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.