Coming up Roses

"He who wants a rose must respect the thorn."

Persian Proverb

Rose leaves, peony, black locust with Dahlia petals for background color.

Eco Printing this Week

Bald Sumac and rusted nails on linen

Sunflower and rusted nails on linen

Coreopsis and filbert, among other things on silk crepe de chine

Mountain Cranberry, Blackeyed Susan, Yarrow, sunflowers and rose leaves on paper

The Light of Day

"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth."

Unknown

Pounding on Plants

Or Hapa-zome as the famous Ms Flint calls it. Pounding on anything is a good way to relieve stress and probably helpful to achieving serenity. 

There is a disclaimer for this post however; this all looks much better in the pictures than it actually does in real life.

That being said, here goes. As you may remember I had eco printed some sample fabrics with test plants earlier in the summer. I did try to include leaves I knew would work so at least I would get some sort of useable result.

In this case, I can't even remember what the test plant was, but the rose leaves are nice!

The fabric in the image above is silk crepe de chine, probably not the best thing to use, this works better on fabric that has more body and a tighter weave to it. I started out by picking some of the more colorful leaves in my garden along with the one scented geranium I had that doesn't smell like cat pee. The scented geraniums were an experiment this year and my nose must not interpret the smell as others do. Bleck.

Geranium, Begonia, Astilbe, Coleus

I decided to go with the process that has you put paper down over the leaf, I have done it with a bare hammer before and you do get a good print, but kind of an over-cooked spinach type mess on your hammer. Besides, if nothing else you get a nice print on the paper. I laid the fabric out flat, placed the leaf where I thought I wanted it and pinned the paper in place. I used handmade paper for this as that is what I had, but any absorbent paper will do.

I gently tapped around the outside edge of it first to figure out where I was supposed to be hammering.

The Begonia was probably the best print.

The Coleus had nice color but was so juicy it leaked outside its own border

At one point I switched to a scrap of dupioni

Here are some of the cover papers both present and past. 

The thing to remember about this is that it isn't permanent. I like India Flint's suggestion in her book Eco Colour* to do a T-shirt and then as it fades just keep pounding more stuff into it as the summer progresses. From what I have read applying a mordant beforehand doesn't, probably, make it any more colorfast but there isn't any reason you can't try it and see what you think. Do one shirt with and one without and let me know what happens.

*Remember, I don't do links for books in the blog. It is important that you go to your local bookstore to order and buy it there. Shop local, even if your only option is the local big box bookstore-at least your neighbors that work there will have a job. This week's missive from the soapbox.

Art and Soul

"The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends towards serenity." Andre Gide

Coreopsis and Bachelor Buttons with the blue flower heads left on. The Coreopsis is the screaming orange. It is hard to tell the difference between the foliage of the Bachelor Buttons and that of the Coreopsis as the Coreopsis is so juicy it dyes the background the same yellow as the Bachelor Buttons stems.

Late Summer Eco Prints

Really big sunflower leaf on linen with rusted nails

Rose leaves on silk crepe with rusted nails

Peony on silk twill with rusted steel wool

At the End of the Day

"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in." John Muir

Summer Blues

Last winter while daydreaming with seed catalogues, both paper and online, I kept seeing Bachelor Buttons (Centaurea Cyanus) referred to as a dye plant. I started poking around in the various dye books I have and none of them mentioned this plant. Since it is classified in the knapweeds and knapweed foliage makes a yellow or green dye, I was curious to see what they might do. The first batch I added to pre-rusted fabric, some very faint blue from the blossoms appeared (not worth taking a picture of) and no green foliage printed at all. The second time around I used silk with an alum mordant with a bit more success.

I used just the petals sprinkled in with some Artemisia.

Then I used whole stems, mixed in with some garden sage. As you can see in the second picture, the foliage did exactly what you would expect a knapweed to do with an alum mordant; a bright sunny yellow. The blossoms did make a blue splotch, but again, not very bright. Even so, this is kind of a happy thing for me as the invasive wild knapweed stops doing this once it blooms, so now if I want yellow, I can use the bachelor buttons. It is a plant that benefits from a trim, it comes back more vigorous and with more blooms.

Alas, I finally did find some knowledgeable dye sites that referred to Bachelor Button flowers and they are not considered permanent color. Since I used all scrap fabric I will let these set for a few months, wash them and let them set around some more just to see if eco printing them might make the blue last longer than a vat dye. If they fade I will have a re-do with something else. I will also be curious to see what they do on paper.

I started them from seed last spring along with Calendula and mixed the two throughout the yard. I have to say that even though the blue may not be permanent it was not a waste; I love looking out over my yard at the blue haze with little yellow pot marigolds coming up in between.