Yellow onion dyed linen

The linen now has a lovely variegated golden color.

The heavy glass lid holds the fabric down in the dye overnight.

And after pressing, here's the output

And a shot of the pillows with the new fabric for comparison.

 No stitching today. I'm enforcing a day off, so as to let ideas percolate.

More dyed linen, the last of that batch for the moment

I took the last of my linen yardage and shibori-wrapped it with rubber bands, left overnight in a dyebath of yellow onionskin dye, and here it is drying.  Some really nice figures appeared where the bands had been irregular, must remember to do this more.  

 One side and

 t'other side.


And there's a line of weird dots which I like but can't quite figure out their origin. Possibly some silk dye left on one of the bands got transferred. Anyway, I'm good with it, and it gives me an idea for doing it deliberately on other pieces.

This will be more than one finished artwork, I think, a large size for me.  While I was at it, I was doodling about trying out various finishing touches for Big Doorway, in addition to the painted arch I put in.  And I realized that I have a couple of embroideries I did for special exhibits but afterwards didn't like to much.  

So I cut one up and dyed the pieces, just added them into the dyebath and left them overnight with the big piece of linen, and it came out very nicely.  

Parts of this might end up on Big Doorway.  And since I've dyed embroidered motifs before -- BD has three of them in residence -- I know I like the effect of stitching on white linen then dyeing so the threads and beads pop very happily.  And the thread holding the beads dyes, too, so it disappears very effectively into the background. 

Summer is a great time for art ideas for me, I think.