Eco printed T-shirt

This is my first cotton T-shirt  that I eco printed and like a lot. All the others are not so great. I used bottle brush, the red one, eucalyptus leaves and onion skins. It is also the first one that I try that isn't my size. Oh well, I will make it fit. I have some recycled cotton sheet fabric that is dyed in the same bath, I might combine both of them into a dress. The first image is the back and the second is the front. 

The T-shirt was mordanted in soy milk and egg.

 

Time for change

When I read the following article, I think we need to really decide on what is the most important thing right now. Do we want to save mother earth and make it a better place to live?

http://oecotextiles.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/textile-industry-and-water-pollution-brought-to-you-by-some-of-your-favorite-retailers/

This motivates me even more to keep looking for more safer alternatives. I have already chosen to use organic wool, natural dyes, fair trade silk and organic cottons, with the use of second hand natural fibres. My next step is to grow my own dye plants, including indigo or woad and I also want to explore more of the natives for their colour potential.

Total solar Eclipse

Tomorrow morning we will be privileged to see a total solar eclipse right here. That is if the weather permits. For those who cannot see it in real life, here is a webcam where you can watch it :
http://www.eclipsecairns.com/

Enjoy!

New nuno felt scarves

I've been making a few new scarves in the last weeks. I am finally getting back to feltmaking after the move and trying to set up my studio in the new house. Some of them are already in my etsy shop http://lizetfrijters.etsy.com

 

Settling in

I forgot how much work it is to move house. I am still unpacking boxes after 3 weeks now. Maybe I have too much stuff. I seem to be collecting more and more over the years.

 

 The front of the house

 and the back

and lots of trees to explore.

Moving house

The time is there again. We start moving house on Monday. Leaving memories and taking some with us. Busy times....
Time for a new start.

Mangosteen dye on cotton

I am so happy with the result on these 2 cotton shirts, dyed with mangosteen skins by fermentation. The colour is so much darker than I have ever achieved with the immersion method by boiling.

 

June special for Living Landscapes card game

If you like to buy the living landscapes card game, now is the moment. It is $4 off during the month of June.

This card game is a fun and creative way to learn sustainable landscape design.

http://livingearthgames.com.au/livinglandscapes.html

Creating while cleaning

https://www.etsy.com/listing/100970770/blue-and-purple-nuno-felt-shawl-one-of-a

I am cleaning up, maybe it doesn't look like that when you see these pictures. Well, this is actually my way of cleaning. I go through all my fabrics and laces and then recycle them into one of a kind wearable items. This is a fun way of cleaning, it is not fast though, but very rewarding and that is what counts for me.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/100969557/red-pink-and-purple-nuno-felt-scarf

Treasures

It seems about time to post something.

Well, someone gave me this copper piping a few days ago, I cut it into shorter lengths today. They will be perfect for bundling. Thank you so much Kyle.

And here is a nuno felted dress that I made a few weeks ago. First felted and than steamed with cosmos flowers and plants and rusted nails.

Circular reversible felt vest

I sold this reversible circular vest yesterday on the market. I loved it, my daughter loved it and my neighbours on the market loved it. And still it went to someone else, lucky person. It is a great lesson to learn to let go. I will though make a similar one maybe this week. I love using recycled materials, lace and doilies in felt. It is such a great way to reuse them. All the colours in this one were natural dyes, lace included.

 

A colourful day

We had a fantastic time last week, dyeing lots of samples of wool, silk and cotton in 5 different dyebaths: cosmos flowers, mango leaves, casuarina leaves, red cabbage and inga bean seeds. Although we did a lot in one day, at the end everyone saw the divers results of colour and the endless possibilities with natural dyeing. We used alum as a mordant for wool and silk. For cotton, we choose tannin rich casuarina leaves, alum and soda.

modifying baths, vinegar, ash water, iron water and copper water

 The results: left, I think is casuarina, the orange ones are cosmos flowers, the right ones red cabbage. Unfortunately, I don't have more images from the finished samples.

Introduction to natural dyeing workshop

I will be teaching a natural dyeing workshop (immersion dyeing) next Tuesday 24th of April in my studio. We will play around with a few plants and make lots of samples, by using different non toxic mordants, modifiers and lots more.
Here are the details:
http://lizetfrijters.com/workshops.html

Needle felted drier balls

These drier balls make clothes dry faster in your dryer. Worth trying it out. We don't have a dryer, so I can't try it.
I found this free tutorial on craftartedu.com
Enjoy.

Dyeing wool

Recently, I started dyeing some of the local wool that I have been collecting for a few years. I usually work with merino wool in slivers. This wool is a cross breed of merino and something else, but I forgot which one.

I am so happy with the colours and realised that this wool takes up the dyes so much easier than merino. This encourages me to try more different breeds.
The pinks are from brazilwood, the purple to the left is brazilwood and modified in rust water. The greens are cosmos plants without the flowers and modified with rust water. Now, for the grey one, it is a tanning based plant modified with rust water, but I don't remember whether it is mangosteen skins or casuarina. This wool is a bit course for clothing, but will be used for bags or wall hangings, or maybe for a pair of slippers for me.

Dahlia experiments

Here are a few experiments with dahlia flowers on silk. I had only 3 flowers, so for now I cannot repeat them. On the left is the flowers rolled in the silk and rolled around an iron file. On the right just the flowers and wrapped around a plastic bottle. The bottom of the bottle was immersed in the same water as the other piece and the top was just getting the steam. the top gave the beautiful purple colour as it didn't get in contact with the iron in the water.
Now I need to wait till next year for more flowers.

Alternative wedding dresses

I got a really exciting message on etsy this morning. My white nuno felted dress with doilies has been featured on a blog for alternative wedding dresses. If you are planning to marry, have a look there, as you might find a wonderful one of a kind dress:
http://weddingzilla.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/alternative-wedding-dresses.html

Felting a small handbag workshop

I will teaching a feltmaking workshop on the 17th of March in my studio in Mareeba (Far North Queensland). The details are on my site: http://lizetfrijters.com/workshops.html

Why choose natural materials versus synthetic

Another interesting article on the eco textiles blog. It turns out that a lot of the plastics find in oceans actually come from synthetic fibers. It is not because we don't see it that it isn't there. This is another reason why to choose natural materials for clothing and home.

http://oecotextiles.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/synthetic-fibers-and-our-oceans/

Fermentation dyeing results

I have been doing some fermentation dyeing, using the technique of Anne Rieger. I love her technique and the results are worth the time waiting for the fermentation to happen.

In the image above, the left side shows the results of mango leaves and right of yellow onion skins. The top was only in an acid bath and going more to the bottom each time a bit longer in the alkaline bath. I get a completely different result with the mango leaves than when I use immersion dyeing. Maybe, I haven't let them ferment long enough. I need to do some more experiments with them. Although, I love the browns that I got.

Why I love this technique so much:
- I find it the most environmentally friendly and purest way of natural dyeing that I have come accross sofar.
- There are absolutely no mordants used
- No need for an external energy source other than the warmth of the sun to warm up the baths. - There is also very little water needed
- the colour holds well and nearly no dye runs when rinsing.
- The dye plants can dye for a long time as the fermentation keeps going
- I like to help in keeping a very old tradition alive

Why I don't always use this:
- sometimes materials need to be dyed fast and I can't wait for months to have them. That is when I go back to immersion dyeing
- I sometimes still use dye stuffs coming from other places, in extracts or powders. I find that the fermentation works best with whole plants and the most sustainable is to use local plants, fresh from the garden.
- It is very time consuming as the dye baths need to be checked every day for pH for best results.
- I also like the results obtained with eco prints, even there are some metal mordants used, but only metal oxides and this provides different possibilities.

So, I keep going with several methods, depending on my needs.
I will show more results from my dyeing experiments soon.