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 Recipe of Mine

Fillet of Lamb with Mint and Sweet Chilli Sauce

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.

Controlled Burn - Discovery Walk

Yesterday Parks Victoria undertook a controlled burn on the walking track from Port Campbell to Two Mile Bay.

India Flint Workshop

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.

Coffee

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.

Another Big One

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.

An Art Work produced via Double Weave

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!

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.

Granny square full size

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.

Another scarf

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.

Weird ducks

We have two Muscovy ducks named Freckled Bath and Fairy Princess (named by the grandchildren) who keep Pooftah Frank, an Elizabeth duck, company. It’s a long story as to why we have these three particular ducks but suffice to say, foxes have had a fair bit to do with it.

We have only had the Muscovy ducks for a few months but they have provided much entertainment with their antics. They do weird things like sitting in flower pots and perching high in gum trees.

P.S. Bit worried about my camera. I think I may have done some damage when taking shots on the wild weather day. My photos have a slight fog.

A Wild Sea

Yesterday was a great weather day – wild and stormy. High tides made it even more spectacular.

This is the pier which usually has a lot more of the pylons showing. People often fish very safely on the bottom jetty.

Seconds after this photo was taken, I went to join Murray to have a look at the bay. We were dumped on by a wave shortly after and got a soaking. Had to go straight home to change and pull apart my camera and dry it out. Soaking in salt water is definitely not recommended practice for camera equipment

I returned in the afternoon for more entertainment. Madey, me niece, came with me. She was keen to go swimming and had her bathers with her. However, I wasn’t too keen for her to do it because I knew I wouldn’t be capable of saving her.

This shows you how windy it was.

Looking across the Bay towards the pier.