This blouse was recently given to me by my aunt so that I could find a new and fresh use for it and give the material a new life. The blouse is sewn from linen fabric and the lace for it was crocheted by my grandmother – the age of this material may be around a hundred years.
After much deliberation, I decided to dye the blouse with plants. I didn’t think too much about the composition this time, I just placed the onion skins, metal objects, dill flowers and hackberry leaves on the fabric according to my own personal feeling. Then I immediately rolled up the blouse and tied it. Initially, when I took the blouse out of the pot, the part with the onion skins was a nicely yellow and orange, but unfortunately later, when the fabric dried, the result was evenly green. The darker details that appeared on the fabric resulted from the rusted metal I had added to it. In addition, the hackberry leaves and dill flowers added a little extra effect. Next time, however, I’m thinking of using yarrow instead of the dill flowers. I wrote more on dyeing in the post about natural colours.
These wonderful laces were once crocheted by my grandmother
The body front part of the blouse
The lace bottom hem and the armhole of the sleeve
Here you can see the image of a screw, and the dark grey colour here resulted from the fact that it was an outer layer of the rolled up fabric and there were some birch branches added to the pot.
Incredibly, the screw and the nut were drawn on the fabric in amazing detail. It looks as if it had been done using water colours.
It’s fascinating to see the shape of this leaf on the fabric here, because I didn’t use that type of a leaf this time. It looks like a blackcurrant leaf, although I only used dill flowers for the dyeing.
As the blouse has an emotional value for me, I definitely want to sew something new from it in the future. Perhaps this material or product ends up living another hundred years in its new form. It would be something special to pass on to future generations. But what exactly will come of it – that’s something I still have to think about.