I have a beautiful rose bush gifted to me by my daughter and every year I want to do something to preserve some aspect of its beautiful blooms. I generally save a few petals and press them in a flower press but this year I decided to try Eco-printing them onto some fabric instead.
I took some pre-treated ready to dye Kona Cotton and soaked it in water and then wrung it out so that it was damp but not drippy. Next I laid out a bunch of rose petals on one half of the fabric and then folded the other half over to create a folder to secure the placement of the petals. This allowed me to roll the packet up onto a stick I took from the yard. I did the same thing with some peony leaves.
I wrapped the whole thing with string and then put my rolls in the oven on a baking rack suspended above a tray with water. I set the oven to around 250 degrees and then let the packets steam for a couple of hours. Once un-bundled, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the rose petals had made such a good imprint onto the fabric. This was mirrored onto the other side because of overlapping the petals by folding over the fabric before rolling.
Once I had my lovely fabric I needed a project to use it for. It just so happened that I was in the middle of a week long online retreat called Making Zen where just such a project was waiting for me: a notebook! Suzi Banks Baum offered a class on “Blessing Books” during this retreat that suited my newly created fabric perfectly.
As part of the lesson we used a piece of fabric to create a cover for a signature of cut pages. This notebook became my note taking book throughout the retreat. I love the Making Zen online retreat offered by Zen Stitching. It’s a wonderful free week long collection of per-recorded lessons centered around slow stitching. Each retreat holds many new ideas and techniques and projects such as this “Blessing Book”. I participated for the second time in May of 2023 and enjoyed it immensely.
Cry The Bird 