Monday, August 29, 2011

Dye, Dying, Dyed...

A couple of weeks ago, I, along with a bunch of my fellow Vallejo Piecemakers, had a fabulous fabric dying experience with Marjan Kluepfel.


We spent a lovely day outside at the Solano County Fairgrounds, under the trees, in front of McCormack Hall, experimenting with all kinds of dying techniques and letting the creativity run amok.



Jan fixed her famous Taco Salad for 100 (or is it 1,000???), and we stuff-faced midway through the day, and then got back to work.


We did a six-stage "gradation" project using two colors of our choice - I picked magenta and turquoise. First, put a couple of cups of the soda ash concoction in each of six separate baggies, then add varying combinations of the two dyes, add fabric, let it sit in the sun for a couple of hours...


Rinse it out, throw it in the washer and dryer, iron, and, Voila! Look what you get...


Soak another piece of fabric in the soda ash solution, spread it out on a piece of plastic on top of a table and, using 2, 3, or however many squirt or spray bottles of different colors, create your design on the fabric, use a paint sponge to spread the color around, then roll the fabric up in the plastic and let it sit for 3 hours, rinse/wash/dry/iron, and get something like this:


Do the soda ash treatment with another piece of fabric, wrap it around a 15" long tube of 4" pipe, scrunch it tightly towards the center, secure with rubber bands, squirt two or more colors alternately around the circumference of the tubed fabric, wrap in plastic, let sit, rinse/wash/ etc...


More soda ash mix on another piece, stuff into a generous plastic bag and squirt the dye directly from the squirt bottle into the baggie, moosh it around a little, then do the finishing routine again...


I also did a bleach resist procedure, but, alas, I didn't use a strong enough bleach solution, so it didn't come out well. Dang! It would have been so cool! Oh, well, that's one for the future, when I get my dyeing studio set up in the garage.

Speaking of the dyeing studio, I've talked about it long enough, so I've quit talking and gotten to work getting crap out of the garage to make room for it. I got rid of the old organ the other day... sent it off to Mike Kendall, an incredible Benicia artist, who will, hopefully turn it into a sculpture of mind-blowing proportions!

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Decisions, Decisions...


Here's the next area of the yard that needs to be addressed, but so far, I have no idea what to do with it. I don't want to deal with any more labor-intensive veggies... it gets way too much sun for me to plant the Hosta garden of my dreams... it has to be attractive because I want to start using this patio more. It would be nice to have a fountain and some trees, though I don't know if I can convince my neighbor that trees are a good idea, since they'd have to be on the upper level, and would be so close to his house. Maybe some fruit trees, so Chris can take advantage of the fruit-hanging-over-the-fence rule! If anyone has any suggestions, I'm open to any and all!

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Succulent Garden

I love succulents! Well, in all honesty, I love just about everything I plant, but, succulents are my second favorite plants, after roses. Last week I finished preparing the third of the raised beds in the front yard, and have planted it with succulents. This endeavor is a test of my faith that I'm going to live for quite a few more years! These plants are very slow growing, so I have a goodly few years to wait for most of them to come into maturity. For now, I get to molly-coddle them, and, like children, watch them grow microscopically. I'll give you two views of what I've planted so far - the first picture is what the plant currently looks like in my garden, and the second is how I can expect it to look in a few years...

Aloe plicatilas - "Fan Aloe"



Agave cornelius



Echeveria 'afterglow'



Beaucarnea stricta


Graptoveria 'Crested Form"



Aeonium hierrense



Aeonium nobile


I'll be adding a few more in the next month, but they'll be small, spreading ground-huggers to fill in the wide open spaces. Stay tuned...