eco dying!

              

Lovely little workshop with a local art professor on eco dying. Decided it's not my most favorite thing in the world, but then it's possible that it was more the material than the method. 

Beware artists bearing plastic juice containers. It might not be consumable.

This is the alum you want for dying - the sort you pickle with, not bake with

  

I'm writing this well after the fact, so my memory is a little hazy on the details. It was summer, it was hot outside, we were enjoying each other's company and dabbling. 

marbling

 Making glass marbles would be an absolute hoot, but in keeping with the fiber theme, in April of this year the local fiber guild hosted a marbling workshop. 

 

I had done marbling with kids using liquid starch and acrylic paint [still working out the kinks of how watered down the paint needs to be for it's density to allow it to float rather than sink; I will get back to you on that]. This was next level, professional grade dyes, some water additive that I am forgetting - my brain wants to say some kind of algae - and fabric pretreated with alum, but not the alum you bake with.  

      

Here we are getting our initial instructions. Our flick sticks are plastic/ nylon broom ... I don't know what the word is for them, but they were pulled out of a dollar store broom and bundled. The instructor told us to start with black dye - its there, in the bottom picture, but you may have to look for it. 

With more colors, the black is more visible. The set up is to just flick or drop dye onto the water bath, then use a skewer or comb to pull, swirl, et cetera, designs. It was rather mesmerizing to watch the dyes swirl around with just a little coaxing.

And then we all went nuts.

    

If/ when I do this again, I would have a drying rack situation sorted, as I clearly resorted to sticking bits of fabric wherever I thought air would be able to circulate around them

The Siege of Fort Niagara 2023

This is my other JP Ryan jacket in a green ikat. Discovered I had left my caps at home so I splurged and bought a nice new one.

I 3D printed this bobbin at my local library! Absolutely not period correct! 

New make plans - oil cloth capelette to beat the rain. 

Everyone's favorite game, will my car fit through the gate?

Driving up to the fort to unload...

Oggling the repro glass wear. I snagged a green mustard bottle, which aren't pictured because as soon as the bottles were out people were picking them up and holding onto them. 

Here's Dwayne, the rock. I got about 20 minutes away from the fort and realized that I had forgot the ridge pole to my tent. Thank goodness the hardware store was spitting distance from the highway, and I was able to buy and get cut another 2 x 4. I forgot a lot of things this weekend that would have really been nice to have in the rain. Oh, well!

 

july makes: a mantelette and a JP Ryan Jacket

The annual Siege of Fort Niagara was this past weekend and in anticipation of the event, I [panic] sewed two jackets and two chemises. House sitting provided an excellent opportunity to sew uninterrupted, and as a bonus, I had an adorable feline helper who absolutely loved linen.

COVID [and if I'm honest, a toxic work environment] had put a real damper on my being able to participate in anything outside work. I haven't sewn anything outside a simple half elastic waist 4 rectangle skirt. Everything I had learned hitherto about sewing 18th century garments went right out the window.  

The first shift I cut was from a thrifted cotton linen blend table cloth, something I probably should have dyed and turned into something else given its heavy weight. I threw down a chemise I knew fit and completely skipped cutting and piecing gores and sleeves - it's all one piece except for the arm gusett. Historically correct? No. 
Quick and dirty? Not visible to the general public? Absolutely.

It was just about the right length to leave the hemstitched border in place as a finished edge. In all fairness, this was not a priority to finish because of the weight and feel of the fabric, so I focused on other projects. If it turns out to be too long, I'll put in tucks above the hemstitching to make it the right length. 

The other shift was a more supple tencel rayon linen blend. Just the fiber content alone makes it inaccurate, but I figured it was at least plant based, so it wouldn't melt, no one was really going to see it that up close anyway, and I could hand stitch the important parts that might be seen. The fiber mix gives it a very interesting crinkle. With the heat and humidity, it was very comfortable. 

I finished stitching the neck on Saturday night to wear the next day with the JP Ryan jacket, which I had also finished on Saturday except for the sleeve cuffs. The fabric for the pink jacket came from A Thrifty Notion We had a little soiree Saturday night with the other ladies in camp and I got inspired to put a few extra touches on this. I don't have any ribbon on hand, but I was thinking a pale pink pleated silk ribbon as trim around the neck, arms and would make an excellent finishing touch. 

I sewed this up by machine stitching all the lining pieces and all the fashion pieces together, then pinning right sides together and sewing all the way around the neck and peplum and flipping it right side out. The only unfinished edge I ended up with was one of the front closures and the cuffs of the sleeves, which still need to be turned under and finished. I read an interesting blog post about how to sew the fashion and liner of this jacket together in one go AND the jacket gets sewn completely together at the same time, but I've lost track of it. Hand sewing is involved and it reminded me a little of a true Hong Kong finish, without having to sew the liner to the fashion fabric first.

This one doesn't look that different from the first but I promise it is. This is from the La Fleur de Lyse pattern, Canadienne de la Nouvelle- France. It too is supposed to have cuffs, and I'm sure one day I will get around to sewing those up. You can see initials in the center back - I had a really rottenly made chemise that I sacrificed for lining fabric. The sleeves are a yellow light weight linen from Joann Fabrics just pre-pandemic (Do they even sell 100% linen any more? alas...) I got this stitched up to the point of wearable and spent a very rainy Saturday sewing up the last of the unfinished seams in the front flaps. Was going to buy ribbon to tie up the front and the sleeves but at Niagara since all it did was downpour while I was there... the forecast was for it to stop raining overnight - it was like someone turned off a faucet at 6pm exactly, no rain over night and a 30% chance of rain at 8 AM. Try 100% at 5AM, because the sound of rain spattering on canvas woke me up. Ugh. The weather may not have cooperated but it was still a good time. 

Here I am with my spinning wheel! I didn't know my picture was being taken.