The best things in life....

I've just been reading Jane's post over at Marigold Jam. It's entitled 'Santosha' which apparently means to be content. I think she and I shared the same sort of contentment today, albeit on opposite sides of the water. I met up with a couple of friends for a walk in the glorious sunshine we're having this week. Vickie lives in Penally, about 20 minutes from me, and she looks out over the view to Lundy from her house. Three of us trundled down to the beach at the bottom of her road and walked from Penally into Tenby, seen here in the distance. It was so hot you could feel the sun burning you as you walked along. There were a few people about, mostly dog walkers. My friend Di had her Border Terrier, Scruff with her but he never stood still long enough to be captured on film!

I spent most of the walk picking up shells and various bits and pieces like mermaids purses, seaweeds and the odd crab and scallop shell. It was all hanging out of my jacket pocket but now it's all in a bucket losing the sand covering everything. I want to pull some of it together to draw this weekend but if the weather continues like this it will be spent in the garden or going for another walk. Today was a day to feel glad to be alive. I was with great friends and in a place I love living in, doing something for free in brilliant Spring like weather that couldn't be bettered. Thank you for the new word Jane, it was definitely a day of 'santosha'.

Dye Hard

It has been a glorious week here. Sun every day and real warmth. It really does feel like Spring is just around the corner and I just want to get out and about but there are tasks that just have to be done. One of them was completing the little zippered bags I wanted to make with my indigo dyed fabrics. I have put it off since my previous post, primarily because, although I understand the principles of putting in a zip, I invariably cobble it together and make a mess of it. Anyway, I went for it yesterday morning and finished all four bags. They don't bear close scrutiny but I really like the patterning on the fabric so hope they take someone's fancy at the Wonderwool event. I still have a few oddments left and I've just been told that my friend's baby (which is now overdue!) will be called Indigo so I already have an idea for a present I can use the last few indigo dyed remnants for. No waste. I like that. A lot.

I also cracked on the other day and overdyed the silk scarves for Wonderwool that I plain dyed last week. I was triggered into action by a video link I was sent. It featured a textile artist using lemons, limes and grapefruit slices to discharge tea dyed fabric. One of those little lightbulbs went on in my head and I remembered using lemon juice to discharge some felt I once dyed with potassium permanganate on a felting summer school. I had a little pot of potassium permanganate crystals in my shed, bought from the chemist a couple of years ago. I don't actually know what people use it for from the chemist (probably better not to know.....) but it is an irritant so I always wear gloves and a mask etc. The crystals are brown but turn a wonderful royal purple once they hit water. It is an amazing shade which disappears as soon as the fabric hits the dye pot as everything turns all shades of brown very quickly. The less crystals, the lighter the look. More crystals give a darker, chocolatey brown but timing is crucial.

I used a thin plywood shape secured around each scarf with elastic bands to act as a resist and set about the task. Potassium permanganate can only be used on certain fibres effectively. Silk is one of them but time is, as I said, of the essence. There is a real time limit to doing this with two to four minutes being the absolute maximum required to get an effect. I was on a roll churning them on a little production line but then it all went haywire.......

Being a domestic goddess (who laughed?) I was also making a blackberry and apple pie at the same time. The cooker timer pinged at the same time as the oil delivery man turned up and it all went a bit pear shaped from there! I love pink and brown together but when I retrieved this lovely scarf from the dye pot after the distractions it was more holes than fabric.....

This stuff destroys fabric if left too long and, as you can see from the cobwebby effect above, it realy does work fast. I was so disappointed because there were some beautiful markings on this scarf that my photos don't do justice to. Of course I could still nuno felt into it for some unusual textures or maybe it could be incorporated into some other textile. Who knows? At least I have completed stage two of the scarf task. Now I have to decide if I am going to discharge into them with screen printing or leave well alone. Perhaps with my track record I ought to take the second option!

Still Life

I have no idea what started this train of thought yesterday but something triggered a mind wandering trail that started with Captain Oates and that famous phrase 'I'm going out and I may be some time.........'

Then I found a fabulous book online by Jane Ussher called 'Still Life'. It's a collection of photographs of the huts used by Scott and Shackleton during that period from the end of the 19th century until just after the Great War when expeditions to the Antarctic ceased. Deserted for 100 years but preserved by the forces of nature these huts are a time capsule of Edwardian exploration . I covet this book and want it but I also found this video launch of stills from the book. It will sustain me until I get the real thing. I find the whole thing hauntingly beautiful and very poignant.

Restless hands.....

A few weeks ago I received a lovely present.This sweet bag was made for me by Chrissie over at Niminy Fingers. She had used some small pieces of hand dyed fabric I'd sent her ages ago along with her own brand of inspiration. Now I know I'm meant to use it but I have left it hanging on the hook on my dining room door ever since hoping that some inspiration will rub off on me, especially at the moment as I feel very restless and unsettled.

I have long been a member of my local Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers and , at our meeting last week, we discussed the stand we are taking at Wonderwool Wales this year. This annual event was set up to promote wool and natural fibres in Wales and takes place in early April at the Royal Welsh Showground in Builth Wells. We talked about making items to sell but it has been decreed this year that everything must be only natural fibres that have been woven, spun or dyed by ourselves. A percentage of sales received will go back to our Guild but the rest is ours to keep. It's not something I normally get involved with as I seem to have an inbred resistance to selling anything that I make, but I looked at Chrissie's bag the next morning and thought...... what if I use the rest of those dyed fabric samples and make small bags for maybe sock knitting projects and the like? I asked Chrissie if I could pinch her idea and she said 'go for it' so I've made 7 bags so far all using 100% cotton that I resist dyed with indigo and iron a couple of summers ago. I have lots of dyed fabric samples however and might make some zipped up purses as well.

I decided the show was also a good opportunity to go through my stuff and sell lots of fibres that I no longer use as I do not spin or felt with the same enthusiasm as I used to. I found a box of undyed silk chiffon scarves so I dyed them yesterday afternoon with their base colour and intend to overdye and resist them, finally screen printing them with discharge paste. They are a work in progress and a photo of brightly coloured silk scarves drying on my washing line is not that exciting but I will show the finished results when I have completed them. I also found a large bag of silk carrier rod waste which can be used by spinners or felters, so I decided to dye the lot of them and then batch them up into small packs for sale.

They are in their 'wet' state here but have subsequently dried and have a beautiful sheen to them. You can't beat silk for a bit of luxury.

I aim to make a dent in the stash of fibres and fabrics that I have and try and raise money for Breast Cancer Care at Wonderwool. It is a year this week that I lost my wonderful Mum to this dreadful disease and that probably explains why I feel so restless at the moment. I know it will pass and cracking on with something has helped.

I'm also hoping that Chrissie, Cathy and I will soon get a new project off the ground soon. For those of you who said you wanted to join in next time we're thinking of something small and bite sized like a postcard swap. If you still want to join us please let us know. In the meantime, the dye pot calls.....

Now I've seen it all....

For the past couple of weeks I've been watching a daily programme on BBC2 called 'One Man and his Campervan' following the travels of surfer, writer and foodie Martin Dorey as he takes his 1970's VW Camper on a tour of the UK, foraging for food and cooking up local specialities along the way. The food always looks delicious. Martin features a lot of the recipes on his website and it, as well as his blog, is well worth a read. It has been a little gem of a series and it ends tonight when he hits my neck of the woods, Pembrokeshire. It's always interesting to see how the TV portrays where you live so I shall be on the look out for places I know and maybe even people I know - it is a small place! It's based around St Davids so will maybe feature the surfers on Whitesands Bay. This then gives me the opportunity to show this silly film that I found the other day. Sheep and surfing. There's lots of both things in this county so why not?

All good things come to an end

The current course module that I've been doing with Aberystwyth University came to an end yesterday. After four months of seeing the same group of people week after week it was a bit sad to say goodbye to some of them. Half of us are moving on to the next module which explores abstraction but it was the last time I will see some of the people who have made my Tuesday's such fun to be part of. We all brought our course work to the session plus the work for the self directed project we've been working on. I have done shed loads of work. I had quite a few large pieces including a couple of lengths of wallpaper that I'd printed as well as lots of smaller pieces which I bound together into a few books to make it easier to see it all.

I felt that mine was a bit of a mish mash and not as cohesive as the others but I had some great feedback from them as well as really positive comments from our tutor. The whole thing has been a joy to do and I still have loads of ideas that are still to be realised. Once you get the bit between your teeth some things just go on and on don't they?

I made quite a few collagraph plates which I printed traditionally (as above) but also used to produce blind embossings and rubbing plates. I had great fun and will continue with the theme but don't want to bore you with my spoon obsesssion!

I took my camera with me to record some of the work I've seen develop over the past few months and asked permission to share a couple here on the blog. This drawing above is by Alex and features the beautiful chapel at Mwnt which is just outside of Cardigan where the course is held. I love the graphic simplicity of it and hope she develops this style further.

Alex's friend Kim has used the course to develop her drawing skills as she also develops her repertoire with pottery and ceramics. She brought along these small pots she'd made and decorated. My favourite is the one with the walking figures. There were other things I loved as much by other people but they were my real favourites. It has been a fabulous course to do and we were all so lucky that the group dynamic worked so well. Fingers crossed the next one will be as fulfilling. I hope so.

Just because...

As I struggle this week with setting up some screen prints for my college project it is a joy to see wonderful artisans at work. I love block printing on fabric but never seem to get the registration right. How I wish I had the patience and skills of these craftsmen.