no, that is not your dinner

Recently someone (I am so sorry, my mind is like a sieve) asked me about the food dyeing of linen. The linens that I’ve been experimenting on were given to me by Niek’s grandmother and had been stored for a long time which caused the fold lines to become discolored. In addition, she’s a heavy smoker, and simply washing and airing the linen was not sufficient to rid it of the odor. So … I broke out the pots and pans. When Rowen came along and asked to see what I was cooking and baking she turned up her nose and said, “That’s not my dinner!” LOL. The other benefit of food dying is that the cooking of the linen shrinks it slightly, making a ‘wobbly’ linen more pleasant to work with.

Like most of us, I’ve tried tea and I like the gentle, warm tone that resulted. Baking the linen in coffee can produce a pleasantly mottled look. I twist the linen and hold it in shape with thin elastics, put it in a glass oven dish and pour about half a cup of strong coffee over it. I set the timer so I can turn the linen in the coffee at regular intervals, and then I ’set’ the color with a blazing hot iron. When I want a truly distressed look, beets have given me the best result so far and I plan to make future experiments with them (which is no hardship, since I love to eat beets!). I simply saved the cooking liquid from my fresh beets and, after removing the beets (to devour!) I simply plopped the linen in and boiled it for awhile. After that, I twisted the linen and set it to bake in the oven with a small quantity of beet liquid (as done with the coffee). I let the liquid bake away almost entirely which seemed to make the dark patches more intense. Again, I set the color with a very hot iron at the end (rather than air drying). I was also happy with the result of today’s black bean trial – I added a handful of black beans to the linen that was boiling in water and let them fall where they would, giving me random darker patches.

Here’s a picture of the coffee, beans, and beets …

and a closeup of the beet-dyed linen with stitching in progress …

Jan also asked about framing with glass versus no glass. I cannot find a framer here who will lace, or a framer who will use spacers between the linen and the glass. When your glass is flat against the linen, you run the risk of moisture accumulating and eventually rotting or mildewing your linen. And that’s why I usually skip the glass in a frame. The last time I had to use glass (for a project with non-colorfast silks), my framer promised he’d use spacers even though he insisted they were not necessary and he’d “never” used them for anyone else. But when I got the piece home … no spacers. So for Thine Forever, I used a mat, which also provides room for air betweeen the linen and the glass. I hope that’s a clear explanation, without being boring. I’ve had five kids here all afternoon, and I have to admit that I’m kind of fried, mentally.