Botanical Table Cloth Journey 2 of 3

From dye garden to dyed warp, the next step of this journey was to paint the warp!  I was really excited about doing this.  I created a full-scale cartoon of the floral pattern that was laid down onto a table and covered with plastic wrap.  

I slayed the reed first using the tea and avocado warps.  Then I laid the warp carefully on one end of the table securing between short pieces of wood using clamps.  The reed and warp were then dragged slowly with much negotiating of the warp, until the warp was smoothed out.  Fortunately, the planned length was just a little longer than the table top, so I didn’t have to reposition the warp during the painting process.  Using Lanaset dyes and alginate thickener the floral design was painted onto the warp.  It was covered with plastic wrap and left to dry and then rinsed the next day.  That was a trip.  I had rigged what looked like a trapeze swing in the laundry room to lay the warp over the basin tub to drip and dry.

The color outcome was incredibly interesting.  As part of the process, I used wool thread to tie knots on a string to keep track of which length of warp was designated for which dye color.  In all cases, the wool dyed much darker than the cotton.  In the case of the onion and coreopsis the color was not only darker but a different color.  The onion on cotton is a beautiful gold, and on the wool it is a rich reddish brown!  The Zinnia on wool looks almost the same as onion on cotton! Same mordant bath, same dye bath, different personalities!

On to the next step!

Alex LeClaire

November 25, 2020

See the next post: Botanical Journey 3 of 3