Coronavirus Creativity

Like everyone else, I was locked down at home through the Coronavirus pandemic. I spent a lot of time dyeing cotton fabric with natural dyes to get these lovely colors.

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How do I get these colors? It's a three part process:

1. I scour the cotton even if it's new. That means I remove anything that will prevent the dye from attaching to the fabric.

2. The dye needs a go-between so it will attach to the fabric, otherwise known as a mordant. The mordant (a tannin bath followed by an alum bath) is absorbed into the fabric. The dye attaches to the mordant.

3. I dye the fabric.

I dye in my basement laundry room:

And here's my sewing room/studio, also in the basement of my home:

I've screen printed some of the fabrics, using thermofax screens. Each piece has been printed multiple times.

The first two are my take on the Coronavirus itself, floating through the air.

More screen printed fabrics:

Here's a bed quilt I made from some of these fabrics. I'm still using these dyed and printed fabrics to make quilts.

Like everyone else, I've learned how to make bread:

I celebrated my 69th birthday during Covid. Here I am blowing out the candles with help from my five year old grandson, Beck. I turned 71 this year. Woohoo!

Alan and I have done a number of Airbnb trips in Utah, rediscovering this wonderful state. We take all our groceries, and hike each day. This is Willis Canyon in S. Utah, which we explored with Beck, his parents and his sister, Ripple, after all the adults had been vaccinated.