My Woman's Painted Buffalo Robe.

This was a very ambitious project I undertook Three or Four Years ago.
It is a fairly heavy hair on Bison robe. I used modern paints and materials to achieve the finished project as at that time I did not have access to the earth paints I have now.

I wetted the hide as I painted the design on. This gives a better coverage.

This photograph is actually upside down. The head is worn to the left of the wearer.

The design is exclusive to women (so I have been led to believe). It is called the box and border design and traditionally represents the internal organs of the bison. I have heard that there is a very old story entwined around the shapes used too. I do not know anything about this though.

It took the best part of a week to do. Before starting this project I did a vast amount of research with what I could. I tried to lean it towards Sioux tradition. I do not have any actual full pictures of Sioux Box and Border robes. I had to use a lot of modern examples to help me.

The colours as you can see are very vivid, characteristic of modern synthetic pigments. As well as being a very bold design I love the delicate details that are not obvious from these pictures.

I have not had the opportunity to use this robe at all. I have displayed it occasionally at dances. Most of the time it is on display in the spare room over the guests bed. Guests that have slept here have used it more than I have!

Naturally dyed Porcupine Quills

I thought I should get some pictures of the naturally dyed quills. All the quills were pre-mordanted with alum. Various things could have been used eg, roots from the female dock or something very tanin rich eg, oak galls. I have not used these before so can not say how successful they are!

Above are the quills dyed with madder. There is a range of lovely shades. From orange through to red.

I am really made up with the colours I got with the madder. To get the red I added a modifier. I used washing powder! The middle ones match the old orange quills I have seen very well.

Here are the quills dyed with onion skins

The yellow is lovely and bright. It gives a glimpse of how bright the original early quill work may have been. Yellow is the most common colour achieved from vegetation. To achieve yellow the wood from the oregon grape could be used. When I get hold of some of this I may give that a try.

To the right of the onion Skin dyed quills are the ones dyed with oak galls and iron along with walnut husks. Most of the quills came out grey.

The quills here were dyed with walnut husks.

And this is the quill work in progress.

I am very out of practise with quill work. That and my blurry drugged up eyes have made it quite scruffy. I am still not very good a quill work. But practise makes perfect. I have been practising for years now!

To make the most of what brain tan I have left I have sewn bits together bits left over from other projects.

I have taken all the stretch out of the hide. I wetted the hide after I had sewn it all together then pinned it to a board to dry. That makes it quite thin and stiff. I have found this easer to quill on. Although I do not know what may happen if the hide gets wet again. I am worried that it may shrink back to it's actual size.

Porcupine quills

Before the pain became unbearable I did some more natural dyeing. But this time I dyed some porcupine quills.

I have been very inspired by early Native American art. I love the beautiful mellow colours of the natural dyes they used to add colour to their porcupine quill embroidery.

Having a lot of experience with natural dyes I thought it about time a attacked this new challenge! I thought I would treat them the same way as I treat wool. I first cleaned the grubby porcupine quills. The next stage is to mordant them, I used alum.

The quills I dyed with onion skins came out as expected, a lovely shade of yellow. It is actually quite bright.

My next challenge was madder. I have always had difficulties with madder on wool, especially getting a red. But I knew I would get a lovely colour. I actually achieved a number of great shades of orange through to an amazing red! I have never managed to get a red with madder!

Next I tried to get a black. I used oak galls, Iron along with walnut husks. I dyed these for hours and hours but did not manage to get a black! I did get a lovely grey with one or two black quills.

I plan to use these quills to make a trail bag. I love walking and spending time in the New Forest and I wanted a bag to take with me. I do not want anything commercial or artificial on this bag. I have a lot of brain tanned buckskin bits. I have sewn lots of these pieces together to make a large patchwork. This will be my bag... eventually.

Thes rosettes are not naturally dyed. I used a commercial dye.



Still Ouch

Still struggling with my Sciatica.

Had a relapse a couple of week ago when the pain became unbearable. I have been given all sorts of drugs to help with the pain but they make me very sleepy!