just around the corner

I have promissed myself to be at least 15 minutes outside. And the ones who knows me, knows also that this is a big challenge for me. Walking isn't that easy for me, special when the days are getting colder and nastier. So to keep myself warm, I collect fallen leaves. And just look what's close to me, just around the corner. Although it is almost wintertime, there is still much to find due to the soft authumn days we have here in the Netherlands. My rosebush gave beautifull small reddark leaves, I found some walnutleaves, wild geraniumleaves, cotinus and bark from the dead eucalyptustree. With this I made a sample on silk noil and some mono-printed strips for my friends birthday. All were dipped in a homemade ash-solution. I was surpised with the strong outcome.

together

In the end of this season the last hortensiaflowers in our nursery are giving their beautifull antique shades in purple, lavender and soft green. Special the hortensia with the name 'together' I love very much. It inspired me to make this long jacket with some pieces of an old scarf and sari. I dye it in the colour plum, which faded out in a soft teal-grey. It gave the jacket a romantic gothic style.



To tell you the truth thefelting didn't go as easy as I wanted. Every jacket is an OOAK, one of a kind and unique. There is always something new I like to try in it and therefore the risk of some difficulties. In this jacket the silkpieces of an old sari gave me some trouble, because they wouldn't catch by the wool and they lost a lot of colour in the dyebath. After dyeing I took the loose pieces away and they left me with a beautifull green shade, which matches perfectly with the green shade of the dyebath. The wristwarmers I had made to complete the jacket were to thick to wear under the sleeves. I decide to cut them open, stitch them together and use it as a headwrapping. It will keep me warm in the coming winter!

plantprinted letters&numbers

Last year I made some words and drawings with ironwire and rolled it in a bundle for printing. The rustingprocess in the ironwire will leave the marks on the fabric.






Recently I tried to get some prints with eggs. Tracey Willians showed in one of her post how she got some more colour on paper using raw eggs. So I thought to give it a try at silk. I stamped with it, I wrote with a brush and I also used letterresists to stamp the egg-liquid in. After it was dried I bundled it in a usual way and boiled one in a dyebath with privetberries and the other in redwood. It is amazing how the colour gets indeed a much better colour at the place where I wrote with the egg. I'am not sure where this will lead too, but there are some ideas I like to give a try.

Dagmar Binder

This weekend I finaly had the opportunity to follow a workshop with Dagmar Binder from Germany. I love her work very much because of her textures and fine qualtity of felts. Dagmar makes the most gorgeous layered 3D textures in felt. She is definitively inspired by the beauties of nature. She showed photo's with some of her small works and explained very well how to make the most of them.



We have been practising some of the techniques in a small sample, which I wrapped around a bottle. Looked it first as a mini-skirt, in this way it becomes more like an object and the layers are getting much more depth. Uhmmm, I like this concept and it gives some possibilities for more experimenting.



For the bigger project on the second day I took some photo's of the birch tree in my garden. It has some interesting structures, textures and 'hidden' colours. So I have tried to catch this in a piece of felt. Under the white and brown layers of wool and organza I layed down a layer of different kind of oranges. At the very end of the felting proces I cut open the cracks and made a lot of small cutinglines in the upperlayer. The more lines, the better the look-a-like of a birch.

ro(c)k & roll in logwoodblue

Currently I'am working at a fashioncollection with eco-dyed and printed nunofelts . These garments will be shown at the fashionshow at March 4th, 2012 organised by the Dutch Feltcontactgroup. This skirt is just a simple wrapskirt, but I like the outcome of the partly overdied nunofelt. I bundled the half of the skirt with some extra leaves in a roll and dyed it in a logwoodbath. Then waited for some days to open it. It was such a surprise to see this outcome, a wonderfull combination of all kind of colours and design. And as a bonus it is wearable at two sides! Unfortunately it has shrunk a bit more so it needed some stretching, but it still fits me. Hope I can survive the coming months without getting to much weight...

eco-tiles

Our Dutch Feltgroup will celebrate their 20th anniversary next year. Every member is challenged to make a felted tile with a limited size of 30x30cm. They can be flat or 3D and all will be assembled to one big wall. We have been experimenting in at our annual meeting this spring with some technics and idea's, but there was something else on my mind.



some try-outs in Turkish Ottomanstyle and cut-outtechnique (both not finished yet)

I wanted to make something with natural dyes and printing. Each tile with one monoprint on a clear background. But nothing so unpredictable as mother nature. My dye acted as a thunderstorm. It was so dark on the edges and so cloudy in the centre, despite the linenresists I had use to protect the centre. I cleared area's with lemonjuice, which lighten up the whole thing. It was a surpise to see prints on the linenresists. They are like little paintings and so I stitched them at the other side. I still cannot decide a front and a back. It will be a doublefaced tile. Unfortunately I wouldn't split my serie of four and decided to keep them myself.




monoprints on thick nunofelt with mapple-leave and eucalyptus (not finished yet)

What to do next, the deadline was in a few days. Thinking of a tile I came up with words as clean, geometric and simple so I ended up with a natural one. Finaly I made two with some ecodyed nunotextures in the theme 'connection'.




Connection - the completed tiles I send in for the expo-wall next year at the 20th anniversary in 2012 of the VKG, the Dutch feltcontactgroup

santé

I have tried to dye with the flowertails of the Red Amaranthus. When simmering it very softly it will gives a briljant red. I have read somewhere that this red is good for colouring food. Unfortunately it will not give you the same colour on a piece of fabric. I ended up with a kind of brown on the outside, but the inside gave me a lot of interesting patterns!

summermemories 2011

 

This summer I was with my family in our holidayhome in France. One of my favourite things is to play with leaves and real fire. The fire for heating the dyepots and the leaves for making coloured and printed fabrics. These linen samples were made with sumac, madderroots and logwoodchips and a lot of iron scraps.