Wearable art from thousands miles 千哩以外之情誼

I've a creative weekend. The nuno felt wearable art piece I made with the beautiful prints from...... 

一位阿根廷 facebook 友人知道我愛植物印染, 千哩以外寄給我一些楓葉及桉樹葉, 急不及待的我立刻做了印染及nuno felt披肩, 姑且說是披肩, 其實又可穿上身上或圍在肩上, 多款式的配搭.

Last Sat I received a package from Argentina. The package from my FB friend Delia D.  Delia knew I love eco print and was so nice to send me over thousands miles the pretty windfalls of Acer buergerianum, aceraceae....  Though some experts advocate regionalism.  It's no harm to use windfalls from other regions to do prints. 

I couldn't wait to do experiments with them on silk fabric.  Prints of leaves are all brown with pretty shapes. 

To have a little bit shades, I used my way of iron mordant to make another piece I added eucalyptus and rose leaves. 

A little red, green and brown on this scarf. 

Face lift of eucalyptus, acer and rose leaves.  Euc with buds were impressive.

Green rose leaves, red hearts of euc cinerea and aceraceous. 

I made a wearable piece with the printed fabric. I do not know what to call this "wearable". A poncho? a scarf? a wrap? a shawl?  This is a simple nuno felt one-piece with slip-in sleeves. Can be wore in many easy ways, up or down and reversible. 

Double folded scarf 

Slip in sleeves.... insert and wrap....

The all season wearable, for breeze summer or windy winter.   If anyone could tell me what sort of wearable is this called would be good.

Tie marks of eco printed scarf 絲巾印染線紋

Playing eco print is fun. Joy of unbundling is like opening a present. (Sometimes something may not as expected).  This piece of chiffon I intended to do the tie marks across.  It did turnout as what I want.

 

Pictures speak themselves........

Shades of eucalyptus leaves, some with iron mordant some were not.

Different strings have different sorts of marks

  

A soft chiffon scarf with shades of euc leaves and tie marks is done.

                  

Steps of making : I folded the fabric like croissant and bundled the whole roll with strings along.

Tips to make the string marks: First to tie with rubber band then roll up the bundle tightly and tie a knot in the middle.  Hold the bundle against the table with one hand and the other pulling the string.   The pot should have some leaves or rusty iron so that would make the tie marks.

This scarf was a piece I demo in Portugal.

Eco print of reversible nuno felt top 植物印染羊毛混雪紡上衣

Mogi, "Hmmmm, mum added some color on white! How it looks? Let's see below...."  一件雙面羊毛混雪紡上衣, 要做植物印染又完成了, 怎樣子? 且看比較.......

I mentioned in my last post about this reversible nuno felt top to take the risk making the reverse side with eco prints.  

Rolled the bundle with three sorts of eucalyptus leaves and boiled for 1.5 hours.

 

Back with prints of green, orange and brown as well tie marks. 

All are eucalyptus leaves, the round ones are euc globulus from the States. 

I do not keen on regular or parallel in the front, so placed the leaves in this way half in the front and back. Some with brown as they're dipped in iron mordant water.

These group of euc leaves I plucked near my studio come out green.  

After boiled the original pleated side with nuno textural ruffles has not much change, only tie marks on the bottom that's what I wanted. 

The reverse side with bright prints is also what I hoped. 

Comparison of before and after, only a bit yellow and tie marks.  So no destroy to the original. 

It's earthy, it's organic, it's subtle..... whatever it is.  It is one of it's kind. I can do nothing the same. 

A piece of two sides, in and out.

So this is a two-sided nuno felt wool top. I have to admit that I love more the original (left) on my daughter. It looks "pure" and ruffles are "fluffy". 

The right one (on myself) after tight rolled and boiled, ruffles like "pleated skirt" look less soft.  Anyway, my experiments for the reversible wearable.

Incidental outcome 錯有錯著的效果

"Blue, blue, mum never blue.....  how come mum made it blue", Mogi curious.

何以天然印染的白色羊毛衣有藍染 ?

A wool top of prints of eucalytus leaves with blue background.  How come?

Digged my wardrobe to do eco print experiments, I found this wool top with a blue stripe.

Placed the rose leave, eucalyptus leaves and twigs. rolled up and tied a bundle.  Boiled for an hour.  Oh my God....... it's breeding.... "blue blood".

The blue tie stripe was breeding and made the whole bundle blue.  Fortunately the leaves marks are still clear.

Thought it's the chemical dye of blue that made the eucalyptus leaves from red to dark. Oak leaf is same usual dark.

Twigs outlines are clear and bold.

Rose leaf is clear.

Tie marks on shoulder.

Mogi, "haha.... mum, you can't claim this is eco dye...."

Mogi, "no eye see it, mum should mind any color other than white when doing prints."

The accidental outcome is not too bad but it's not my idea of eco print.  Anyway, a lesson to learn.

這是錯有錯著的效果, 但我不能說是天然印染, 下次我要特別留意不可混有其他顏色做印染.