18/27 Cyanotype
Typically, the long sunny spell was almost over when I remembered my cyanotype fabric. Well it's been put aside for along time, as I never seemed to get the right conditions for sun printing at my last house.
So on a still, sunny day with just an hour to spare I got to work (or rather, play!). First snag - the fabric was one large, very creased piece. Have you tried ironing and cutting up fabric in the dark?! I didn't want to risk activating the chemicals until I was ready to print.
I rushed around the garden grabbing plants to act as resists. Then I arranged them on the fabric, covered with a piece of glass, and let the sun loose on it. This is what happened:
Magic! I couldn't wait to try again.
As well as more plants, I made some negative transparencies from digital photos. My photos mostly didn't have enough contrast, but I liked this one of Talisker Bay:
What do you mean, you can do this in Photoshop - where's the fun in that?!
But what to do with these prints? So far I've made a couple of pocket mirrors and a tiny accordion book.
18/28 Simmer Dim
This far north it never gets totally dark around
midsummer. It’s very confusing, we keep losing track of the time and going to
bed far too late! In Shetland this long summer twilight is called the Simmer
Dim. This is what midnight looks like from our window onto the bay on a
cloudless night:
Those colours! I decided to knit them, maybe it was the
Shetland association suggesting that? For little bits of lots of colours I chose
tapestry wools – my stash is HUGE from bargain lots snapped up over the years. I still didn't have the right shades, buy hey it's only meant to be "inspired by", not a faithful copy. I
knitted a strip in garter stitch with colour changes on the “wrong” side to
help the colours shift more gradually.
But knitting alone’s not enough for me, I
needed a twist… so I used the embellisher to attach the knitting to felt,
flattening and stabilising it too. Then a bit of hand stitching to soften some
colour shifts and highlight others.
Not one of my favourite samples, but
knitting needled onto felt certainly has potential? It makes a lovely firm
fabric, ready lined for a little purse, cuff, or… all sorts of
possibilities!
18/29 Cotton Grass
Drifts of cotton grass or bog cotton on damp areas always make me smile - it's a weird but lovely plant, unlike anything else.
I backed a little scrap of Harris tweed with pelmet
Vilene to allow free machining, then stitched lots of stalks in Gutermann
variegated green/brown cotton. The “cotton” heads were then created by needle
felting tiny clumps of bamboo fibres on. I did this by hand with a single
needle. Of all the fibres in my stash the bamboo seemed the best match, though
really it should be whiter.
18/30 Rosebay Willowherb
In July and August the drifts of this wildflower, aka fireweed make a spectacular splash of colour.
I didn't mind whether my rosebay sample was machine or hand embroidered, so I had a look at all kinds of threads.
Nothing seemed quite the right colour - even on my massive Madeira shade card! Ah well, may as well use the machine then.
Back to my favourite technique - doodling with the Bernina on dissolvable fabric. I used different colours on the bobbin and spool to get closer to the actual pink/mauve. And added some bright yellow ragwort for contrast, as the two plants are often together round here.
