liquorice

Oh dear, I have been sick, quite sick, sick enough to get pills from the doctor and then our modem died. The modem is fixed and I am feeling better, soon I will get everything together again.

Smelling the roses.

This week has been a busy week.  We have had a death in the family (Steve's Mum) and the funeral and all the planning etc has been time consumming and exhausting.  I have taken time to wait and think and just be - we don't have roses because of the wind ( I refuse to attempt to grow them):).  Another blog to check out "Calm in the Storm" 

Waikanae 23.11.09.

  
   
 
  
On my walk I saw some kids and their Dad finishing off this marvellous sand castle.  It was at least a metre across and looked so like a necklace.

 
 

It was really grey on the beach with such beautiful reflections and very chilly.The birds were arguing over something edible on the beach and the reflections were awesome.  I hope you enjoy them.  I took lots of bird photos trying to keep still as I got colder and colder and shivered more and more.
  
  
  

Monday 23 November 2009

Friday November 20, 2009

I have finally got around to covering a visual diary and I have promised myself to use it until it's full of all sorts, thoughts, ideas, plans, good books etc.

Normally whenever I get an idea or make a plan I find a new book.  I think I have enough books to last me forever.  I have put the date on the front and plan to add the finishing date and then more on to the next one.   A good plan, I think.

When I did my onion dyeing I dyed some sliver which I am planning to spin and/or use for felting.

 

More beautiful colour.

Today is a looking at my 
  piles day and maybe a bit of tidying.

They just seem to get everywhere.  We have had lovely weather and so I fancy to do some sewing for summer - for that I need one clear table top and space to walk around.

Outside is lovelier.

And I have some old flowers and some of last years autumn leaves solar dyeing - another pile I can see getting bigger.

 
  

Corokia and onion.

I did some samples from my corokia bush outside and got some wonderful colours.  The sort of pinky colour is the raw colour and those on the left are the metal pre-modants - just love that grey!

And using my onion samples as a guide I dyed half a blanket to begin my babies series.  Just in case you don't know I get angry and upset when I read or hear about badly injured babies and children.  And so I am planning a bit of a series.

 
 
  
   The colours and movement across the piece are really neat.  I used more metal pre-mordant and got some serious greens.

And I have needle felted a op shop baby blanket to the surface.  I am waiting for some bigger needles to hopefully get more intergration of fibres.  Yesterday I got felting books from the library. 

Monday 16.11.09

Felting and Carrot Tops.

I have been trying needle felting with some previously dyed pieces.

The fabric pieces on top seem to float and yet also they are part of the fabric and embedded.  I tried pieces of blanket, silk voile, patchwork cotton, cotton gauze and rust dyed cotton.

And then I made a less random sample with pieces of blanket and rust dyed cotton.

 
  These are my carrot top samples.  There wasn't a great variety, however some of the differences are very subtle, and so I think generally carrot tops could be used without any pre-mordant, except for th cotton fabric which I soak in diluted soy milk.  I soak it, dry it and then keep for as long as possible on the shelf before I use it.  India Flints book "Eco Colour - botanical dyes for beautiful textiles" is a wonderful source of all sorts of information

And out the window - a beautiful rhododendron which is just flowering.  And if you could just see over the neighbours fence you would see that the sun is shining again.

Today my plan is to dye a piece of blanket in onion skins, straighten some old foraged autumn leaves and then put together some pieces of fabric and dye them in the piece not in pieces as I normally do. 

 

Onion Skins

These are my brown onion skin samples, so many shades...........

This is so satisfying.  Tomorrow I have some carrot tops to try - greens I suspect.

These are some small rust stitching pieces I have done with rust dyed cotton pieces and stitched onto tray dyed rusted blanket pieces.  They are about 6" square (13 cms square).

 
 
 I have included a detail from each one.

 
Luke's foraging bag.  It's about 8" x 6".  I do hope he likes it and uses it.  It was such a big birthday party and he got so many presents it was very hard to keep up. 

 

  

Monday 09.11.09