Cochineal

Queen Anne's Lace: Faded Memories


I'm not sure if I'm finished with this piece or now, notice the tattered edge on the right side?  I'm not exactly happy with it at the moment and am thinking of some additional layering.


If you look close enough  you will see that there is additional stitching beneath the hot pink silk organza net, first layer is a silk damask type fabric I dyed with cochineal and then machine stitched to a layer of timtex.


I stitched a grid of sorts and some Queen Anne's Lace onto the first layer using a variegated pink rayon thread.


The initial audition.  The piece to the left consists of cochineal dyed silk organza atop a layer of indigo dyed silk damask fabric which may or may not be finished tonight.

Deconstructed Screen Printing with Natural Dyes and Stencils!

Materials List: 
Silk Screens
Squeegee for Silk Screen
Stencils
Natural Dye Extracts
Gum Tragacanth Binder
Containers to hold natural dye extracts/binder I used paper cups.
Plastic Spoons
Newspaper
Masking Tape
Fabric or Watercolor Papers

Products Used:
Black Birds in Tree Inverse Stencil

Links:
How-to make the Gum Tragacanth Binder Video

I am here today to show you how to use stencils with a silk screen and natural dyes for screen printing.



Instructions:
Mix up Gum Tragacanth with Natural Dye Extracts; see video for specific amounts and mixing instructions.  I made a little card with the names of the extracts I was working with and daubed a bit of the color next to each name, for future projects.

The Natural Dye Extracts blended with the Gum Tragacanth are now ready for printing!

Most silk screens won’t be the same size as your stencil, however, I have an easy fix for this problem.   Measure your screen and your stencil and then block off the required space for your stencil by taping news print to the FRONT of your silk screen.  Then tape your stencil to the front of the screen making sure to overlap the stencil onto the newsprint.



Blocked off silk screen, as seen from the front.


Blocked off silk screen as seen from the back.


Black Birds in Tree Inverse taped to the FRONT of the silk screen.



Place your natural dye binder medium onto the screen, towards the edge, this is known as “the well”.  Using your squeegee pull the medium in a firm manner across the screen, once you have reached the other side, pull the medium back towards yourself, do this several times adding more of the natural dye binder medium if needed until the color on the screen looks even.


Gently lift up the silk screen from your substrate, I used 300# cold press watercolor paper for this sample.



For this sample I used the same stencil and screen to print the image onto cochineal dyed cotton fabric that I had surfaced using my hand and earth pigments and fabric paint.



Printing onto cochineal dyed cotton fabric.




If you wish for your fabric images to be free of bumps, etc., tape the fabric to your surface to keep it from moving, etc., while printing.  I prefer an organic and whimsical look and therefore don’t tape my fabric to my table.

Birds in Tree with Madder Lac


Madder lac natural dye extract screen printed, using deconstructed screen printing techniques with my Birds in Tree Inverse Stencil, onto cochineal dyed cotton fabric.


Birds in Tree Inverse Stencil taped to the front of a traditional silk screen for deconstructed screen printing!  Stay tuned for more on this technique!!!

Learn more about these techniques in my eBook and Video series 
Mark Making with Nature!!! 


Academy Membership Special Pricing Ends Soon!!!

The Natural Surface Academy
Membership Special
 
Natural dye painted cotton fabric. 
Cochineal, osage orange, and charcoal.


 
Offer Ends January 1st, 2014!!!
Learn more here
 
Madder root, cochineal, and logwood
on silk charmuse and silk crepe de chine fabrics.
 
Deconstructed screen printing with newsprint and ink on cotton.

 
 

WIP's - Sandstone Series

 
This Sandstone piece has been in a bucket for the past decade, every once in awhile I dig it out and stare it it on my design wall (in my case my design wall is a bookshelf).  Today's it's day, I've decided to seperate the two pieces of fabric and overdye the top piece with kutch, and maybe some kamala.
 

Detail, the reddish fabric is cochineal and rust dyed silk fabric.


Another Sandstone WIP that has been languishing in the storage bucket for the past 10+ years.  It's mostly hand stitching on the surface, tonight I have plans to add some machine stitching and possibly a few layers of constructed cloth.  This piece is small enough to experiment with pushing the surface.

Organizing Fabric Stash Leads to Found Samples!


Believe it or not the fabric in that suitcase really is organized!  While I was searching for piece of unfinished silk fabric I found my long lost stitched sample I had been looking for late last fall. 


Due to the sample of the rights disappearance, deep into a pile of folded fabrics, I made another sample to pratice some machine stitching on.  Both sample pieces consist of cochineal dyed cotton fabrics and are machine stitched.  The left sample, however, has been surfaced further using fabric paints, oil bar, and ink.  I'm thinking the sample on the right could use a good dose of color as well.


Practice No. 2


Well since I lost my orginal practice piece I whipped up another one this evening. 
Cochineal dyed cotton fabric, machine stitched, wool quilt batting, aurifil threads.


I couched down more sisal to pratice some stitches with, this "x" shape I bobbin stitched using aurifil wool thread.  Above view is the back side of the sample that was facing upwards when stitching. 


Top side after bobbin stitching, the aurifil wool thread doesn't like to feed through the top on my 6500S so I bobbin stitch with it instead.


I've couched down more sisal since this shot was taken, now I will experiment with hand stitching over the sisal and then machine stitching over the hand stitching to see which effect I prefer.  This all in anticipation of finishing Bjorkboda.



Untitled WIP


Natural dye painted and rusted silk organza over cochineal dyed wool batting.


I'm off on a couple of tangents, now that I know I won't be entering Quilt National.  Hopefully the next time QN rolls around they will have either changed the image requirements, of 300DPI or I will have a new camera capable of taking that high quality images.  Until then I'm content working in my studio.


If you'd like to learn more about dye painting fabrics with natural dyes check out my eBook Mark Making with Nature!

Natural Dyed Wool Bundles

Each bundle consists of 4 pieces of wool fabric 9x6 inches, all fabrics dyed using natural dyes. 

Muted Mauves and Blues


Jeweltones - Indigo, Cochineal, and Copper were used for these deep rich colors!

Indigo Blues ranging from a dark indigo blue to a medium value indigo!

All bundles are $18 each not including shipping, please email me for a PayPal invoice at prairiefibers@hotmail.com


Edited at 1:10 am central time: Sold!!!

Hmmmmmmmmmmm Lost and Found???

Or simply neglected?  I found this piece hiding in a corner, I started it back around 2004ish and it went AWOL.  This is what happens when you dig into the deep recesses of your studio closet, goodies are to be had back there, oh and spiders.

Silk crinkle crepe top fabric, wool batting, cotton backing.
Natural Dyed with Cochineal and then compost dyed as an overdye.
36 x 60 inches, an approximation.
Soon to be machine stitched.

Red Hearts

Base heart is started using silk dupioni, dyed with cochineal, wool quilt batting and cochineal dyed cotton backing fabric.  I machine stitched the edging and am now set to start embellishing the heart with natural dyed vintage trims, lace, yoyo's etc.  I enjoy the hand stitching portion of heart making it's a very nice respite between projects.