This post is part of a collaborative natural dye and mapping project with Annie Cholewa called Waysides: Local Colour from Our Home Grounds. During the course of my Wayside dyeing wanderings, I realised that I had not included a dye plant that represented home. Home is the beginning of all journeys. What is the colour […]
This post is part of a collaborative natural dye and mapping project with Annie Cholewa called Waysides: Local Colour from Our Home Grounds. I am slowly, excruciatingly slowly, learning to recognise the different eucalypt species which have been my neighbours for almost twenty years now. It sounds shocking not to know the names of the trees […]
I needed a bit of a lift along the Waysides natural dyeing journey I have been traveling with Annie Cholewa. As many of you know, I have been dancing rather wearily with the beginner’s beige so I decided to revisit the old friend who started me on this adventure, Eucalyptus nicholii. Commonly known as Narrow Leafed Black Peppermint […]
I am still spinning like a Norn in an effort to keep up with my 120 gram dye lots for Waysides: Finding Local Colour in Our Home Grounds, a collaborative natural dyeing project with Annie Cholewa. Sometimes the treadling pace wanes, but I recently found gold. Curly Dock Rumex crispis is an environmental weed in […]
Thank you all for your unbridled enthusiasm and encouragement for the Waysides project Annie Cholewa and I are undertaking. I was so thrilled by your response, I wrote back to all your comments equally enthusiastically. Then watched them all bounce back to me! The server that hosts my blog experienced some drama that resulted in lots […]
Just like all material artifacts, yarn can be read as a text. We read the landscape that has given rise to the wool fibre when we encounter bits of grass and other vegetable matter trapped in our yarn. We read the creature who grew the fibre when the sheep breed is identified on the ball […]
One of the most useful cardigans I ever knitted was this one here. Knit from yarn I found at an op (charity) shop it served me well for six years, so well, I wore it down. I darned and redarned the elbows but eventually there was little left to work with and so I decided […]
Last week there was no post as I was resting up in preparation for teaching at Craft Sessions 2018 and this week, well…now I am needing to rest after the teaching! ME/CFS is a frustrating, inconvenient illness but I delight in the capacity I have now. Such an effort would have been impossible 18 months […]
For some time now, quietly and slowly, I’ve been developing a series of spinning kits that I hope will make local fibres more accessible to spinners. I will be releasing my first kit at the Artisans Textile Festival in Bendigo 20-22 July. The Natural Gradient Alpaca Shawl Kit celebrates the wonderful natural colours of local alpaca. This […]
And I’m back…from school holiday, glorious weather and children going hither and thither. Back to serious matters. Back to Tuff Socks Naturally, an open, collaborative project exploring more sustainable alternatives to superwash and nylon in sock yarn. You can join in on the discussion, share pics and projects on this blog or Local and Bespoke or on […]
