More Treasures from the Brimfield Antique Show and Weekend Art Results

My Major “Scores” this year at Brimfield

In this previous post, I told the story of my recent trip to the Brimfield Antique Show.  Since I flew out there for the show and couldn’t schlep some of the treasures I found home with me on the plane, I shipped a big box home and it arrived late last week.

One of the things I’ve learned by reading and experimenting with natural plant dyeing is that the pot that one uses in the dyeing process can have a significant effect on the outcome of the dye color as well as contribute to the permanency of the colors on the fabric.

So, the main items on my shopping list this year were used and well-loved copper and cast iron pots.  I scored on both accounts, even getting 2 copper pots, and all of them at reasonable prices, even considering the costs to ship them home.

I’ve got my first batch of plant materials soaking in the large copper post as we speak.  Will be fun to start using these and compare results with those I’ve been getting with the stainless steel pots I’ve been using so far to do my dyeing in.

Treasures I found at Brimfield: 2 copper pots and a cast iron kettle.

My 2nd major score this year was this group of natural yarns on old spindles (I believe they are wool).  The booth that I found these in was a huge tent filled with thousands of old wooden spools of all sizes as well as boxes and boxes of these spindles filled with colored yarns.

The couple running this booth said they had bought out all the remaining contents of an old yarn company that had gone out of business.  This was one of my favorite booths at the show this year and they were selling everything at very reasonable prices so I loaded up on a bunch of this thread.

I really like the “earthiness” of the colors and think they will work well with the new textile work I’m doing now.

Spindles of yarns found at the Brimfield Antique Show

Avocado Pit Dyeing Results

We had such great weather this weekend that I putzed around with my eco-dyeing pots and buckets and potions outside as much as spending time in my studio.  Back in this post I showed a photo of the avocado pit dye pot as I was creating the dye solution.  Below are the results of dyeing several fabrics with this dye solution:

black bean-dyed silk, overdyed with onion skins in an avocado pit dye batch

cotton wrapped with onion skins, dyed in avocado pit dye bath

It’s really interesting how varied the results can be from the same bath depending on lots of variables such as different kinds of fabrics, whether they were pre-mordanted or not (and if so, with what), how much heat is applied, length of time of soak, and type of pot used.

And one might not expect that avocado pits would give this deep russet red color, but they do.  All of the fabrics in this post were pre-mordanted, the silks in an alum mordant and the cottons in a soy milk mordant.

Fabrics dyed in avocado pit bath. Upper left is cotton, Lower left is silk organza (doubled over on itself), Right piece is silk habotai wrapped around a tin can.

cotton bundled with rubber bands, dyed in avocado pit bath

Time to keep keeping on as the June 23/24 Studio Tour is looming and I’ll be traveling to 2 family member art show openings this weekend.  It’s as much Art All the Time around here right now as we can possibly fit in (sprinkled with some walks and ball fetching time thrown in).

Emma is very happy with her current (squeaky) ball.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way!