Ecoprints and Ecodyeing

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.

A new felting experience

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.

Adventures and weaving

The weather is glorious. We took grandson no. 2 exploring at Two Mile Bay this morning. I will definitely have sore leg muscles tomorrow – big climb down a cliff and up again.

No, not this actual cliff, but one equally as high but a tad more climber friendly.

We found this weird and wonderful creature – a crab of some sorts, among other treasures.

When we came home I completed some weaving. For a TAFE project I am including some honeycomb weaving so before I start on the final piece I thought I would experiment at home with some honeycomb weaving to familiarise myself with it’s properties and potential.

It was easy to weave – not at all complicated.

More felting...

Where on earth do bloggers find the time to create AND blog so frequently. I am completely mystified how some creators make incredible stuff as well as update their blog almost daily. Anyway, today I had close to the perfect day. I felted all afternoon at a relaxed pace. Bliss. And these are the results - done specifically for the Experimental Textile course I am doing at South West TAFE. Felting is just a wee part of the course, but I find all the rolling and bashing very therapeutic.

Beautiful wool tops from Lara Downs - felted unbelievably quickly, even though I am no expert. Few threads and silk fibres for embellishment.
Half way through the process.
And voila! Oh btw, this is not meant to be a hat, well it will go in the grandkids dress up tub in the end, but it has another job first. And that is to be in a student exhibition hanging the other way up from the ceiling with it's two partners...and here they are.
A really good link to felting instructions for beginners can be found here at Fibre Fusion.


Couldn't resist including this photo - granddaughter no. 2, taken today, during a visit to Granny's.

I have so many great photos of my grandchildren but daughter no. 2 gets a tad nervous about having her children on the web. However, this one is unidentifiable and belongs to daughter no. 1.