Category: Our Projects

April 17, 2016 – More Shibori

We had a lovely meeting with just a few choice members showing up: Sharolene, Frank, Lotus, Marcia and Phyllis. We continued with our indigo-dyed shibori project. There are some interesting comparisons of wet versus dry indigo in these pics. They are duplicated to show how much darker the wet indigo is.

This is Lotus Baker’s handspun handmade beautiful vest that she made for the CNCH fashion show a couple of weeks ago.  You can’t tell by the look of it but it has a wonderful feel and drape. She made it using plain weave on her rigid heddle loom. These photos don’t do it justice.


March 20, 2016 – Egg Decoration

We had a fun meeting yesterday decorating eggs. Attendees were: Sandy, Marcia, Phyllis, Sharolene, Frank, Sage, Aviva, Ann, and Elaine. Sharolene tried some unsuccessful indigo dyeing on some mystery fabric, Aviva and Sage knitted, Sharolene and Sandy did egg decorating.  Sandy dyed one egg in some older yellow dye, which worked fine, although the dye itself was not reusable any longer. Sharolene and Sandy experimented with a new to them method of dyeing eggs with fingernail polish. It was quite simple. The fingernail polish floated on the surface of room temperature water and the eggs laid on top and the polish stuck to the eggs in delightful ways.  Ann used a silk transference technique where she tightly wrapped an egg with silk and then boiled in vinegar water for 30 minutes. This process transferred the dyes from the silk to the egg. Beautiful.

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Easter Egg Dyeing

We are planning to dye eggs for Easter at our meeting tomorrow. Although we have done this before, sometimes the hard boiled eggs have not fared well. One of our members has given us a tip on how to prepare our eggs for a longer lasting outcome. Here are her instructions:

I do a larger hole on the big end and just a little hole on the small end of the egg; scramble the yolk with the needle, and blow things out the bottom. We always rinsed ours. Bring copper wire to make a ring-and-handle big enough to press your egg down into your dye-cup while it fills with liquid, and to hold it up while it drains again.


We will be posting our results!

February 28, 2016 – Frank’s Shibori Shirts

We had a lovely day outside at Phyllis’s and the results of our resist dyeing paid off in spades with Frank’s shirts. They are stunning. The indigo pot was perfect and they were dipped several times with different members doing the timing after the timer–OOPS–was accidentally dropped in the water.  Once they are dry we need to have good pictures of Frank wearing them.

January 17, 2016, Meeting – Our Indigo Pot

The rain held of long enough for us to use the patio for the indigo dye pot. Sandy, Phyllis, Carol, Lotus, Elaine, Marcia and Anne used the pot and shared other projects. The indigo pot has been in use for around twenty years! and just needs a little refreshing and warmth to get it back up to speed each month. Here are some of the items we dyed.

There were other activities too. Lotus brought some yardage she has woven in plain weave on a rigid heddle loom from yarn leftover on weaving bobbins. While she was here, she worked on socks she is knitting from the toe up with both socks being knit at the same time on circular needles. Sandy used her sewing skills to mend a beautiful quilted Mung jacket that belongs to Phyllis.

There were probably other things going on too, but this is a sampling.

September 21, 2015 – Beginning Bookmaking

We met on an extremely hot day and met early to beat the heat. The subject for our September meeting was making covers for handmade paper notebooks. Frank Mikulastik was our fearless leader. Frank makes 40 pieces of handmade paper in his kitchen on Sunday afternoons!  Frank is a good teacher and showed us how to size a cover for the size of the paper, told us what materials to use and showed us how to sew a signature into a cover. He is quite inspiring with his own indigo dyed notebook covers.

Sandy brought some leather that we cut for notebook covers. She was able to cut them to size with a metal ruler and a box cutter. She made them big enough for two signatures. It is a nice pliable soft leather and will be great for notebook covers.

Sharolene shared her madder dyed fiber that she dyed in the last few weeks, linen towel that she just pulled off the loom and cotton from the garden. The madder process was

Sharolene's Linen Kitchen Towel, just pulled from the loom.
Sharolene’s Linen Kitchen Towel, just pulled from the loom.
Madder from Phyllis' and Sharolene's garden were used to dye this yarn.
Madder from Phyllis’ and Sharolene’s garden were used to dye this yarn.
Sharolene's madder dyed fiber. Madder was dug from Phyllis' and Sharolene's gardens.
Sharolene’s madder dyed fiber. Madder was dug from Phyllis’ and Sharolene’s gardens.
Notebook made with handmade paper and store bought batik fabric cover.
Notebook made with handmade paper and store bought batik fabric cover.
Homegrown cotton
Sharolene’s Homegrown cotton
Sandy making her handmade paper notebook.
Sandy making her handmade paper notebook.
Leather cutting for notebook covers
Leather cutting for notebook covers
The designs on the paper were from liquidized paper, squirted on after the paper was made.
The designs on the paper were from liquidized paper, squirted on after the paper was made.
Frank used a cut plastic bottle and poured liquid paper into it for the designs.
Frank used a cut plastic bottle and poured liquid paper into it for the designs.

Attendees at meeting were:  Phyllis, Frank, Sharolene, Sandy, Marsha and Carol Lewis (new member).

August 2015, Paper Making on a hot day

A post from last August when Frank lead a day of recycling paper.
Next month we make books out of the paper that was made!

We used a 2-layer technique to paint on a piece of paper with different colored paper.  Yes, painting with paper pulp not paint.

Paper was drying everywhere, even in the bird garden. Lots of paper was made and will be made into books next month!