Tag Archives: surface design

Eco-Dyeing with Ayn Hanna

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Eco-Dyeing_11This last October I took an eco-dyeing class with local Fort Collins artist Ayn Hanna. It was just a whim to try something new, and this process is very different from anything I’d tried before. Ayn is very organized and had class notes and worksheets all ready for us. She also had various leaves, natural dye baths and a couple of steamers heated up. The plant knowledge needed for this type of dying is more than I can describe in this blog, but there are several good books on the subject. I highly recommend taking a class from Ayn or someone in your area.

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Preferably starting with wool or silk, start by soaking your natural fabric in water. Then wring the piece out, lay it flat and place an assortment of leaves on top. Using a dowel or copper pipe roll the fabric strip tight and bind with cord before placing the bundle in a steamer or dye bath. You can see the cord binding on the bottom edge of the dyed cloth where the dye bath is also the strongest. After soaking for several hours minimum, the bundles sat in my garage for about 3 weeks until I unwrapped them to see the magic.Eco-Dyeing_10

Why are some of the leaves black and some orange? Well that is where the knowledge and experience come in. Strangely enough, eucalyptus leaves dye the fabric orange, but I didn’t get consistent results on this first try.Eco-Dyeing_4

The piece above had some raspberry juice added, and I love the colors!

Eco-Dyeing_2This one is on rayon and silk velvet. It ended up a gorgeous texture and sheen.

One of the challenges for me with this type of dying is the washability of the textile. Setting the dyes is not as sure as when using fiber reactive dyes. I made about 20 pieces of varying success that weekend and plan on experimenting with setting the dye on some of the rejects first. Will I use this dye process in the future? Well I might take the class every year! The set up was extensive with 5 dye baths and two steamers for about 8 of us to share. If I did this at home I think I would need to choose just one or two dye baths…maybe onion peel and walnut. Steaming worked well, but more pastel and I like a deeper color palette.

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Eco-Dyeing_9I’m sure that you will see some of these appear on future blogs, even if I only make purses out of them they would be beautiful! Thanks Ayn!

Design Outside the Lines Retreat

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Bandon-Driftwood

I just returned from a fantastic vacation. We spent 4 days at a house on the beach in Bandon, Oregon We found a lovely restaurant or two and read a lot of books. During the day I walked on the beach and collected small pieces of driftwood. I had to ship boxes home full of wood, textiles and clothes!

Afterwards we went to the lovely town of Ashland Oregon, which is the home of Diane Ericson and one of the locations for her Design Outside the Lines Retreats. I can’t even begin to describe the inspiration I obtained from Diane the other guest teachers Gwen Spencer, Mary Glenn, Miles Frode, and the other attendees. Each day we would all show up wearing something we made and there was a cacophony of oohs and awes all over the room!

Diane gave us an overview of putting together pieces of fabric as inspiration for making a garment. She often starts with one of these fabric collages and then decides what to make out of it. We drew, stamped, sewed and embroidered to make some truly unique textiles. I think this one will turn into a small purse at some point, but it also may end up on a jacket.Stitching-Sample-DOLweb

Gwen taught us how to make slippers. We all received kits with the padding and patterns that she had developed. I just had a few bits of hand stitching to do when I returned home. Diane’s stencils adorn the little black dupioni silk pieces.Ashland-DOL-Slippers_web

Miles, a talented and enthusiastic artist, gave an inspiring talk on painting, stenciling and stamping on fabric. He also taught us several easy ways to make our own custom stamps. I bought a piece of his hand painted fabric and will be waiting for the perfect placement.Miles Frode fabric

Mary Glenn showed us an easy way to make a lined handbag. I can’t wait to make one, but I ran out of time at the retreat. She was also our fitting specialist and everyone kept her so busy she needed a sign up sheet! I finally got together with her on the last day and had a lesson on tissue fitting. I learned so much in that half hour, and I think I know how to approach fit in a better way now. There is so much more to learn…

The next blog will be about what I collected and purchased in Oregon! Lets just say that Ashland has great shopping, and that my husband is a fabric and shoe enabler.