Natural dyeing Archives - Page 5 of 6 - Jane Mercer Felt Artist

Iron contamination

It is often importance to control the temperature of the dye bath. As I had broken my digital thermometer this week I bought a replacement . Just a simple sugar thermometer this time. I used it to keep the temperature of my onion bath at around 80 oC . This worked well . I was pleased. Then I left the thermometer standing in the pan whilst everything soaked for about 24 hours. Perhaps this was a mistake. Look at these spots . I can only think these are iron contamination. I have dyed many times with onions skins and never seen anything like this before. These are test pieces so it's not the end of the world , but it yet another reminder of the care that is needed when using natural dyes. Change nothing !! Easy to say , but really quite hard to do . On…

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20/03/2016

Exciting News

I learned early this week that my piece "After the ice " has been accepted into the From the Earth exhibition in June. The exhibition is to celebrate natural and ethical textile practices and will take place in PA Arts Centre Datchworth, Herts. I am thrilled. I even get invited to the private viewing ! Here is the piece that will be on display. Other artists that I know are taking part at this moment are Jenny Leslie and Caroline Bell. This great news has made me revisit some of my other favorite naturally dyed felt pieces and I thought it was worth bringing them all together here. Autumn Storm I love the subtle shade changes in these pieces I hope you do too.

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14/02/2016

machine stitching / Natural dyeing / Wet felting

Side by side

Multicolored steenwol and Blue Faced Leicester. Two vessels in the making. One destined for the dye pot. The other just for fun. Exactly the same amount of fibre and exactly the same resist. If I make two vessels at the same time I find it saves a lot of time. I don't normally make such a contrasting pair. I am trying to get ahead and have lots of prepared felt for dyeing when the weather warms up, and I wanted to test out the Steenwol, as I love it's bouncy texture but I have not much experience in using it. I did wonder if I would get fibres from the Steenwol migrating into the natural vessel , but this did not happen. Once the resists have been removed the vessels need to be treated as individuals. The BFL vessel has been hand stitched in silk and cotton which should give a lovely…

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07/02/2016

Natural dyeing / Wet felting

Remembering my first felting lesson

In 2008 when I moved to Rotterdam I joined the local Stitch and Bitch group of knitters. There I found lots of knitting friends and I also found felters, weavers and spinners. I am not sure exactly when it was but I remember being giving the options of learning to spin or to felt. I chose felting. Looking back that was a pretty momentous decision. The lady that taught me to felt , Els , has become a really wonderful friend. In a few weeks I will leave the Netherlands and move back to the UK , although I am really looking forward to this move, there are things I will miss and seeing Els on a regular basis is one of them. As my move approached I felt (no pun intended) that I should give Els a piece of felt as a thankyou for changing my life in so many ways.…

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25/10/2015

Natural dyeing / Wet felting

DIY

Most of my natural dyed felted vessels are quite small , about 5cm in diameter and only weigh about 10 grams, as such they are so light they are likely to be blown over unless fastened down in some way. I have thought about how to make a base in keeping with the natural nature of the pieces for quite a long time , and eventually decided to give small pieces of weathered slate a try. Small pieces of slate are readily available in the spoil heaps from old slate mines. I like the idea that the wool , the dye and the base were all originating in the countryside. But how to attached the two together ? Here is the solution. Not my normal felting equipment but very well used for other things as you can see by its battered case. I needed a small training course before I could use…

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20/09/2015

British wool fibres / Mordant / Natural dyeing / Wet felting

Boring but ……

Over the last few months I have made quite a number of wet felted small vessels. These vessels have been made out of different white fibers and then dyed. At the time I made them I knew exactly what I had done , but coming back to them a few weeks later and I began to get seriously muddled up . I was no longer sure which was the nettled dyed BFL , or the nettled dyed Polwarth ( Thanks to Teri Berry for these fibers they are great) Time to take control and keep on track before I was totally confused. Better admin was an urgent necessity? So I gave each vessel a reference number and a small label with the critical information. And I started I vessel register on a spreadsheet. This feels a bit like work But I know that the key to being able to reproduce…

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01/08/2015

Eco Dyeing / Natural dyeing / Wet felting

Blackberry pink

Beautiful juicy blackberries growing in all the hedgerows. Good for eating and also good for dyeing. I have to admit I am not a big fan of eating them straight of the plant , but I do like them stewed with some apples. But today I could not waste them by eating them as I wanted to check out the results of using them as an dye. I first made a tiny little wet felted vessel, with six points , which I stupidly did not photograph ! I then did some simple stitching on it with cotton yarn. After soaking for an hour or too, it was plunged straight into the dye pot. Just a few hours later a sweet little pink pointed vessel emerged. I love both its smallness, it's pointedness and its pinkness. Now I have heard that you can freeze blackberries and then dye with them , so…

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01/08/2015

Eco Dyeing / Mordant / Natural dyeing

Stocking up

Over the last few months I have been foraging and collecting and stocking up on materials I can use for dyeing in the future. Whilst walking I have been picking up lichen that has been washed off the trees by the rain and now have a small collection of two varieties. I have still to research what colours these will yield. I found some fallen down tree branches and collected some silver birch bark . I am hoping this will give a beautiful pink colours. Both in the UK and in the Netherlands , I have found is very easy to collect alder cones especially after all the heavy rain we have been having. These can be used as a mordant , or a dye. Only a few months ago I don't think I really knew what these were. ! I harvested some young bracken shoots and some dock leaves , which…

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30/07/2015

British wool fibres / Eco Dyeing / Natural dyeing / Wet felting

Why is small best ?

For the last few months I have been struggling to make large felted vessels using Shetland and BFL fibres. I thought I had tracked down the problem to the resist I was using. It was a slightly improved laminate floor underlay with a green backing full of tiny indentations. My side by side experiments showed that this resist slowed down the felting process and resulted in a bigger final piece. Strange but true as these two vases below show. Identical in all respects the one on the left is made with the green resist and is larger and has poorer quality felt. So armed with what I thought was the solution and a new cheaper slipperier resist I tried again. Worse than ever !! Full of holes. Poor quality felt. Some of this I put down to the Shetland fibre I was using which seems repel water and soap not…

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12/07/2015

Eco Dyeing / machine stitching / Natural dyeing / Textile art / Wet felting

Success

Well after last weeks disappearing yellow dye , I first rushed out to see if there was any hawthorn blossom left. I was in luck as the trees down by the river were still mostly in flower and I was able to easily pick some more. I do wonder if the colour comes from the petals , which are really beautiful , or for the tiny berry in the middle of the flower ? I also had a good look at my pans , and concluded they were not very clean. So I boiled them with washing soda solution which produced a ghastly pink scummy solution. I then scrubbed them with abrasive powder cleaner and finally rinsed and rinsed. In parallel with this I was making another vessel to dye . Trying Shetland fibre again. Looks a little hairy as it still here needs a shave and I am…

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06/06/2015