Comfort of Home Coat

felt side

So this is eventually the comfort of home coat - part of the installation i was working on about which i will post next time! betchya can't wait!! ha ha
any way i am going to burble a bit about said coat show it's story, some times it aint pretty but i got there in the end and that's what matters! if you follow the photos down you'll see how it was done!

I gathered the material for the eco print/dye from the garden of the house I was asked to do a response to that was in November last year
I wrapped them up in some muslin  that I had mordented with milk around a few steel cans i left it for a long time and randomly poured stuff over both parcels, milk, vinegar, tea...

After it looked as though  it was cooked I unwrapped it!

one of the parcels

laid out fabric in the Studio at College

Close up of the beautiful colours

I also painted some silk in rust and turquoise and burnt umber and black silk paints and then dyed some wool with a random selection of blues yellows and reds with a bit of black for tone

now came the bit where i laid it all out. it was blooommmiinnnggg EEEnormouse! i hung it in the barn to get a good look at it! and messed about untill i was happy with the lay out - this was in january snow on the ground -14 the water had frozen. I had to decamp to my friends house 5 miles down the road where they had water but it was still freezing my assets and keeping the water warm was not happening. still persiverance is a great thing and severl days later and trips to and fro and it came together!

coat hung in barn first experiment

back of coat second experiment

if I tell you that the orange thing by the bottom left hand corner is a cement mixer you kind of get the size of the thing!