I had the perfect opportunity to work on my series in that last three days whilst participating in SAQA’s virtual conference.  What an experience! Read my earlier post http://SAQA 2020 MoSAiQA Conference (Toronto)

Nature’s Palette Series

I am continuing on my current series Nature’s Palette.  My current work focuses on materiality.   I challenge myself to use the fabric and paper that I use to wrap and protect the scarves and wraps I create in the dyeing and printing processes.

As I was sorting through some of the paper towel  that was used as a barrier for eco printing a scarf,  I came across a piece that spoke to me.  Usually I put them in my recycle pile.  I liked this piece and was going to mount it on canvas.  But then I gave myself permission to play.   Fabric was auditioned that was used to wrap my scarves for steaming and played.   I found a piece of cotton that would interplay with my paper towel piece.  Finally  I found I could place the paper on the fabric so that the lines from one would extend to the other.

So I stitched along the lines.  So as I listened to talks at the conference I kept stitching and voila.  My  finished piece.

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Silk Swing vest

Silk is such a lovely fabric.  It is amazing how from small cocoons hundreds of metres of silk thread are unravelled and then woven into luxurious fabrics.

I love working with silk in creating my one of kind scarves, wraps, tops, cushions for my Snowy Textile range.   Why? Because silk cloth is beautiful and sensual to touch.

If you have silk garments and fashion accessories you have made an investment and want to have it for a long time.

Double Scarf Top

Do you need to dry clean silk?

Silk is quite easy to care for and there really is no need to have it dry cleaned.  I have read in a number of places of silk bleeding when washed.  That is because the dyes have not been properly set.  That is the reason why you have the dry clean only label on commercially produced garments.  If you have bought any of my pieces  there should be no bleeding and no need for dry cleaning.

If you have read my blog about my art process you will have realised that it has been exposed to heat in the process of creating the piece and washed and ironed.

How to care for your silk?

The best way to clean any silk garment or fashion accessory you have is by hand washing it.

1. Turn garment inside out.  If it is a scarf or wrap wash from the wrong side.
2. Wash it in lukewarm water.
   Use a very gentle soap such as lux or a drop of cheap organic hair shampoo.
3. Rinse it well.
4. You may want to use a drop of cheap organic hair conditioner to  keep it feeling soft.
5. Gently squeeze out all the moisture.  Do not wring it.
6. Lay it on a towel then  roll it up and gentle squeeze the roll to get the rest of the moisture out.
7. Lay it flat to dry out of direct sun.
8. Iron it whilst it is a little damp.

A few don’ts to keep in mind

• Do not let it sit in water soaking.
• Do not use bleach.
• Do not use vinegar.  Depending on how your piece was dyed using vinegar may change the look of your piece.

I hope this will help you look after those special pieces you own.  Keep an eye on a future post on looking after wool.

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We live in a crazy world this year.  Bushfires, extreme summer, day after day of heavy smoke.  But whilst that was all happening here where I live, on the other side of the world a new virus appeared.  Initially there was no thought of the possible consequences here in my little bit of paradise.  And today it is a  different story. Before you go anywhere consider whether it is essential we are told.  To slow the spread of coronavirus we all have to distance ourselves.  As of midday today all pubs, clubs, indoor sporting venues, churches, restaurants are closed.  As yet we are not confined to our homes .  Right across the world country borders are closing..

SAQA 2020b M0SAiQA Conference, Toronto

An organisation I belong to – SAQA or Studio Art Quilt Association, had planned its first conference outside USA in Toronto.   A couple of weeks before its commencement  the hardest decision was made to cancel the conference as it was not going to be possible for people across the globe to travel to it.  A miracle happened.   In a very short space of time they changed it to a virtual conference to occur at the time the conference was to have taken place.  With a few twigs to the program they had it ready to roll on my Friday morning last week – Thursday evening in Canada.  They opened it up to those that had not registered to go as well.

I decided this was a golden opportunity to experience a SAQA conference as it was too far and too expensive to go to it from Australia for me.  So I enrolled in the SAQA 2020 MoSAiQA Conference (Toronto)

2020 MoSAiQA Virtual Conference

What a wonderful weekend I had despite having to get up at 2:00am to participate.  I attended every session.  It was unbelievable what could be done virtually.  Thanks to the Zoom platform it was a fantastic experience.  We listened to talks using webinar technology.  We reassembled for break out groups by logging into another screen from where we were tossed into meeting rooms for small group interactions by technology.  It was all done in a random way.  Some people you met once, others more often depending in which ‘room’ technology turfed you.  We were even taken on a fabulous tour of the exhibition that was put together especially for the conference to show case Canadian textile artists.  Two full days of interesting program from 2:00am to noon for me.  At the end they even crowned the new president virtually.

We listened, talked, laughed and whilst we may not have made new friends, we definitely have made new acquaintances.

What is more amazing that this was all put together by a group of women.  Thank you SAQA.

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On Tuesday at the garden club little stems of Eucalyptus polyanthemos were used in a display. The differences between juvenile and mature leaves was very noticable especially as the mature leaves were more silvery. I couldn’t help myself and made the comment about whether they would be eco printing differently.  So I was given a small branch of each to try eco printing with, with the proviso, that I bring the results to the next garden club meeting.  I will happily do this. The front stem in the photo on the left has the juvenile leaves.

My experimentation steps:

When I came home I found some scraps of wool and silk for my experiment.  So as not to confuse which leaves I used, I decided to put a sprig of juvenile leaves on the fabric and to put each pair of mature leaves separately ie not attached to a twig/stem  in any way.  I lay the leaves out on each sample.  As I wanted to know how the front and back printed I folded the fabric in half on each sample.  For both the wool and silk samples I lay a  paper towel that had been dipped in a very very weak iron water solution over one sample and lay the other sample on top because it usually this will stop any echo printing.  I rolled it over a wood dowel and tightly bundled it.  I steamed both bundles together in my steamer and then left them to sit for 48 hours.  The temptation is to unbundle straight away.  I could see colour coming through the bundles – darker in one, brighter in the other.  The wool bundle looked darker.

Wow what a surprise.  The juvenile leaves seem to have a lot of pigment that carried through the layers.  The front of the juvenile leaf gave a bright eco print. The back of juvenile leaves gave a darker eco print.  The mature leaves gave a much darker rich ecoprint.

The colours overall were richer and deeper on wool.  (Photo on left.)

Some confusion

I must say say I was a little confused as the common name referred to at the garden club was silver dollar eucalyptus.  I always thought the Eucalyptus  Cinerea was the silver dollar eucalyptus.  Luckily they also referred to its botanical name.  In Australia it is also referred to as the red box gum but in California, US it is called the silver dollar.

To see my ecoprinting with other eucalypt leaves visit my Snowy Textiles page and to see how I use it in my art visit my gallery. 

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Extracting pigment from plants and soil is my way of

• saving colours,
• of finding hidden colours,
• of catching nature’s range of colours and arranging it on fabric and yarn.

Some colours stand up to washing whilst others fade quickly or disappear totally over time.  When dyeing with plants  I try to ensure that I use plants that are substantive and not fugitive.  For this reason I do not use eg berries.  I also try not to mix eco printing of exotic plants with our eucalypts as they have different requirements.

 I use natural fibres – silk, wool, cotton, linen, bamboo and paper.

 Environmentally responsible practices:

• low immersion process for dyeing
• minimising use of water in rinsing process to extract excess dyes
• collecting windfall foliage, or foliage cut down to clear foliage around electricity wires
• recycling cloth

I create original, unique one of a kind silk, wool, silk and wool blend, and cotton pieces using either  natural dyes, ecoprinting, fibre reactive or acid dyes.  Most pieces are created using plant material from the local environment, material collected on travels in Australia or personalised by using plant material from a person’s home environment.  Every piece is individually crafted using dyes extracted from plants or chemical dyes.

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Maybe you have heard of the Slow Movement or Slow living.  In the textile world it refers to going back to handstitching, to doing things without rushing.  I belong to the  Slow Movement as the art processes used to create any of my art pieces or fashion asccessories are all intrinsically time consuming and meditative.  There are several major steps involved in the making and creating.

Whether I am making a scarf, a top for my Snowy Textiles or a piece of art for my  Nature’s Palette Symphony series I usually start with white fabric or white watercolour paper or cotton rag paper.

First step of my art process

• Collection of the leaves, barks, soils that I want to use to paint, print  and create marks with.   I collect on my walks and sometimes drive out to specific  places to collect what I will use.

Step two of my art process

This is the making the decisions stage – of how I want to create, colour and mark.  Before I can start I have to decide:

• whether I am going to use mordant/s and how eg added to the pot or pre mordant the fabric or post mordant and how. There are several different ways depending on the fabric I want to use.
• what sort of palette I want to work with – dark, coloured, natural
• whether I want to create patterns or just dye or print.
• whether I want to colour the cloth first and then print it, or print and colour it at the same time, or do several ‘dips’ in different colours and then print, or print and then colour.
• whether I want to steam it or ‘cook’ it in a pot.If I want to cook it in the pot I have to decide what sort of pot I want to use – copper, aluminium or steel.  Then I have to decide whether I am going to just do it in water or whether I want to dye it with bark or foliage or indigo.  If I am going to use foliage or bark I have to break it up into small pieces, place it in the pot and bring it to a slow simmer for several hours.   Bark I need to leave for a long while, even up to a week or two before I simmer it.
• if I am going to steam it I need to ready the pot and have it steaming ready for my bundles.
• how I am going to create a tight bundle – by rolling, folding and clamping, just clamping and whether I wanted to use paper or fabric between the layers to stop the ghosting of prints.

Step three of my art process

This is the stage of creating colour and marks. – the printing and / or dyeing process.  This is a long but rewarding process.  Laying out of the leaves is a contemplative process.  I will:

• mordant the fabric if that is what I decided to do.
• dye my fabric if that is what I decide to do before printing, rinse it and dry it.
• lay my fabric or paper on a table and arrange foliage on it. Sometimes I may create marks with rusted objects prior to this.   After carefully arranging the foliage, seeds, bark, fruit or vegetable skins I will make a tight bundle.  I may roll it around a stick or tube and tie it very tightly or clamp it.  Then I will steam or ‘simmer’ it often for several hours.  OR
• apply shibori techniques to create pattern and put it in a ‘simmering’ pot, or in an indigo vat, OR
• apply both steps to the same piece of fabric or paper in either order, OR
• having done any of the above then post mordant the piece.
• after processing it with steam or in a pot, it has to cool and is eventually unwrapped, dried, ironed and in the case of fabric washed dried and ironed again. It is magic to undo the bundles and see the results.  Paper I unwrap as soon as it is cool enough to handle.  Fabric I will leave several days to give time for colours to release as much as they can.

If I am making a scarf or wrap this will be the end of the creating process

The fourth step of my art process

This is the hardest but the most exciting stage and I love the challenge.  I will decide:

• whether to leave the compositions on paper untouched or to add something to it.  Will this be the final step or not.
• whether to leave the fabric compositions untouched or to add something to it.  Will this be the final step or not.
• how to use the pieces I coloured and marked to create an interesting and dynamic composition.  I audition the pieces and decide on a starting point and then keep adding and subtracting until I have an interesting composition and then decide how I will enhance it with stitch.

You can see how I created Improvisation 1: Lost in the Mist and Improvisation: #2 Tranquility from my Improvisation using Nature’s Palette series in my blog posts on them.

The final fifth step of my art process

This is a contemplative and meditative stage as I may decide to add pen, pencil or ink marks to the work or create texture across the surface with thread.  If I am handstitching it is a very slow process and takes hours and hours.  If I am machine stitching it is still very intense as I colour in with thread.

I love doing this and can’t stop myself from doing it.

https://rasamauragis.com/art-gallery/#Improvisation-Series-using-Nature’s-Palette

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