New designs

I've continued my work with the water color inspired designs. This time I've been painting on vintage linen towels. Some of them had stains that didn't go off in wash. Then I've covered the marks with the painting. 

Here's one inspired by party and pompons.

You can find the teatowels in my Etsy shop and my Epla shop.

Anjas wonderful garden

I just had to show you this wonderful image from Blomsterhagen på Abildsø.

Anja grows organic cut flowers and sells them on farmers markets.

Follow her facebookpage to be updated on where she sells her flowers and see the beautiful floral photos she shares!

Dahlias are really some of my favorite flowers.

Plant dyeing

My daughter and I did some dyeing on wool and silk this summer.

We used Lady's Mantle (Alchemilla Mollis) (Marikåpe) to dye with.

We chopped the leaves a little. If you shall do this properly, and get the best result possible, you need to boil and simmer the leaves in water first, then strain it before you put the yarn into the boiler.

We were in a hurry, so we just put it all together.  The main problem with our method was to separate the leaves from the wool later...

The easiest and most common materials to plant dye is wool and silk.

They are both animal fibres and they react similar to dyes.

Here's wool yarn, wool, tied silk fabric and silk fabric.

The dyeing process goes like this:

1. Soak the material in lukewarm water for at least two hours.

2. Dissolve the alum (alun) in a small amount of water. Then add the rest of the water. Heat to 50 degrees Celcius. Put the material in the boiler and continue heating till 90 degrees. (Just below the boiling point.) Let the material simmer at this temperature for one hour. Let it cool down and press carefully out as much water as possible.

3. Make the dye bath by putting the plant material in water, heat to the boiling point and let it simmer for two hours. Remove the plant material and cool down to 50 degrees Celsius.

4. Add the wool/silk into the color bath. Heat to 90 degrees and keep that temperature for at least one hour. Let the color bath cool down. Preferably over the night.

5. Wash the year/fabric carefully in cold water and let it dry.

How much plant material?

-This is different from plant to plant. A plant dyeing book will help you with this.

If you live in Norway, there is some very good, old books (from the 70's and 80's) on the subject.

I recently bought this american (?) book, Harvesting Color by Rebecca Burgess.  It has lovely inspiring photos and recipes for the different plants, but a lot of them are native american plants that we don't find here in Norway. Her er link til en svensk/norsk bok.

We used a 5 litre boiler for 100 grams of textile material. (A 10 litre container is the best.)

This is a recipe I found at Lyngheisenteret:

100 g tørkede plantedeler

100 g garn eller stoff (ull eller silke)
5 liter vann

16 g alun

Here's a recipe in english.

The textile material should be moved carefully around in the boiler all of the time to get an even result. We didn't, so the fabric to the left has some variations. The fabric to the right is tied with string to get a tie-dye result.

The finished yarn and fabric smells wonderfully!

My next projects are dyeing with mushrooms and working out how to dye cotton. This is considered very difficult, but it must be possible. I have seen it done, so I will figure out how.

This blog, Naturally Dyeing, shows several examples of dyes on cotton, but does not have any recipes.

At the moment, I'm trying to get some dye mushrooms picked and dried before the winter is here.

We did some plant and mushroom dyeing with our students some weeks ago. Here's a link to our class blog. The students have written an article (in Norwegian) were you can see lovely photos and read about the project.
P.S. I think the students will appreciate a comment from you!

Hello Etsy

Photo: Christiane Hübner.

The Hello Etsy conference in Berlin last weekend was, as you might imagine, a fantastic event!
It's a bit difficult for me to convey my impressions properly since I don't speak the english language so well.
But I'm sure you are curious on how it was, so I'll try.
The event was well organized and planned in every detail. The Hello Etsy team had managed to capture the personal, handmade feeling that we love about Etsy. Like handmade soap in the restrooms, wooden bear shaped nametags, organic food and drinks, small plants in reused containers on the tables and so on.
E-werk, the location, was previously an electrical substation. Just look at one of the conference rooms:

Quite awesome, don't you think?

And there were little fellows like this one...

The Etsy stand was cut from cardboard.

I met lovely people like Sarah Sofia Hendy from Isle of Man and Maja Downar from Germany.

Sarah's homepage, Maja's homepage.

Here's me and Christiane Hübner. Christiane is a friend of mine from Epla. She has the very cool Epla shop Renna deluxe. And her Etsy shop is here. I was so happy to meet her. She is such a lovely person.

When it comes to the talks, I actually don't know where to start, or what I should tell you about. I have never been the sort of person that listens to talks, sees the whole picture and are able to say smart things about it in the breaks.
There where so much ideas, experiences, inspiration and good advices. The conference was a summit on small business and sustainability. About running your little business locally and still be connected globally and thoughts on how we can be a part of the way the world can/will/needs to change.
I felt very strongly that I want to be a part of that change.
You can watch the talks from the conference HERE. (Come on, do it!)

Some of us still wants to save the world. Or, I think it would be more correct to say: More and more of us wants to take action to save the planet. -And there are lots of thing we can do!

This and that in grey

My new wonderful and vintage Wind Up Alarm clock from Soviet Era on Etsy.

My new teatowel, hand painted, Big Dot.

How do you like it?

Me on the roof top at the Hello Etsy conference in Berlin. (More on that later.)

Photo by Christiane Hübner with the Etsy shop renna deluxe.

New expressions and impressions

Today I've been doing some experimenting on new colors and new expressions.
I have been thinking a lot about painting fabrics lately to create a water color inspired look.

I'm also preparing for one of the biggest adventures in my life so far.

I'm attending the Hello Etsy conference in Berlin!
You can see the Hello Etsy movie below and read more about the summit.

I'm a bit anxious now, that I shall not get to the airport in time etc.

Wish me luck!

Hello Etsy: The Movie from Etsys Deutscher Blog on Vimeo.

From the Hello Etsy homepage:
"Hello Etsy: A Summit on Small Business and Sustainability is a hands-on gathering for small business owners who want to connect with their peers, learn the skills to find success and independence, and be part of the movement to build human-scale economies."

Her er mine fredagsfavoritter fra Epla.
For å se hele listen, trykk HER.

My local and seasonal luxury

The Team Eco Etsy blog had a post the other day about the importance of eating seasonal. You can read it here.
Living in a cold country like Norway, it really feels like a luxurious treat to have my own homegrown peaches. Both local and seasonal produce.
Lovely!

Apron

I'm thinking about making some aprons for my shop.

What do you think?
Any suggestions on prints and colors?

I have made a test apron for children too. But my usual model, well, uhm, hates to have things tied around her waist... so I need to find another model for it. Will show you later.

I hope you'll have a lovely week. I'll have my studio day tomorrow. Yay!

Bedroom

I'm searching flea markets for the right furniture.

Moved into my new drawer today.

I'm a happy girl!