but the colors were a faint beige. For the pink ones I just added LAC again and the alum made the pinks brighter. The other side contains the wool from the second  pre mordant eucalyptus batch as well as some wool from a Madder Root and pomegranate batch.

These were made from pomegranate skins pre soaked and fabric was also mordant with alum. The other side is a mix of the pomegranate and Madder Root. I also boiled the Madder before to give me more brown tones.

These are just the yarns with all the pretty colors together that I got from the different dyes. Dont they just look lovely together!

I love the silver tones I got from using iron as a mordant with the eucalyptus!

This is a work in progress :D avocado pits crushed directly onto fabric, the thread was also dyed in the bath. Ill come back to it when I decide where Im going with it haha

Anyways.....I rambled on but I really do love natural dyes...try them! There are so many sources to work from and its simply the best.

Happy dyeing!!!

Fall 2009 Oversize Necklaces

Clockwise from top left: Marni Fall 2009, Jason Wu Fall 2009, Donna Karan Fall 2009, Elie Saab Fall 2009,Lanvin Fall 2009, Christian Lacroix Fall 2009


I absolutely love oversized necklaces, Ever since I made my felted necklace I've had a slight obsession with them and specially the bib necklaces that use a lot of fabric a the main base. I feel they are a beautiful extension to the body and just look wonderful. I want to try to experiment with metals more and include beadwork on my next project. Yay Im excited.

More embroidery...

These are some samples that I made for my embroidery project. Both machine embroidered and inspired by microscopic body images.

Soulmate dry your eye, because soulmates never dye.

This was an embroidery project for my materials exploration class. It was supposed to reflect something very personal that happened in our lives. I chose to make my eye because a lot of my personal experiences are moments that visually I never forget. This was machine embroidered on linen and cotton. The eyeball was attached separately to create a more 3d effect. The cotton was hand painted for both the green and the orange colors. I love embroidery, it has a very sketchy feeling, I feel like Im drawing on fabric with thread.

Faerie-ality

This was a necklace I made for my print class. It was part of a costume design for the play Madama Butterfly. The belt, bracelet and the top part of the necklace are crochet with mohair yarn. The necklace is made of layers of organza with disperse dyes printed. Very fantasy and fairy tale inspired. Theres a book called Fairie-ality that really inspired the theme of my costume.

This is a corset belt I also made for my costume it is on brown vinyl and machine embroidered with multicolor thread. 

This was the skirt made of a silk stiched waist piece and layers of stitched and dirperse dyed organza.

I love the transparency this fabric gives as it is layered.

Bleeding out

Hi Hi!
So I decided to start blogging! I dont really know if I will have anything interesting to say but I will always have pretty pictures. Technology is not my friend at all but we are living in an era where its all dependent on it so Im going to get with the times and get out of my cave. Take a walk into the woods with me...hope you enjoy what I blog about :D








First Post!!!!

This is a necklace and bracelet I made for my textiles investigation class. It is made out of red wool fleece, mohair red yarn and wire. It was wet felted all together. wire runs through the top part of the necklace for support. Small needle felted blood cells were included after as well as the button.

This is also a sample piece inspired by blood cell, I loved it so much that I hung it on my wall. Well took me a while to find the exact size hoop because it was cut as a circle and I didnt leave much space. This is hand stitched with red mohair yarn on hand printed and dyed cotton. The fabric was actually a sample for class, just playing around with color and print and Im really glad I saved it because scrap fabric and samples are always useful for something :D