From April to September my arbor (formerly the children's swingset) of clematis returned to its yearly beauty. I deliberately chose a clematis that blooms in late summer/early autumn into a cloud of little white flowers. Below you can see the before when the clematis was chopped back in April and the after in September just as the buds were starting to pop. Other things in the garden have grown, but I am sad to say I have managed to kill my favorite and only tradescantia (spiderwort), I think because it became overshadowed by a bush I never thought would get so big. Am I the first person ever to kill a spiderwort? I am so sad because it was given to me by a wonderful friend.
So much for gardening. What about fiber? Luckily, earlier this week I spent the better part of a day dyeing fabric. I experimented with two new fabrics (for me). Both are linen/silk blends, but one has more linen and one more silk. The one with more linen is a little stiff, and the one with more silk is gauzy. This is the deconstructed screen I unintentionally made .
Here are results: on the left is the linen/silk; on the right is the silk/linen. This is just after screening and before washing. Now that I have washed them, I can see that the silk blends hold onto the dye much better than all cotton.
Here is another piece of linen/silk after several screenings:
Then I covered it with a purple/brown and it looked like the picture below. Even after washing, it remained dark enough that I had forgotten about the two rectangles in the middle. Good thing I took a picture.
I managed to work on the beginnings of several other pieces, too. One time I put a piece of the gauzy fabric on top of the other and pushed the dye through. Unfortunately, I just kept forgetting to take pictures. I'm looking forward to working on them some more, especially with discharge paste. But that will be for the next entry.
