Other items for Calyx

I have been busy over the summer in the ACAD Fibre Studio doing lots of dyeing and printing.

Along with the EcoPrinted clothing I will also have these items at Calyx:

Velvet Devore silk-rayon small bags (~5" x 7")

Baby toques in 100% cotton, in newborn and infant sizes. Super cute when knotted on the end!

Pyrography.

CALYX 3 - silk scarves

I also have Eco Dyed silk scarves (sun dyed with plant material from my garden)...

 

And Silk Devore scarves with a rayon top layer for extra shimmer...

And silk scarves that were monoprinted with leaves and feathers...

Calyx art available... 2

After dyeing some plain white silk scarves with the shibori technique, I then got into monoprints using natural items (mainly leaves and feathers collected around my cabin this summer)...

These are the results:

Summer details

Working in the middle of nowhere, you have to use whatever is around as props.

For example, my best model - my dog Ceilidh:

and my drying apparatus:

Such are the hardships of having a hideaway in the woods... (that is still under repair from the 9 foot deep flood waters that went through seven years ago!)

Summer dyeing fun... continued

I have also been doing a lot of Eco Dyeing while out at the cabin. The prairie temperatures are usually +5c warmer than in town and it makes for great solar cooking!

Wrapping my silk scarves around flowers or leaves or tea or onions skins and using different metals as mordants (to enhance colours that are extracted), exciting results are obtained in lovely natural muted colours...

BEFORE...

 

AFTER...

  

Earl Grey tea bags after my morning cuppa gives a great grid...

Dried red rose petals from 30 years of anniversary roses given to me by my husband...

Hollyhock petals...

An interesting combination of different elements, probably never to be replicated no matter how hard I tried!

Just loving those eco colours!

And a huge thank you out to my special guest photographer for this opening session of scarves - Karen Roland, who was out visiting and got to see the unveiling in action!

Summer dyeing fun!

I have been in town for only 3 days this whole month of August, with most of my time spent at our cabin in a coulee on the Albertan Prairies. But out there I have been doing a lot of dyeing of silk scarves!

Even though it was 30c out, I sacrificed and stood over a pot of boiling water watching magic happen...

When I got home I laid them all out on the back deck in their colourways... in each pot I had from 2 to 4 different scarves (silk velvet or silk rayon or solid silk). Look carefully at the piles and see if you can identify which is which.

But my favourite part of all this was that I had a new dye - black - that I used for the backgrounds and got some great colour combinations to go with it. I was very happy with all of my results!

ECO COLOUR - 7

Round 2 for the solar dyeing in the jars that were packed full of goodies then left in the sun on my deck...

After 20 days of being in our hot August sun (and we had a very hot summer, with many days over 30c) I opened the various jars of silk and wool that I had packed with vinegar, copper, coffee...

Dried red rose petals from 30 years worth of anniversaries and Valentine Day roses...

Dried red rose petals with coffee:

Here is the one that used dried pink rose petals:

Freshly picked purple petunia blossoms:

Hanging to dry...

The petals shaken off and left in the grass to be re-used on the next round of dyeing...

ECO COLOUR - 6

...results from the Cherries and Raspberries...

The cherries produced a browned pink - quite lovely. And the shibori worked wonderfully well.

And the raspberries were quite pink... but will it last?

These will be set aside for a couple of weeks before being washed and rinsed out to see the final colours produced.

ECO COLOUR - 5

Late July and August is CHERRY season here is Calgary, fruit coming in from the Okanogan, British Columbia - my favourite fruit, so I collected lots of stems and pits. Towards the end, the cherries get a little iffy and I could save some of the rotted fruit. So - what do to with it? Dye of course!

Silk scarves wrapped shibori style and ready to dye:

The pot of fabric and fruit cooking away:

I was leaving town the next day, so I just put the whole thing in the cold room and walked away...

But that same afternoon, I got called by a neighbour to come and pick RASPBERRIES, that were falling off the plants. I collected many good ones to eat fresh and make into jam, but I also collected the over-ripe ones in a quart jar, filled it with water, and put it in the cold room until I could deal with it when I returned to town.

But before I could put them away, an afternoon hail storm hit that the Prairies are so famous for...

The most amazing thing about this storm were the clouds - I have never seen ones that look like these before!!!

Babies bums! It was amazing...

And as quick as it came, it blew away: