Textile Museum

Friday and Saturday the Textile Museum of Canada (in Toronto) had its yardage sale fundraiser - they gather donated fabric, notions, patterns, garments, crafts, yarns, books, etc. and have a tent sale each May.  I went on Friday, and scored some super beige silk dupioni (which I use in both my butterflies, and my clutches), 4.6m + 1m for $20!  I also got two bags of wool fibre, and a cute frog pattern 'batik' style piece of quilting cotton. 

Drop Spinning

A little while ago I bought myself a drop spindle, to try out spinning yarn.  Lately I've tried out a few pieces, some undyed/natural and others various colours --

L to R: hemp (?), flax (?), wool with metallic thread, wool with silk thread, 3 similar shades of wool, alternating yellow and peach wools

drop spindle, yarns

white wool, brown wool, grey wool with white silk fibres, hemp (?), flax (?)

Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition

Well, I took it pretty easy yesterday, since the show on Friday through Sunday was so busy! Thank you to everyone who came to the show, it was great being supported by my friends & family, and meeting so many great people - both visitors and other artists.

Here's some photos from the show, my booth in this post, and some of my favourites to follow!









 

Royal Winter Fair

After watching the Remembrance Day ceremonies from Ottawa on TV yesterday morning, I went to the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair for the afternoon. As the name suggests it's much to do with farm animals, and fresh fruit and veg. There are horse shows, a petting zoo, various livestock, food competitions, and products from various Ontario and Canadian farms (honey, cheese, eggs, meats, beer/wine, mustard, cranberries, flour, fish, herbal teas, pickled things, jam, to name a few), as well as natural beauty products, clothing, and some other stuff that to my mind doesn't really relate.

I sampled some cheeses, coveted some lovely alpaca yarns, even got some free PEI potatoes (!).

Tea Staining Tutorial

I used tea staining in my butterflies which have been mentioned before.  It's great for giving an aged look to fabrics and fibres. 

First, it works best on natural fibres - wool, silk, cotton, etc.  It works because the tannins naturally present in tea act to hold colour onto fibres.  Pre-washing your fabric is a good idea to get rid of chemicals from the manufacturing process.

Beside that, it's pretty simple - boil water, make strong tea.  What I did was to make the tea a bit stronger than I would if I were drinking it.  I used black tea (ie. ceylon, chai, earl grey, orange pekoe).  Each tea is a little different and so your shade may be different also.  **  You should test small swatches before staining a larger piece. **  The strength of the tea and how long you soak your fabric will affect how dark it stains as will the weight of the fabric.  A lighter/thinner fabric will take less time. 

You will get a more even colour if you make your tea in a container that will have enough room to move the fabric around, and stir it every few minutes or so.  If the fabric is more tightly packed into the container you will get uneven colour, more like a tie-dye effect where the colour bleeds and fades.  This can look really neat, but may not be what you want.

So, if you're staining a yard or so of fabric, fill a large pot or sink with freshly boiled water.  A hot soak will work better than cold.

NOTE 1:  It's best if you use an old pot that is not used for food.

NOTE 2:  Be more careful about temperature with wool.  Heat and friction can both cause wool to felt, which is not always what you want.  

Drop in your tea bags, and let sit a few minutes.  Remove the tea bags, and drop in fabric.  Stir it around to make sure it's really wet.  Soak for 10 minutes to an hour.  Stir often.  I find that after an hour or so it doesn't get alot darker.  Remove from the tea bath, empty that out, rinse the fabric with clean water, and then dry.  I wring it out and then hang it outside.