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this time using 14" squares of unbleached cotton muslin soaked in store-bought soy milk (I blush), dried overnight, rinsed and spun through the washer until just damp.
I laid various dyestuffs (listed below) across the middle of each muslin square ...
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folded over one-third of the muslin and laid out a second layer of material ...
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folded it over yet again ..
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rolled snugly ...
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then wrapped each bundle in cotton or wire (detailed below) ...
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The dyestuffs I'm using this time are fresh rosemary (shown above), dried red and yellow onion skins (combined), chopped red cabbage, windfall lichen (Parmotrema austrosinense), mealy blue sage (wild Salvia farinacea) ...
and a combination of cultivated Salvia amistad and S. greggi from Don's garden beds ...
I made three packets of each dyestuff, then wrapped them in either copper wire, steel wire or crochet cotton.
The copper wire bundles went into a copper pot with untreated well water from our outdoor tap. The smell of sulfur from our 900' well is unbelievable and I'm hoping there will be a chemical reaction with the copper. After simmering the bundles for just over an hour some blue is starting to show ...
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After a couple of hours, I'll put the copper bundles and the sulfur-rich steeping water into canning jars with used tea bags and seal them up.
The steel wire wrapped bundles have already been put into canning jars with boiling tap water, used tea bags and fine steel wool. However, after one hour the color got so dark (see below right) that I chickened out and removed the steel wool (leaving a small bit behind, no doubt).
Finally, the cotton wrapped bundles were put into a solution of boiling tap water and pickling alum (1 tsp. per canning jar) along with the obligatory tea bags, which are also starting to show color (below left) ...
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Now the question is, can I keep my hands off of the dye trials for at least a week?
Fortunately, I have a plan. Having finished the kantha stitching on Triangulation ...
I'm now "design mending" (a Jude Hill term) by invisibly basting strips of cloth onto the back along the intersections since the original cloth weaving strips don't meet closely enough ...
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| I started design mending with dyed sheeting, then decided to switch over to muslin for the remainder |
It's gonna take a while ...
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| The bottom shows a 1" strip of muslin invisibly basted across the length of the cloth which will be the method used for the remainder of the design mending |
But my reward for finishing will be the dye trial reveal. Motivation times two!
