Tuesday, March 18, 2008

My Easter textiles

I knitted this basket full of bunnies to take to Florida for my daughter for Easter. She has four boys, so I made four bunnies. This is a free pattern on the internet www.heartstringsfiberarts.com/bunny-pattern.shtm
This is how they look individually.
I'm not a very experienced knitter so if I can do it, its easy. You knit this 6" square and two ears. the instructions tell you how to sew it together and stuff it. Then I wrapped the yarn around my 2 fingers and made a small pom pom for the tail.

This was my first experience with natural dyes. I picked different little leaves and wet them, then layed them around raw eggs (not blown out). Then, I took a square of nylon stocking and wrapped it around and put a twistie around the back to hold the nylon on. I then dyed the eggs with onion skins, I also dyed others with blueberries, cabbage etc. These are my favorite, their around 14 years old. If I shake them I can hear the hard yolk inside roll around. Every year I wipe them off with vegetable oil to bring out the color. After I tried this my girlfriend Deb dyed muslin fabric with a stone inside and the leaves on the outside of the fabric. She did get some print on the fabric. This was the beginning of our adventure into natural dyeing.
This is a commercial pattern but I don't remember the name. I appliqued it using my natural dyed wool.
My friend Deb sent me this basket one year for my birthday, I fill it with different textiles for the seasons. My grass is yarn dyed with Navijo tea, the eggs Deb made me 14? years ago with hand dyed fabrics and my rabbit is a antique reproduction.
I wish all of you a Blessed Easter, my husband and I are going to Florida to spend the holiday with our kids and grandkids. I'll see you March 28.

1 comment:

Deb Hardman said...

Happy Easter Kathy. It was fun looking at your things. I wish I still had my egg that you dyed with the onion skins, but mine started sweating egg right through the shell, remember? I wonder if it was because where I had it setting it was too warm.

  • Deb Hardman
  • Allie Aller
  • Jenny Bowker Cairo
  •