Sashiko pants

My husband had some holes on his jeans and asked me to patch them up. So I dyed some canvas indigo and stitched on the patches using sashiko, in traditional Japanese style.

Finished product (finally!)

The potato dextrin allows you to dye the fabric with a beautiful web of color. I just love the cracks that form - so beautiful.

You may remember that I did some shibori stitching on the corners and only applied the potato dextrin to the center of the scarf, leaving the ends light pink with shibori swirls.

Doesn’t look bad on either. :)

Steaming process

Now that the thickened dye is dry, you have to steam the fabric. The steaming process not only sets the color, but also loosens the potato dextrin from the fabric.

Bundle up the fabric in newspaper - making sure that it is not touching itself. You want it to be completely wrapped in newspaper before starting to bundle it up because you don’t want the dye to run. Place the bundle in a steamer pot (not one you use for food) and wrap the lid with a towel so that the bundle doesn’t get water dripped on it. (The bundle should be warm and slightly damp when you take it out, not wet.) If it does get wet, the dye might run and make a mess.

I placed a weight on top of the lid just to make sure the seal was nice and tight. Steam for 30 minutes.

When unwrapping the bundle, make sure you’re in a well-ventilated area. Wash the fabric in cold water first MAKING SURE NONE OF THE POTATO DEXTRIN GOES DOWN THE DRAIN. Use one of those mesh catchers in the sink and dispose of the potato dextrin in the trash. After rinsing in cold water to remove all the potato dextrin, wash the fabric in synthrapol. If it feels a bit stiff to the touch, soak it in vinegar water for a while and wash in synthrapol again. That should do the trick. Iron while damp for a crisp finish.

Remember this…

blog post? Well, I was finally able to get back to it!

Once the potato dextrin was (thoroughly) dry, I made some thickened paste and added the dye and soda ash (fixative) to it. I apply this mixture onto the potato dextrin with a sponge brush so I can really get in between the cracks.

Make sure to check if the dye is actually getting all the way through to the fabric and not just sitting on top of the potato dextrin by unpinning the fabric and checking the back.

Continue this process until you’ve covered all the potato dextrin with the thickened dye. After you’re finished you have to wait several days for the thickened dye to dry.

Silk Painting

Hello there,

Sorry I haven’t been posting lately. I’ve been out of town visiting my parents in Wisconsin (where it was 2 degrees!!! So cold!) and then I’ve been incredibly busy at work. No excuse, I know. But I wanted to stop it very quickly to say hello and post a picture of something I’ve been working on lately.

I’m taking a silk painting class at the Y in downtown Gloucester and I’m loving it. I’m currently into using big sponge brushes and Japanese calligraphy brushes. I really like the effects I’m getting. This is the one I made today. Sorry for the poor quality of the picture - I took it with my phone.

What do you think?

Starting the new year with…

a new bookbinding desk. It’s an old 1920s post office desk with removable shelves, a drawer, and a nice, large table top that’s tall enough to stand up at. It’s perfect! Many thanks to Sarah from Sycamore Hollow, who was kind enough to part with it.

True Bayberry Candles

“A bayberry candle burned to the socket, puts luck in the home, food in the larder, and gold in the pocket.”

At the National Heritage Museum, Kurt and I bought Bayberry candles to light on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. After burning our candles to the socket on Christmas Eve, we received word that Kurt was granted a month-long artist in residence position in Dinan, France! So this time next year, we’ll be spending December 2009 in France. Isn’t that fantastic?! I can hardly wait. I have exactly one year to learn French!!

So now we’re burning our second set of Bayberry candles. I wonder what great gift these will bring us…

Happy New Year. I wish you nothing but the best in 2009.

Yellow Equitation

My best friend has been riding horses since she was a very little girl. She’s won many competitions in Dressage and once dreamt of being an Olympic champion. So when I saw a book entitled Elementary Equitation at the used book store, I immediately thought of her. It’s all about how to properly mount and sit on a horse. That’s it. Hundreds of pages of how to sit on a horse. A very…specific book to say the least, but one with so much charm I knew she’d like it. The only problem was that the cover was practically falling off and the spine had chunks falling off of it. So I bought it and rebound it in yellow leather.

For the end papers, I replaced the old, plain cream colored ones with marbled paper I bought a couple of years back at a book fair in Silver Spring, Maryland. It really made the book look a lot fancier than it did originally. I also added some raised bands along the spine, which it didn’t have before, but I’m sorry I forgot to take pictures of the spine before giving it to her!

Since the original cover did have an interesting image of a horse on it, my husband made a die of a horse out of copper that we heated up and used emboss a horse on the front cover. It wasn’t as sharp an image as I had hoped, but it was my first time using a homemade die. Now I know that making my own dies is a possibility and that’s very exciting.

Anyway, so this is what I was doing instead of the potato dextrin project. But now that I’m done with this book, I can get back to the scarf. Thank you for your patience!

Take a look at the book and let me know what you think!

Update

Hello everyone.

I know I promised you progress on the potato dextrin piece, but I’m currently working on a Christmas present (which I’ll post after Christmas). Once I’m done with that, I’ll get back to the potato dextrin, I promise!

One of my favorites during the holidays…

Pillow mints!