Senior Laarnie Barcelon rescued the flowers below
that our photography teacher had used for props for his class on still lifes.
Mr. Z was going to toss them in the trash when the kids were done staging them,
but quick thinking Laarnie brought them to me to eco-dye with.
Our school had just found out that Mr. Z's wife,
Nancy,
had been nominated for
the Southern California Teacher of the Year Award,
so I thought it would be nice to use the flowers to make her a scarf with as a gift.
So I pulled out an all silk blank and a wool/silk blank and went to town.
In this second scarf above I also included some Japanese maple leaves I'd collected
up on our cabin.
I'd heard they have great dye properties.
These are the results.
I bundled them over copper pipe with a few pieces of rusty hardware for added interest,
and steamed them in a turquoise Rit dye bath for a bit more color.
These two pix are right after I unrolled them.
And these next two pix are after I washed and ironed them out.
You'll notice that they lost a bit of color intensity
as well as a few markings.
But I still thought they turned out beautifully.
I asked my 3-d students to help me pick out the prettier one for Ms. Z,
and we all decided on the one above.
I presented the scarf to Ms. Z at our faculty meeting
when our Principal was congratulating Nancy on being nominated.
I was thrilled when Nancy opened it and immediately wrapped it around her neck,
and wore it for the remainder of the meeting.
I also saw a pix of her at the Awards Banquet with the scarf around her neck for good luck.
How perfect is that???
:)
No comments:
Post a Comment