This morning we started the day with a presentation by Elin Noble, who told us about her month-long artist residency in Denmark. During her residency she went on long walks, gathering plant material for her dye experiments. She shared her process of cooking the plants, dyeing the fabrics, and then creating a darker color with iron-dyeing. She also walked along the beach to gather rocks, that she would later use to weigh the Lightweight Silk Organza while stitching by hand.
She showed us a photo of a beautiful natural-dyed yellow silk organza coat using the Korean Bojagi technique. ‘The Apple Tree on the Abandoned Railroad Line’ was the name of the exhibit that resulted from 2 artist residencies. She showed us several series of yellow-dye experimental projects, including Cheesecloth, and the subsequent patchwork collages in which she uses Mistyfuse. Two beautiful translucent patchwork layers of cheesecloth collage were fused into one work of art.
Elin has been inspiring us to use natural dyes for a long time. I have a book by Elin that I bought as we were launching eQuilter. It is still on the shelf in the basement of our home where we started the business.
Our kids grew up in the business so they took turns having textile-themed projects for Science Fair. They all did one science fair about natural dyes – experimenting in several different plant sources – from berries to leaves from our garden. They dyed cotton, silk and linen … then wrote about the differences of absorption.
Their 2nd science fair project was doing the Burn Test. You should all know about this also, so you can differentiate 100% cotton from cotton/poly blends, or fake cotton. (100% polyester) The information is all online these days, but essentially, synthetics melt and natural fibers turn to ash. If you think about it, polyester is made from petroleum, and essentially melts into a bead of plastic. Yuck!
I have had a love affair with natural fibers since my first job in the fashion industry. I was fortunately that my first job in L.A., and my second job in Hong Kong, were designing silk garments. Working in Asia, I learned all about silk production and different types of silk textiles. In fact I am visiting an old friend from Hong Kong on Monday, before I fly home.
Now I am brimming with creative juice and ready to get back in the studio!
sharing your love for fabric,
Luana and Paul
Follow my artist blog here.
Travel/Lecture Dates:
April 23-26 – Washington DC – Private Event
April 27- May 3 – Alegre Retreat – Gateway Colorado
May 23-26 – Quilt National – Dairy Barn, Athens OH
June 18-20 – Quilt Canada – Toronto Ontario
Visit eQuilter’s Instagram, Pinterest or TikTok pages for Color and Design ideas.
See Luana’s Artist Blog, Flickr Photo Pages for travel images, comment on our blog, or follow us on Facebook.
Check out our Video pages for interviews and show reviews.
