茜 madder garance

My first attempt with akane was during a kasuri workshop i took. Sensei, being Japanese and a weaver insisted on having us doing all from scratch.Except for spinning the yarn we worked on every step of the process.We designed, tied the yarn, prepared the dye, dyed, set up the looms and the anti climax was really the weaving.

In her lecture prior to preparing the dye she mentioned that in Japan a certain type of seaweed was used and that rice bran was also used . She had brought over the akane

from Japan.

Notice the thick dried roots.i bought this bag when in Japan and i'm still treasuring half of it until i go back and get more. Dumb oi? If you look closer you can see the label says Indo akane, which means it's from India.

This is the result. Dyed silk tram awaiting to be woven. It was a captivating first experience and because of akanezome i visited Morioka,a town in the Iwate prefecture when i was in Japan. Fantastic akane and shikon Nanbu shibori (scroll down to mid page)is made there as well as katazome. And the town is delightful.

But back to dyeing .
i was able to locate recipes in some old books using bran, so this has been common knowledge since the beginning of the world. Here is a book with some recipes and also tips for dyeing silk and cotton. An exciting find indeed because it's part of the Gutenberg project. Let wisdom spread and we'll all be wiser and happier! Perhaps not richer nor prettier, but who cares if we're happier and wiser :)

Fast forward to traveling.
For travelers another charming and closer spot to try would be Albi in France where part of their medieval splendor came from the madder ( Fr-garance) trade. i'm sure that with some time for research more exciting finds about dyeing with madder can be found there. And to close the tourist bureau Toulouse Lautrec was born there so there are other interesting cultural stops.

neki desu


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Change of weather, it's cloudy and insanely humid. Not good for dyeing therefore there's a Japanese movie waiting to be seen this afternoon. A treat to go to that part of town. A town in itself, Gracia is full of nice shops, wine bars, restaurants and original version movie houses. With an interesting bead shop 3 doors down the movie house. And as local gossip goes the home town of Jackson Browne during part of the year.

Now going back to aizome i've been having lots of fun whilst dyeing( notice the e between y and i ):D exchanging tips, jokes and impressions with Glennis and we've become sort of deranged, as one of my vats. But before derangement i was able to accomplish what you can see above. A beauty shot, oi? Ai in all stages and shades.Hopefully i'll be able to continue tomorrow.
Some observations before moving on:

• it is true that the more the goods dyed with natural dyes age the better the color. Color develops and gains depth, will show proof of it tomorrow . It's all about slow dyeing .
  

• if you whip the fermentation vats until you create a thick froth they will, given a rest of a couple of days, correct the problems themselves. Just be patient and do not do anything . Slow dyeing again.
• Pay attention to the smells.If it smells swampy( not my term) and turns brown a bit of iron sulphate will correct this as it means too much lime.

The information comes from this book Coloring Matters my present bible and my best find of the year. It also talks about madder, logwood and other historical dyes and it is full of not only the hows, but also the whys.

And keeping on with the slow doings a terrible photo of the latest weaving of the series.

i was too impatient to re shot . Saving my patience to embellish the weaving . :)

A request before signing off. There have been problems with this blog's feed and i spent all Sunday morning at it. Think i fixed it. Could ya'll please let me know if it works?


Oh and btw today is San Fermin when lots of youth and the not so young will be testing their testosterone by running in front of the bulls, a very atavistic event. Sorry, Hemingway did not invent it!




neki desu


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more strata

Hope you're not bored with the series because there are 5 or six more.

This is one of my faves.Organza on commercial felt, the felt is very black and dense, thus creating a nice contrast with the organza.There's some hand stitching and machine stitching on them. The dialog between the hand and machine stitching is subtle, but visually interesting.

Moving on to some appealing finds. One to whet your appetite for color and pattern after so much black. :-)
From India, where else, Print color pattern
And one for laughs, in a world where all creators are perfect and they never f**up here's Craft Fail
Refreshing indeed!

neki desu


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