Eco printing/dyeing - some thoughts

Recently I have been slightly disappointed with the results of my eco printing especially compared to many of the results I have seen on fb and other blogs where the results are amazing with beautiful colours and prints. It seems many practitioners are now using iron blankets, iron water or ferrous sulphate. I am not criticising the use of these I am partial to using a little iron water now and again.  However I am not sure that I would want to use these in my practice when I am dyeing a wearable item, which is the direction I am moving towards. I wouldn't want to wear something against my skin that had been in contact with iron.
I guess I will to have keep to my subtle colours, which I do like, or move to Australia.
If there is anybody out there who achieves amazing prints and colours without using anything other than plant material I would love to know your secrets.

In the meantime 2 and other stuff

For some reason these didn't upload off my camera last time, first three are of fungi growing in the garden.
I have also had info sent to me by blogger about stuff I don't really understand so can you let me know if you are having any problems seeing my blog

In the meantime

 At the moment I am busy dyeing scarves and weaving more pebble hangings for the christmas open at Weston quarry. In the meantime a few pictures of autumn colour from the garden. These photos haven't really picked up the colours properly.

Sorbus and winter jasmine

Rose hips and nameless shrub

Continus with paperbark maple in front

Cotinus, many of the fallen leaves are now in the dyepot

Open studio

 I have been dyeing scarves for my studio opening, woad and pomegranate.

Eco dyed clothes and cushions

 Some photos from the studio opening, last day tomorrow.

Liz Hewitt, eco dyed and indigo dyed scarves

And a small piece of weaving, working towards future exhibitions now.

South West Textile Group at Westonbirt

Skirt, top and scarf

This is my piece for the SWTG exhibition at Westonbirt Arboretum which opens today from 10 until 4 finishing on 20th of this month.
 I have seen some of the other work being displayed and it looks like its well worth a visit. See their website for general information http://www.forestry.gov.uk/westonbirt

Indigo

After my last experiments with indigo dyeing I wanted to try direct printing with the plant.  I am quite pleased with the results, but they are more faded than I would have liked so I need to work out how to get more intense colour. Its all experimental as I don't really know what I should be doing. If anybody out there is also trying this I would be interested in their methods. I bundled mine in the usual way and then put them in a pot with a fairly gentle heat for about two hours, it took a while before any colour came through. My friend Liz has also been dyeing with the plant so I am looking forward to seeing how she did.

Blouse dyed from previous indigo dyeing session
with leaf printing round hem

Hem

Plant dyed silk noil

Love the colours just need to be more intense

Puzzle Wood

Not much writing or much else going on at the moment. Visited the Puzzle Wood in the Forest of Dean a couple of weeks ago with my Mum. A bit dark for photos but here are a couple, a truly magical place. I hope you can get some idea from these. It has loads of pathways and 200 steps and was used as an iron workings. The landscape is partly natural and partly human made. It covers 14 acres and took us about an hour to get round at a leisurely pace. We saw a shrew and heard lots of rustlings. You can imagine fairy's living here.