I purchased this book on felting for $20 when I was in Lincraft recently. The RRP is $29.95.
Once home I was surprised to discover that India Flint is one of the authors, along with Toyoko Sugiwaka. I didn’t hear a mention of this book during her recent workshop. Maybe because it was published in 2007 and I am one of the last people to hear about it. It’s an inspirational book. Details of the book can be found here.
I really want a studio space. This is supposed to be the dining room.
Re: artwork. This is a treasured piece created by two of our grandchildren for Murray’s birthday. I chose the colours from their paint stash so it fits in with the colour scheme of our home. Then Lisa stripped off the kids and let them go for it. Nice.
Which translates into leaf prints and dyeing from nature.
It is truly amazing how a new branding can completely change a person’s concept about an activity that has been in existence for centuries and very clever of those people who do the re-inventing.
I am so enjoying collecting foliage, wrapping it up into felted or fabric bundles, throwing foliage and bundles into an old pot and seeing what happens. It is such a restorative pastime. And it even smells glorious.
Into these pots I put blue gum from my mother’s property. In the back pot I also added a rod of copper to see if there would be any difference in the colours obtained. There wasn’t.
Into this pail I put some cotton and soaked it in milk overnight and hung it out to dry before dyeing it. I would really like to be able to produce vibrant colours on cotton. Silk is gorgeous but not quite as functional as cotton.
I also tried a kangaroo paw that I have growing in a pot.
The kangaroo paw left the marks on the left of the photo and bloody hell, I can’t remember what made the leaf marks on the right. I am going to have to be a lot more rigorous with my record keeping.
I love making pre-felts and can’t wait to put all my pieces together and felt into one large piece. Knowing me though, this will be a long process.
Brilliant markings from blue gum and it’s buds.
Below is the markings from Bushy Yates – my favourite piece of fabric so far.
This is the cotton I soaked in milk. I wrapped it around red onion skins and bloody hell, can’t remember what else. I am getting very weird looks from the checkout chicks when I hold up my bag of onion skins for them to check. But I’m really liking the deep purples they produce.
Not sure but maybe lemon scented eucalypt.
Not sure but the orange print is probably Bushy Yates. Definitely need to take better records.
A gratuitous picture from Granny.
| Fresh mint leaves | 1 handful |
| Red wine vinegar | 2 tablespoons |
| Capers, drained | 2 tablespoons |
| Sweet chilli sauce | 2 tablespoons |
| Dijon mustard | 1 tablespoon |
| Grapeseed oil (or oil of choice) | 2 tablespoons |
| Garlic cloves, chopped | 2 |
| Lamb fillets | Approximately 8 |
Place all ingredients, except the lamb fillet, into a processor and whizz until very well blended. Place lamb fillets and whizzed ingredients into a glass bowl and mix thoroughly. Marinate for a minimum of an hour.
Cook fillets in a pan or on the BBQ. Serve with whatever takes your fancy.
Yesterday Parks Victoria undertook a controlled burn on the walking track from Port Campbell to Two Mile Bay.
I had a wonderful five days at the workshop organised by SouthWest TAFE and led by India Flint – learning how to colour cloth with ecologically sustainable dyes from plants.
India is a r(eco)fashion designer, writer, feltmaker, cloth colourist & costumiere.
Jill was there.
Rocky and Sue also.
And Judy as well. Judy teaches textile subjects at SouthWest TAFE.
We went in search of plants. We felted. We experimented. We watched pots boil. We got excited about opening bundles of cloth.
India Flint
A small selection of our resulting work.
Admiring a completed “landskin” by India.
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It’s not often that I accept an offer for someone else to make me a coffee, especially Raelene. For some reason they usually taste disgusting. This is what she made recently. Rather than drink it I used it as photo opportunity.
P.S. I do appreciate the effort though.
Today’s tide and waves were bigger and better than a couple of weeks ago.
And yes, out there amongst it were three local surfers having a different kind of surfing experience, one of them being my nephew.
As a photographer, it is always potentially exciting when non-locals saunter out into the midst of it.
Damn, he realised just in time.
This was taken a second later.
This guy wasn’t so lucky. All that water came down on top of him.
This is meant to be a road, not a river.
A couple of the surfers are right in the middle of that.
To think that only a couple of months ago we had our umbrellas up and towels laid out enjoying the sand and sea.
Wow, nearly got another one.
This piece of weaving is what excited me about double weaving. I love the colour scheme and the three dimensional aspect of it. This is a sample piece woven by Karen Richardson – our teacher for the weaving unit that I am undertaking at SouthWest TAFE.
Double weave or double cloth is when two cloths are woven at the same time on the loom. An OK explanation can be found here.
In our class we are experimenting with Double Weave. It did take a while to get my brain around it. I will post pictures of the results when we three (Rocky, Georgie and myself) have finished.
In the meantime, I am very much looking forward to the coming week. I am doing a five day workshop with India Flint ( here is her blog) which is being organised by the Art Department at SouthWest TAFE. Yeehaa!
I spent a therapeutic day last week at a felting workshop run by two travelling ladies. They work under the business name of Garments and Gadgets. At this stage their web site is still under construction but it should be up and about very soon.
Jenny and Clare have a ginormous recreational vehicle they use for living and travelling around regional areas. At the moment they are stationed in Warrnambool and have already spent a couple of months running workshops and have enough bookings to stay indefinitely.
I started by doing their Introduction to Felting class and learnt quite a bit. Their felting methods are quite methodical which produces a consistent cloth. Next I will do their Nuno Felting class.
This scarf is made from 100% merino wool and is very soft to the touch. Because of the technique taught I was able to get the felt quite fine and lightweight – not at all heavy.
This photo is a bit of self indulgence. My father with my four grandchildren.
Now big enough for a cushion cover. Just have to crochet the other two up to this size. It ended up taking three whole skeins of yarn – Lincraft Prism.
Luscious colours and beautiful drape.
The yarn is from Lara Downs – the bands are knitted from boucle chunky silk and 2 ply cashmere was used for the in betweens. Such a pleasure to knit and oh so easy.
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