intuitive dyeing

a couple of weeks ago i drove from the mornington peninsula to sydney. i took my favourite route - the slightly longer, but incredibly beautiful road along the coast. i stopped off at a couple of lovely places along the way, and it took me a few days.

i listened to the same diane cluck album the entire way.

and it's not even a very long album. 40 minutes maybe? and the drive all up was probably about 14 hours... but every word, every note was so in tune with how i was feeling.

she describes her music as 'intuitive folk'. i kept thinking about that as i listened to her and sang along with her in my car.

i thought about the things that i do and why i do them. i thought about what i base my choices on - logic, reason, gut feeling? intuition?

and i started to realise that intuition is what i seem to be following the most when it comes to my dyeing these days. it's the voice inside me that says "give that plant a try", "try the branches as well as the leaves", "turn the heat down a little", "leave it in the pot a little longer".... if i let myself be still and quiet, this intuitive voice sings clearly - encouraging me to try new things and experiment.

having said that, there are definitely parts of the dyeing process that are logical and methodical - that are tried and true and that i tend to follow as a rough guide. but there is also a lot of space for experimentation - for play and exploration. and that's where the magic of plant dyeing happens!

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i've also been thinking about what direction to take my dyeing in. and i've been trying to listen to that intuitive voice to find the right way forward.

and so while i thought i would be putting some naturally dyed hand-knitted items up for sale online this winter, i've decided to take a step back from that and try something else instead.

next week i'll post up some pictures of hand knitted beanies that i've been making this past autumn. some are hand-dyed by me and some are un-dyed and retain their beautiful natural animal colours. handmade items can be tricky to put a price on, so i'm not going to. instead, i'd like to propose a little trade.* maybe you're a crafter too and have just made another rad pair of earrings that you don't need, or maybe you're a ceramicist or a poet or some other wonderful thing! i reckon we all have a lot of good stuff to offer.

so if you fancy one of the beanies, or if you think it'd make the perfect gift for a loved one, then you'll be able to leave a comment and suggest a trade.

we can talk, and connect and then gift each other a little something, whaddaya reckon?!

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i guess i'm still trying to figure out what i want my contribution to be. so this is step one - listening to my intuition and seeing what happens.



*inspired by this barnacle bags post i read a while back, and the general awesomeness of the grown & gathered flower exchange

transition

A few images from a rainy weekend in early autumn. We drove to the mountains to forage for blackberries and pine mushrooms, and came home with jars of delicious jam and bellies full of good food.

*the beanies you see in these photos will be for sale soon... just in time for winter :)
In the first couple of photos my buddy Holly is wearing a squishy handspun alpaca hat; made from fibre produced in Cooma, NSW. And in the last few photos that's me (!) wearing one of my favourites - a chunky hat made from handspun Portuguese wool. I feel like such a farmer every time I wear that hat! More on that in my next post....

xx

dyeing in melbourne

On my recent trip down south, I had the chance to catch up with a friend for some dyeing with the Handweavers and Spinners Guild of Victoria in Melbourne. Each month, the dye group meets to try out a new dye and November was Indigo month.

I had already dyed with Indigo a couple of times before - with the girls from Shibori - and I love the beautiful textured colour this dye produces. I took along some beautiful handspun Portuguese wool and a couple of second-hand vintage doilies to throw in the dye pot and I was really pleased with the results. A lovely lady had also brought along some Hibiscus flowers, so we had an extra dye pot going, which produced the beautiful chartreuse-coloured samples you can see in the pictures above.

All the ladies were so welcoming and encouraging! If you're in Melbourne, I really recommend heading along to a dye session. Or if you're in Sydney, check out the Spinners and Weavers Guild which meets monthly in Burwood.

#1 indigo and hibiscus dye samples drying in the sunny alleyway
#2 Robyn Heywood, our dye teacher
#3 Glen and Nat
#4 admiring each others work
#5 another students beautiful sample - coreopsis overdyed with indigo

b+w // behind the scenes

autumn colour

I had this wonderful idea in mind - I would take some dyeing samples that I had made around to my 

friend's house, and we would have a little photo shoot. The sky was blue when I arrived at his home, so we started shooting straight away. As it turned out, we were just in time - as soon as we put our cameras down, the clouds began to roll in.

(I'm loving this new adventure with film, but I think I probably should have taken some digital shots too - I don't really feel these shots do much justice to the eucalyptus and acacia dyes I was trying to capture..)

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Tuve esta maravillosa idea - he querido tomar algunos muestras de teñido que había hecho a la casa de un amigo, y tendríamos un mini foto shoot. El cielo estaba azul cuando llegue a su hogar, asi que empezamos a tomar fotos inmediatamente. Resulto que estábamos justo a tiempo - tan pronto como hemos terminado, las nubes empezaron a aparecer.

(Me encanta mucho esta nueva aventura con película, pero pienso que debería haber tomado fotos digitales también - no siento que estas fotos hacen a mucha justicia a los tintes de eucalipto y acacia que estaba tratando de capturar..)