Dyeing With Onion Skins, That Was Fun!

     Tess and I had fun this week experimenting with a couple of dye techniques from this wonderful book she gave me for Christmas. I've been saving onion skins until I had enough for dyeing. I also have a stash of white and off-white recycled wool clothing that I prepped and saved for dyeing. With these three things: book, wool, and plant products, we were ready to have some fun! Tess wanted to try the black bean dye from the book, so we made three days of simmering and soaking to see what we could create.
     This particular book is divided into four sections by season. The author creates a wonderful dye spectrum from commonly found plants during each season. For example, there is rosemary, black walnut, hibiscus, and mint to name a few. She provides specific information on the materials needed for a successful dye and takes a portion of the book to explain the techniques and materials. Tess and I went a bit rogue with our dye experiments when it came to the mordants. Mordants are used to 'set' the dye and greatly affect the outcome of color. I've commonly used vinegar as a mordant for the Cushing's dyes I use, but the plant dyes use mordants such as ferrous sulfate (iron powder), alum, and cream of tartar. Tess and I were willing to forego the iron powder in favor of the alum and cream of tartar for the black bean dye because we already had those on hand. For the onion skin dye bath, the author suggests using a stainless steel pot which in itself works as a mordant for the onion skins. We weren't too concerned if our color outcome was different than those shown in the book. We just wanted to have some fun during this first go around.
    

     We followed the steps to pre-soak our fabric in warm, mildly soapy water while the onion skins simmered for an hour. Then we skimmed out all the onion skins. (A lesson learned: rather than skim the onion skins out, completely strain the dye bath through a sieve to remove all the onion skins. Then return the liquid to the pot before adding your fabric. We found that any little pieces of onion skin left in the pot will stick to the fabric and leave black spots.) We rinsed our soaking fabric out in warm water, then gently immersed it into the dye pot. It's important to not subject your fabric to dramatic temperature changes, so we went from warm soak to very warm dye bath. We kept the dye bath at a very low simmer for about an hour and then pulled the fabric out and rinsed it again in warm water. We hung the pieces to dry on a drying rack. I usually like to finish drying the wool with a tumble in the warm clothes dryer to fluff it.
     If you were present in our kitchen that day, you would have heard a lot of "ooh's and ahh's" as we pulled fabric from the dye pot. There was a lot of exclaiming about how unexpected some of the color outcomes were. Tess went on to have some successes and mild failures with her black bean dyes. The color was softer and more gray than the blue we expected. We believe an iron mordant would have made her color darker and brighter on the cotton she dyed with the beans. She was still happy with her tie-dye technique on the second go around.
     Overall, I would say to use these dye techniques if you aren't counting on a very particular shade of color. For specific colors, chemical dyes may be more dependable. But, for earthy, gentle shades of color, these techniques are too fun to pass up. For rug hooking, I love the unexpected variety of shades the plants provide and all the earth tones available from plant materials. We will definitely be in the kitchen again experimenting with more plant materials as the seasons roll around.

Onion skin dye. The wet wool was pretty in front of the window. This will hook beautifully into pumpkins, bittersweet berries, or Japanese lanterns as Chelsea suggested.

Pieces of white wool from two different garments absorbed the same dye differently.

I hated to throw away all the onion skin dye that remained in the pot, so I dyed a second batch of white wool in it. This batch turned out a dusty rose color. So pretty!

A piece of white wool dyed with black beans.

Tess' cotton gauze tie-dyed with black beans

Hooking in the New Year

This morning's view was peaceful and soothing. A snowstorm was the perfect excuse to stay put and be creative. Steve kept the wood stove burning and the paths cleared. I made a pot of soup and worked on my rug. I'm so pleased that Virginia gives us a bit of winter each year. It's just the right amount for my liking and I embrace days like this in which we can enjoy our favorite wintry activities and view these beautiful landscapes. The weather forecast has us at sixty-three degrees by Friday and that's the beauty of living in the mountains of Virginia! * The window screen pattern in this photo mimics the weave of the linen backing of my rug.

I hooked a table runner for Claire's Christmas gift. My biggest challenge at this beginner stage of hooking is finding wool in the colors I envision for a particular project. Wool is expensive and it takes a long time to build up a stash. My hooking friends have been generous and have given me wool from their stashes. Otherwise, I have ordered some specific pieces online and found other pieces via garments in thrift stores. For me, this craft is all about the wool and I search for it and collect it like a pack rat.

Steve built this cubby for me which was funded by my sister as a lovely Christmas gift. It's the perfect storage for the wool I've begun to amass. The baskets hold leftover strips and smaller pieces. Veteran hookers have walls of cubbies like this, jam-packed with wool in various shades of every color. (In my dreams!) It's like having a paint palette or a sixty-four count box of crayons at your fingertips. : )

Hooked Rug Bench Makeover

    

     I found this bench at an estate sale last summer. It's a nice little size for the bedroom and very solid and sturdy. The moment I saw it, I envisioned replacing the upholstered cover with a hooked rug. I really didn't mind the orangey-red color of the bench, but it was hard to work with, so I painted it with Annie Sloan's chalk paint called French Linen, (leftover from our bathroom vanity redo). This neutral color allowed a lot more leeway in whatever colors I decided to use in my rug. I finished hooking the rug a few weeks ago and I finally got around to having Steve help me staple it onto the board backing. I'm pleased with how it turned out. The rug pattern is called "Dianne's Basket" by Holly Hill Designs. I hooked it in #6 cut on linen backing using mainly textured wool plus a couple of hand-dyed pieces for the pinks. I had to extend the background on the sides of the rug to fit the bench seat, which was very simple to do. Just hook more of the black!
     One of the things that continually comes to mind when I hook or look at patterns is the way the background, especially a black background, makes the colorful patterns pop. It reminds me of the Psanky Easter eggs we make. Intricate and colorful designs are dyed onto the egg with the final color being black. Once the process is complete and the beeswax is wiped off the egg, the colorful designs pop out from the black background. Same thing! I love it.
    

Looking (and Listening) Back, The Little Mister, On Rugs

     Now that I'm driving out every morning, I like to have music in the car for my commute. I recalled having saved a lot of my favorite music in blog posts over the years, so I took the time this morning to scroll through my blog and save all those music videos to convert to MP3 for the car. Steve showed me how to do it and I was clicking along until... I began seeing all the photographs and posts of my every day life for the past seven years. There was Tess' seventeenth birthday! There was Jack as a baby! There was our home in buried in snow! There was my family all goofing around together! There was Audrey laughing so hard she could hardly stand! Unbidden emotions began to overwhelm my senses in such a rush as I realized how full and rich my ordinary life is. The abundance overwhelmed me.

    I think everyone should journal in order to have the opportunity to look back see their life condensed in print. It is amazing. Even the sad and painful chapters fall into their rightful places and weave a breathtaking, stunningly beautiful life. When I look at my life in a day to day context, it is humdrum and ordinary. But, when I step back and look at a whole section, It is fully sweet and abundant.
     On an ordinary note, Henri believes every rug I hook is for him. We found him on the pillow this morning. He is growing old, my little man. He deserves a little luxury. Also pictured below is the finished basket weave patterned rug. He lies on that, too. : )

Projects Finished, Started, and Never Ending

    In actuality, we have started more projects than we have finished, but I think I can safely say we're having fun in the process. For every two steps forward in completing anything, we seem to take one step back. That's how the bedroom redo feels anyway. On the plus side, we bought a new mattress and we're sleeping in our bedroom again. The maple hardwood floor that Steve installed is gorgeous. (You can see it under the bench in the photo) He drove all the way to New York to buy the maple back in March so it would match the rest of the flooring in the house. This time we used a satin polyurethane finish rather than glossy and it's much prettier. The backwards step (or leap in terms of time consumed) was our drive to IKEA this weekend to buy some final touch items like curtains. IKEA has a 100% linen curtain called AINA at an unbeatable price. The downside is that we don't have an IKEA nearby and they charge $50 to ship them. Crazy! So, we decided to drive three hours to IKEA in Charlotte, NC and make a fun day of it. It was fun, alright. We had a blast. I bought three pairs of  the Aina curtains, in white, for our bedroom, along with some other odds and ends. We enjoyed a great lunch in their cafeteria (Their vegetable balls are delicious!) and then we drove three hours back home. As soon as we got home, I opened a pair of the curtains and held them up to the window. I was hugely let down to discover that the curtains aren't actually white; they're off-white. Against our white window trim and white bedding, the curtains look very yellow and cast a yellow tint in the room. Steve didn't see it as big deal, but in all fairness, this is the man who wanted to buy a huge metal bucket for an ashtray. Haha! My entire body language is saying, "You've got to be kidding, right?"

To me, the off-color was a big deal and there's no way I could live with it so, they will be mailed back. Steve knows me well enough by now and laughingly says I'm crazy as a loon. And I know him well enough to know that he was serious about the ash tray. Either way, we had a fun day at IKEA. and I will never speak of this goof again. I will now order seventeen yards of white linen and sew our curtains, but not before I first order fabric swatches to make sure it's white linen and not off-white. Lesson learned.

     In the realm of almost finished projects, here goes:

   

This was a natural colored wood bench from my mom's kitchen. I painted it with two coats of Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint in a color called Aubusson Blue. This is my first experience with chalk paint and I like using it a lot. I distressed the finish after it was painted but before I sealed it. Since the bench will be used out on the covered porch, I can't use Annie Sloan's wax. I understand the wax will not cure in high temperatures. Instead, I will finish this with a coat of flat Polyvine polyurethane. It's a water based product, but since the bench won't be directly out in the rain, it should be fine. Another unfinished part of this project is the cushion I still need to sew from the outdoor fabric shown in the photo. I love the colors. I bought it with my red geraniums in mind and I think all the colors will be pretty together out on the porch.

     The second "almost finished" project is my hooked rug. I just need to add a couple of rows of green border, sew binding on the edges and it's done! I enjoyed the entire process and I learned a lot by hooking this as a beginner piece. I already have my next project planned and I can't wait to begin. I hope to get better with practice. I would compare this to a potter's first piece of thrown clay or a painter's first painting. First attempts are usually clumsy, as mine certainly is. There are so many flaws to this rug, which I won't point out, but I can say that I have much improvement to gain in color blending and execution. There is a large group of rug hookers who meet each month at a local church. I attended their meeting for the second time this past Saturday. I saw dozens of beautiful rugs in various stages of hooking and learned so much by talking with these lovely ladies and asking questions. One lady came up to me and introduced herself as one of my neighbors! She lives two miles up our road and we will certainly become friends. I will also continue to meet with Eleanor this week as she mentors me in the craft. A large, positive side of having a craft, any craft, is the social aspect of it.
 

     The last, but not nearly the least, project I'm working on is the garden. We have so much to do out there. This is the side of our bedroom. Steve pulled out a huge lilac that was on the left croner. (The planting of the lilac so close to the house falls under my Crazy-as-a-Loon title) The roots were so deep on that thing that he used the pickup truck to pull out most of it, then a pick ax to dig put the rest. It was intense labor. We replaced it with this tall boxwood. The week of rains came and I still need to get back out there and pull up the rest of the coreopsis and rock geranium. Then, I will plant a row of low growing, round boxwood with some flowers behind them. We still have a shed to build... I won't even say, "Stay tuned" because we will never be finished and at the moment I like it that way. As in everything, the process is the experience.

     This was the view from our back hill this evening. Tess and I rejoiced over this beautiful rainbow. It didn't end behind the tree line, but rather in front of the trees, in the field across the road from our house. Putting the day in perspective; sure, we had our long ride to IKEA for almost naught. We also have glitches in our lives, broken relationships, stressful jobs, endless unfinished projects, and even deep sadness. But, look at this! How can we say anything but, "God is good." We will seek Him in the good and the bad, and in the process all along the way.