Printing on Silk with Leaves, Leftovers and Such

Last fall I went to a workshop with a bunch of paper makers that were working with India Flint's steam technique and was it fun! I couldn't wait to start in on it again in the spring-but that was so far away! Then I read in some magazine (that I can't find now-sorry no link!) about doing the same thing with vegetables from the frig-WOW-Nan's science project can now be turned into Nan's art project! Perfect!
1. Do you ever walk by a plastic bag for months and wonder what is in it-but never take the time to look? Well, I finally took a peek in just such a bag and lo and behold there were silk scarves left over from a sun printing demo I did so I ran them into the house and started digging through the veggie drawer. Cabbage? Great! Huckleberries turning slightly scary in a bag? Wonderful! And then of course, yellow and red onion skins too. Wet the silk and then lay it all out.

2. Then you fold the scarf in on itself and you may want to put more veggie matter in some of the folds to make sure you have even coverage. Then roll it up and tie with string-at the workshop the home owner had a great ball of rotted twine which made some really cool marks of its own. See, you should never throw anything out! (Not only do you have a never ending supply of "art supplies" but if your collection gets big enough your family and friends will try to get you on a TV show!) Anyway, here is what it looks like all tied up;

3. Then pop it into a steamer pot, same thing you use to cook your dinner will work just great!

4. As to how long, that is kind of up to you. In this case since my materials were trying to dye the fabric before I ever got started, I went with about 20 minutes and then let them sit in the pot for an hour or two.

5. I took them out and put them on to the heat vents to dry. Now at this point India Flint evidently lets them sit around for months. Since I was already being informed that the combined scent of cabbage, onion skins, moss and rotten huckleberries was less than appealing I opted for over night and then unbundled them.After rinsing,  ironing and hemming, this is what I ended up with; the one pictured is my favorite combo of huckleberries and onion skins.