Winging It

It's been so long since I've posted anything fiber related...so here are two fabrics I worked on this week.  The one above is a piece of silk that actually started life as peach colored.  If you've been reading my blog for a long while you may remember that several years ago I overdyed it with acid dyes to make it chartreuse.  This week I stitched the fabric into a long tube, slipped it over large-diameter PVC, scrunched it down and shiboried it with eucalyptus nut dye.  Because the fabric is fine silk, it scrunched down quite a bit, hence the shibori lines are quite thin.  The euc dye also turned the chartreuse more of a green gold, which is probably my most favorite color.

The second is a piece of raw silk that I eco printed with rose leaves.  I had premordanted the silk in alum (silk doesn't need to be premordanted, this was an experiment of sorts), which is what made the leaf prints so yellow.  After I let the print sit for a few days in its bundle, I removed the plant material and wrapped the fabric around a flat piece of rusty stuff, spritzed it liberally with 50/50 vinegar/water and let sit over night.  This is my result.

I'm closer to being finished with my "texture" challenge quilt -- just a few more beads, then the sleeve and label is all that's left.  Happy to say I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  The quilt will be revealed on Thursday, September 15 with all the rest of the Fiberactions entries. 

Anyway, how this piece came together for me is how nearly all my work does ~ I take one step at a time and see what wants to emerge.  I don't start with a plan.  I start with an idea of what something might look like or a thought about how things might work together, then I essentially let the piece create itself, one step at a time.  Winging it, I guess you could say.

Have a wonderful late summer weekend!