a bit of spring with natural pink

Snow was gone in almost one day 

with the rainy days and temperatures around 10 Celcius. 

Now I'am longing for colours! 

This pink I achieved with cochenille. 

The shawls moved to Art Wear Jordaan in Amsterdam 

to bring a little bit of spring 

De sneeuw was met de warme regen binnen een dag verdwenen om plaats te

maken voor grauwe luchten en storm.

Ik snak naar kleur om alles vrolijker te maken. Het roze hiervan komt van de

cochenille. Een paar sjaals zijn naar Art Wear Jordaan verhuisd om daar 

alvast het lentegevoel te brengen ....

natural colours make the difference!

Two white dresses, which didn't made it to fashionshow were waiting for a couple of months for some colour. I had made two big dyepots for the classes with Pam, one with onions and the other one with eucalyptus. Both were enriched with an old copperpot and got in this way some extra colouring additives. It is amazing how the dresses come to life and don't you agree that in this case colour makes a big difference? The patterns of the bundling and marks from the leaves has given a gorgeous design on the silk and wool. And I love the button at the front...

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front

Twee witte jurkjes die niet de modeshow haalden lagen de hele zomer al te wachten op kleur. Voor de workshop van Pam had ik twee grote verfbaden gemaakt, een met ui en de ander met eucaplyptus. Om een diepere kleur te bereiken had ik er ook een koperen pot als beits meegetrokken. Na een ruime tijd in de pot te hebben geprutteld, was dit het resultaat. Ik vind het altijd verbazingwekkend hoe het wit tot leven komt door de natuurlijke kleuren en vind je ook niet dat kleur hier het verschil maakt! De afbindstrepen en afdruk van bladeren laten een prachtig patroon achter. En de knoopjes maken het helemaal af! 

                                               

Free construction

Pam de Groot, feltartist from Australia, introduced an another way to make felted clothes. She combined her knowledge about zero waste and substraction cutting with her experiences in sewing garments and feltmaking  and bought it to a next level. It needed some time for most of the students to get to understand this new free path of working. It was diffucult how to visualize the new form of the dress from such a huge  prefeltform. But they succeeded very well, It was amazing to watch the transformation once it is completely felted and dyed..... 

               

made by Hilde Vleugels, Belgium

made by Annick Keters, Belgium

Pam de Groot (spreek uit als 'Pem de Groet') uit Australie heeft vorig weekend een zeer unieke workshop geintroduceerd in mijn atelier Fiberfusing in het maken van vilten kleding. Ze heeft haar kennis van zero waste en subtraction cutting zo gecombineerd met haar ervaring in het naaien van kleding en vilten dat het idee naar een volgend niveau is gebracht. Deze nieuwe manier van werken bracht menig cursist uit balans, de vrijheid  vroeg veel van het inlevingsvermogen. Des te groter is de verbazing en voldoening als van zo'n heel groot stuk voorvilt er uiteindelijk een prachtige kledingstuk ontstaan die uniek is in zijn soort.

made by Hilde Vleugels, Belgium

softness of very fine prefelt...

bloody red

There were loads of them - branches of the ash tree, covered with lichen Xanthoria_parietina. The presence of this yellow lichen is because there is a lot of ammonia in the air. It could be caused by the cows in our neighbours greenfields. I have collected them all and made a natural arrangement on the lid of my trashcan. Some of them I have used for my bundling. 

Red2white has extracted colour from it and made a samples it in a salmoncolour. When I unbundled my roll I was surprised to see the yellow transformed into a bloody red with the help of ashwater. You can even see the marks on my piece of cotton.  

Mijn terras lag bezaaid met gevallen takken van de Es. Veel ervan zijn bedekt met een laagje geel groot dooiermos. Door de aanwezigheid van ammonia in de lucht zouden deze mosjes ineens veel beter groeien. Misschien komt het door de koeien die regelmatig aan de overkant in de wei lopen? Ik heb alles opgeraapt en op de deksel van mijn afvalemmer er een mooi arrangement mee gemaakt. Een paar heb ik gebruikt voor mijn bundeltjes.

Red to white heeft er net als vroeger een kleur van getrokken en er zalmrose mee geverfd. Toen ik mijn bundeltjes openmaakte was ik prettig verrast bij het zien van de bloedrode kleur op het stokje en op mijn katoenen lap. De aanwezigheid van het aswater dat als een base werkt heeft de gele kleur veranderd in rood. Het is echt toveren!  

print-temps

During my holidays in our holidayhome in France in springtime I had all the time to make prints, my print-temps. It resulted in some lovely prints and tests with plants and flowers. We had the most warm springytime in February we could wish for. It builded up my energy and I was happy to work with some pieces of silk wrapped in windfallsticks of the Ashtree (Fraxinus).  The lichen on them changed immediately in red in contact with the homemade ashwater from birch and oak. They print a kind of orange on your fabric.
In April I brought an old bouquet of roses with me and together with fresh green leaves from the local forest I have printed several pieces of silk with them. Again I have done some tests with different mordants. I have made a beautifull copperwater with vinegar and a copper pipe. It really makes a different with the printing leaves. How happy life can be?

Gedurende mijn voorjaarsvakanties in ons vakantiehuis in Frankrijk heb ik gebruik gemaakt van het verse voorjaarsgroen. Eind februari was het heerlijk weer en lagen er in mijn tuin heel veel bemoste stokjes van de Es. In contact met het aswater kleurde deze donkerrood en liet een oranje print op mijn lapjes achter. Eind april kon ik het lokale bos terecht voor jong eikenblad en kastanjeblad. De grond lag bezaaid met walnotenkatjes. Van de doppen die ik vorig jaar heb geraapt heb ik een verfbad gemaakt. Ook heb ik wat testjes gedaan met verschillende beitsen van rode wijn, koper, aswater, koudbeits en ijzer.

noilsilk in ashwater oak and birch

noilsilk in alum wit oak and iron

noilsilk in copper with oak and chesnutleave

my feltwork at joetjoep

A little bit of trumpetnoise for myself. I have made a small video of the 2-minutes of my first fashionfame with my NOWA Natural Organic Wearable Art '11 collection from my label Plantdrukkunst ©. This was possible because of the organisation of a fashionshow with and by members of the Dutch Feltassociation.

Twee minuten in de spotlights met mijn eerste collectie NOWA Natural Organic Wearable Art '11 van het label Plantdrukkunst © in de fashionshow Kruithuis, Den Bosch. Mogelijk gemaakt door het committee van het 20-jarig bestaan van de Viltkontaktgroep

just around the corner

I have promissed myself to be at least 15 minutes outside. And the ones who knows me, knows also that this is a big challenge for me. Walking isn't that easy for me, special when the days are getting colder and nastier. So to keep myself warm, I collect fallen leaves. And just look what's close to me, just around the corner. Although it is almost wintertime, there is still much to find due to the soft authumn days we have here in the Netherlands. My rosebush gave beautifull small reddark leaves, I found some walnutleaves, wild geraniumleaves, cotinus and bark from the dead eucalyptustree. With this I made a sample on silk noil and some mono-printed strips for my friends birthday. All were dipped in a homemade ash-solution. I was surpised with the strong outcome.

plantprinted letters&numbers

Last year I made some words and drawings with ironwire and rolled it in a bundle for printing. The rustingprocess in the ironwire will leave the marks on the fabric.






Recently I tried to get some prints with eggs. Tracey Willians showed in one of her post how she got some more colour on paper using raw eggs. So I thought to give it a try at silk. I stamped with it, I wrote with a brush and I also used letterresists to stamp the egg-liquid in. After it was dried I bundled it in a usual way and boiled one in a dyebath with privetberries and the other in redwood. It is amazing how the colour gets indeed a much better colour at the place where I wrote with the egg. I'am not sure where this will lead too, but there are some ideas I like to give a try.

eco-tiles

Our Dutch Feltgroup will celebrate their 20th anniversary next year. Every member is challenged to make a felted tile with a limited size of 30x30cm. They can be flat or 3D and all will be assembled to one big wall. We have been experimenting in at our annual meeting this spring with some technics and idea's, but there was something else on my mind.



some try-outs in Turkish Ottomanstyle and cut-outtechnique (both not finished yet)

I wanted to make something with natural dyes and printing. Each tile with one monoprint on a clear background. But nothing so unpredictable as mother nature. My dye acted as a thunderstorm. It was so dark on the edges and so cloudy in the centre, despite the linenresists I had use to protect the centre. I cleared area's with lemonjuice, which lighten up the whole thing. It was a surpise to see prints on the linenresists. They are like little paintings and so I stitched them at the other side. I still cannot decide a front and a back. It will be a doublefaced tile. Unfortunately I wouldn't split my serie of four and decided to keep them myself.




monoprints on thick nunofelt with mapple-leave and eucalyptus (not finished yet)

What to do next, the deadline was in a few days. Thinking of a tile I came up with words as clean, geometric and simple so I ended up with a natural one. Finaly I made two with some ecodyed nunotextures in the theme 'connection'.




Connection - the completed tiles I send in for the expo-wall next year at the 20th anniversary in 2012 of the VKG, the Dutch feltcontactgroup

santé

I have tried to dye with the flowertails of the Red Amaranthus. When simmering it very softly it will gives a briljant red. I have read somewhere that this red is good for colouring food. Unfortunately it will not give you the same colour on a piece of fabric. I ended up with a kind of brown on the outside, but the inside gave me a lot of interesting patterns!