Silk Noil scarves dyed with Indigo and Cutch natural dyes. The Silk Noil has a lovely rough, nubbly texture.
Silk Shawls
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Pastel Drawings
Pastel Drawings of flowers from my garden.
Blue and Pink
Silk devore, Linen and Cotton dyed with Indigo and a very pale Cochineal dye. I like the undersea, coral reef feeling when these fabrics are combined.
Hydrangea Drawings
Pastel drawings of Hydrangeas
Summer does seem very far away in these often bleak and dreary days of winter. So I’ve been enjoying drawing the dried hydrangeas from last summer’s harvest. Dreaming of another summer to come.
Landscape Memories
I’ve just finished this new painting “Landscape Memories”, 4×3 feet. During the past months I’ve been longing to travel. The painting is about the layering of memories of landscapes I’ve visited, photographed, drawn. I’ve collaged wallpaper onto the surface. For me the wallpaper represents memories of/nostalgia for an earlier time.
Wearable Art
Nicole wearing my scarves made from natural fibres~ silk, cotton and linen~ dyed with natural dyes~ Indigo, Logwood, Persimmon and Clerodendrum.
Sustainable, ethical fashion. Natural dyes are kind to the environment~ a safe way to produce colour on textiles. My scarves are for sale at etsy.com/shop/NaturallyDyedScarves
Indigo & Persimmon
Cotton and Silk dyed with Persimmon and Indigo Natural dyes.
Bouquets
Two paintings from a series of paintings of Bouquets I’ve begun.
Cochineal Dye
These scarves have both been dyed with Cochineal natural dye, which comes from tiny insects found on cactus plants. I’ve only used a bit of dye to give this soft pink colour. One scarf is Merino wool, the other is silk. Printed using Japanese Shibori resist technique.
Some dye experiments
Linen dyed with iron, weld and logwood 
Merino wool dyed with iron, weld and osage 
Silk dyed with iron, weld and logwood
Some experiments with natural dyes. Looking for interesting colours in the grey, brown neutral range. Using a bit of iron with weld and several other natural dyes. I’m happy with the complexity of the colours of the various combinations.
Indian Cotton
Very soft Indian cotton with a tiny gold flower pattern.
Dyed with Indigo, Logwood, Madder, Cutch and Myrobalan natural dyes.
Japanese Silk
I brought home some wonderful silk from my recent trip to Japan. The silk is so fine- Gossamer- lovely to work with. I’ve been dyeing it with natural dyes, Indigo, Madder, Logwood, Cutch, Marigold, Weld and Iron
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Indigo and Logwood
I have been dyeing more scarves, a silk/cotton blend from India, using natural dyes.
A lot of Indigo and some Logwood.
More Scarves with Natural Dyes and Shibori
I’ve been working with silk from India, experimenting with combinations of Indigo, Persimmon, Rust, Logwood and Pomegranate natural dyes and various Shibori techniques.
Indigo/Shibori/Silk
This Indigo/Shibori/Silk Scarf is a good example of a few of the reasons why I fell madly in love with “Textile Arts”.
Silk is definitely my fabric of choice. The transformation by silk worms of mulberry leaves into the delicate gossamer yet amazingly strong threads of silk is magical.
Indigo is most certainly the queen of natural dyes. How can you not be in awe at watching the change in colours of fabric that has just been removed from an indigo vat change slowly from greens to those gorgeous blues? Pure alchemy!
Jamdani Dyed with Indigo and Rust
Jamdani Silk Dyed with Indigo and Rust
Silk Jamdani dyed with Indigo and Rust.
This is a piece of silk Jamdani fabric that I brought back from Calcutta last February. Jamdani weaving is found in Bengal and Bangladesh. It is a supplementary weft technique of weaving, somewhat similar to tapestry. The standard weft creates a fine, sheer fabric while the supplementary weft with thicker threads, in this case metallic red and gold threads, adds the pattern. Each supplementary weft motif is added separately by hand by interlacing the weft threads into the warp with fine bamboo sticks using individual spools of thread. The traditional art of weaving Jamdani has been declared by Unesco as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Persimmon
Lately I have been working with Japanese Persimmon Dye. It produces a gorgeous chestnut brown that combines beautifully with Indigo.
Persimmon Dye involves a lengthly process to achieve the darkest colours. The dye is painted onto the fabric and left to bake in the sun. During the first day in the sun the fabric turns a very pale pinky brown. With each succeeding dye and sun exposure the fabric becomes increasingly darker.
Indigo
I spent an amazing 10 days in May at Bryan Whitehead’s in Fujino, Japan. japanesetextileworkshops.blogspot.ca
During my stay with Bryan we visited the workshop of Noguchi san, a Katazome master in Tokyo, who hand prints lengths of indigo fabric for kimonos (13 metres X 36 centimetres). He uses traditional stencils cut from mulberry paper, hand prints a rice paste resist onto the fabric and then dyes the fabric in indigo vats. Pure magic!
August
Such a contrast at this time of year between the dark shadows and the intense sunlight.
Fuzzy Orifices~Spring
I’m working on a series of “Fuzzy Orifices”, that will combine crocheted flowers with knitted shapes that evoke plant forms, body parts and organic growth.
Fuzzy Orifices~Spring depicts the exuberance of forms springing to life- of parts emerging from and transforming into other shapes. It contains a mixture of colours, bubble gum pinks and bright reds suggesting the body, combined with the darker greens, browns and blacks of the natural world.
The piece is meant to be slightly critical but also playful, something of an ironic commentary on crocheted granny squares, which have always seemed to me to be a bit too fussy and cute. I want the effect to be a little grotesque and funny at the same time.
My first Fuzzy Orifices. From the spring of 2012.
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