Raven and Sparrow

Little brown birds

My bird tablecloth on brown linen needed some underbirds, and I thought they should be in flight. Looking for pictures of little brown birds in flight yielded surprisingly few images, so I tried to take my own. I startled the visitors at my feeder and snapped what I could, but it was hard. They are fast little fliers. I did finally get some fuzzy silhouettes and traced them onto freezer paper, then cut them out, preserving the positive and negative shapes. It was the negatives I used, painting the birds onto the mordanted fabric with logwood and walnut.

Eagles are back

There is a tree down by the shore whose top has been permanently bent because the eagles like to use it as a perch. It is a rare day in spring when we don't see at least one there. Considering the number of bald eagles around here now, it is amazing to think that I never saw a single one when I was growing up. There were none to see, because DDT made their eggs too thin to hatch. When I get discouraged about the state of the world, thinking about the come-back of the eagles cheers me up. We can fix what we have broken if we try. 

Painted ivy

This is a detail from the tablecloth I used on my spring table. The pattern was wax-resisted around the edges of a square of brushed cotton twill and then dipped into a low-water bath of fiber-reactive (chemical) dye. Then I painted over the white ivy shapes with fabric paint. I used a very opaque paint (Neo-paque) and thinned it with lots of water. I really liked the way it blended the colors and dried with a dark outline around the shapes. Unfortunately, it was quite difficult to get the paint the right consistency. I ended up making two cloths because I ruined the painting on the first one. This was my first step away from plain white shapes on flat background colors. It has also turned out to be a very useful cloth.

Tablecloth photo session

By popular demand (thanks Jen), I have taken some pictures of tablecloths. What an ordeal! There is nowhere in my house to hang them, and when I forced the issue, they would'nt hang neatly and the light sucked. I clearly don't have the photographic skills or space to do them justice.

These are both made on off-white brushed cotton twill from Dharma Trading Co. The first one is a very early effort based on the leaves of the ruta jackmanii plant. I had some in my garden and very much admired their spatulate leaves so I wax resisted them as an overall design. As I mentioned before, I was trying to make a lively grey background, but it has a definate purple cast. The green cloth is the first one I ever made. I was so inexpert with the wax that I had to do a very geometric design so I could use tape to delineate the shapes on the cloth. I still bloobed wax all over. I also lined it with muslin, because it looked kind of paltry when it was finished, but that made it too heavy and hard to iron. No more linings. I tested for days to get a specific green, but when I dyed the cloth itself it came out different. Too blue. Such is the way of dyeing. Still, both of these tablecloths have seen heavy use because they look good with a variety of other colors.

I will show some of my newer cloths when I figure out how to photograph them.

Table tales, chapter two

Okay, same picture today, but I hope it is less blurry. I have found myself to be a complete idiot in dealing with the visual elements of this blog. It is frustrating and humbling. I have been bringing in all my photos at the lowest resolution because I didn't want the files to become irritatingly slow. (I'm on dial-up so this is a big concern for me.) I have apparently gone too far because my pictures are not sharp. Grr.  Now I'll probably err in the opposite direction. Please let me know if it takes too long to load my blog.

It occurrs to me that responding to the high price of dishes by making my own is a little extreme, but you must remember that this is where my interests are. It was easy to find dishes I thought were beautiful, but they would only set one kind of table, unless they were completely white and that was too restricting. I thought that if I had a coordinating set in different colors they would be more flexible. Also, they would be the colors I liked, instead of what the dish manufacturers offered. I like low contrast colors with a bit of grey (very Northwest of me) and found most commercial colors too bright. Of course, when I designed mine, I went too far and made them rather weak. I had to put them away for over a year when we moved, and when I got them out again, my mistake was glaring. For my own use, that isn't critical, because I decided early on that I would get most of the action on my tables with the cloth. I only make squares, and use them on the diagonal over a plain undercloth, or on the bare table if they are large enough. The triangular shapes that a diagonal cloth makes on the edges of the table are dynamic and interesting, while leaving a calm area to balance what could be a very busy cloth. Also, square tablecloths can be used this way on tables of any size, so these accent cloths don't have to be designed to fit a specific table. They are sort of like scarves in a clothing ensemble. I started out with very simple patterns waxed out with Indonesian tjanting tools, and colored with one dip in fiber-reactive dye. Almost immediately I wanted to make more elaborate cloths, and have worked for years to do so, but ironically, when I am visualizing a complete tablesetting, the simpler original designs are much easier to employ. Hmm. The one in the picture is an early effort to dye grey. It turned out to be very difficult to get a luminous grey with the chemical dyes without going purple or green. That dilemma was the spark that finally ignited my switch to natural color, but that is another story.

No good

Well, sometimes it just doesn't come together. I tried to set another spring themed table last night, counting on my beautiful lavender rhododendron for a centerpiece. When I went to cut the flowers, I found that the rain had ruined them. No centerpiece. Then I thought if I used three of my dish colors together it would be like Easter eggs, but I didn't have the necessary accessories to pull that off either. Bummer. Of course, if this were a real table I wouldn't have had the luxury of throwing up my hands and giving up. Guests would be arriving and would need something to eat their dinner from. I would have had to come up with something, even if it didn't satisfy my eye. This was a common dilemma in the early days of my dinner parties. I was entertaining the same people in varying groups over and over and wanted to make each gathering at least slightly distinctive. I tried to make changes to the table and the menus, and found it much easier to make new food than set a new table. Dishes are so expensive, and the other elements of a tablesetting like cloths, placemats, napkins, flowers and candles can really add up too. On top of that, I was busy with my children and my business, and usually found myself trying make my table beautiful at the last minute. (No, the food got cooked at the last minute, the table had to be done before then.) My plans were often undercut by the time and money it took to assemble all the elements of a pretty table. It was so frustrating to find myself fussing over the a table with company arrival imminent. However, the pleasure of gathering my friends and family around the table for dinners that often lasted for hours of talk and laughter made me want to find an answer. I started to collect plates, and plates only from whatever sources I could find, usually second hand. I also learned to paint china for the sole purpose of making a set of plates that were the same design, in four different colors: grey, pink, green and yellow. I thought those colors would see me through most occasions. I began to make tablecloths by learning to dye with fiber-reactive dyes, and using wax resist to make patterns. My idea was to have a flexible collection of dishes and tablecloths that could by mixed in myriad ways to reflect the season, the occasion, and the people invited to each dinner. After years of effort, it can still be difficult to make it work, as my table above demonstrates.

Flowers forever

Although I meant to talk about other things, my posts have been leaning heavily to flowers. In the spring they are hard to resist, of course, and they have the further advantage of being easy to photograph: they hold still. Otherwise, this blog might be Dana's Bird Count, or Dana's Rodent Review, because the birds, squirrels and chipmunks are also prime spring entertainment. Right now, though, tulips are the main show. The valley of the Skagit River in northwest Washington State is a bulb growing paradise. It was discovered at the turn of the last century by Dutch immigrants who transplanted, literally, their favorite crop to their new home. Now the floor of the valley sports vivid swathes of intense color in tulip season. Daffodils and iris also have their day, but tulips are the main crop. When the sun is caught in the cups of the tulips they are absolutely radiant, an experience of massed natural color that is a rare treat for the eye.

When I was in high school, I worked for one of the bulb farmers in harvest season. This was considered a plum job because it paid by the hour ($1.00), but the fields I worked in were a far cry from the glorious spectacles of spring. Bulbs are harvested after the flower is gone and the stems have withered, so bulb fields in late summer are deserts. Picking bulbs is like pulling potatoes. The tractor goes around and plows a furrow, turning the bulbs up into the air, and the pickers have to clean their sections of furrow before the tractor comes around again to plow the adjacent row. Through all this the dust hangs over everything like a yellow fog. I would come home so dirty that my mother made me take all my outer clothes off on the back porch before I could come into the house. The curls in my hair ( I always set my hair before work because I was a teenager) were as rigid as cement with their coating of dust. It was the hardest physical labor I have ever done. This work is all done by migrant workers now and I have great sympathy for their exertions. It is tough work. In spring, though, it seems totally worth the effort to see the flowers in all their magnificence. 

Naturally, the bulb companies have display gardens which are a big draw at this time of year. The gardens offer a chance to see how tulips can be combined for maximum effect. It is always fun to see the flowers massed in the field, and then check them out in the more varied and intimate setting of the garden. The color and petal variations are astounding.

Eggstra dyeing

Apparently Martha did a recent article on dyeing Easter eggs with natural materials like beet juice and red cabbage. Here are some eggs that were dyed with onion skin, chlorophyll, and a madder/cochineal concoction. Some were brown eggs, some white, and some were speckled ones from an unknown bird. The white markings were made with rubber bands and masking tape. Fun, huh? Eggs are such a springtime icon, but pastels are sometimes boring. I have thought it would be fun to do an Easter table around that deep red the Greeks prefer for their ritual spring egg-dyeing. I didn't do it this year because my table is outside and I haven't had enough time and good weather in favorable conjunction. That's the story of my life.

Back to work

Yesterday I went back to the natural dye and textile design studio I worked for for five years. Its in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, and it is a magical place. Absolutely crammed with beautiful textiles and all kinds of other stuff from around the world, it is endlessly interesting and a delight to the eye. It is a store and a workshop, but it has an academic ambiance as well. There are books, not for sale, but a part of the owner's personal library that deal with every aspect of textile production, written in many languages. Papers and notebooks vie with piles of fabric for space on many tables and desks, a consequence of the scrupulous documentation each study and project requires. In the back are the bins of dyes and the kettles of many sizes needed for coloring every natural fiber known. Right now they are preparing skeins of gray wool from Nepal for color testing. They are going to be used in a native rug-making venture. I really loved working there surrounded by the colors, smells and activities this place produces.

Here are the wool skeins all cleaned and ready for moranting.

Getting it big

    I am getting started on a new tablecloth design and I needed an underpattern. I worked this one our using a Kuba cloth I have for inspiration. Usually my tablecloths are 50" square, which is unwieldy when I am in the design stage. Blowing up small patterns was a pain too though, until I found the blue print copiers at Kinko's. Eureka!! Unfortunately, there were no Kinko's near here when we moved, but yippee now there is. I took my Kuba pattern (8"x8") over today and blew it up to 47"x47".  I have a piece of linen I dyed last fall with the black walnuts from a magnificent tree over on Fir Island. It was my first major effort to dye with raw materials instead of extracts. I got a medium brown with gray undertones that reminds me of monks' robes. (I wonder what monks used to dye their habits? Must have been walnut.) It also reminded me of that famous painting by Giotto: "St. Francis Preaches to the Birds". So I am planning a bird themed tablecloth, starting with this underpattern, which I want to discharge out of the solid brown I now have. I tried thiourea dioxide as a discharge, but it didn't even faze the walnut. However, chlorine in the form of Clorox Bleach Pens takes it right down to white. I bought some bleach stop from Dharma Trading Co., so I hope there won't be lasting damage to the cloth. Stay tuned for further developments.