More Nuno

I have been working in spasms-where free time was available -on pieces for a course I will teach in September, based on lines in the landscape.I am fascinated by how different fabrics react with wool fibre and like the challenge of making a particular fabric attach, even if the work involved is quite tiring and physical.Polyester is always hard work but gives very interesting results and the contrast of texture which comes from putting scrim, silk and polyester side by side is just what I need for the current work.After many rolls and much throwing ,the photos here show one result-not very easy to photograph because of it being cream/white, but hopefully better than nothing.I intend to make lots of units similar to these and assemble them, hopefully as a means of conquering the need for massive space to create large pieces.

Student work

As I don't have any finished work-or even in progress, because I went to a craft fair at Farncombe this wekend,thought I would post some student work for you to look at.This was done on the last earth friendly dyeing course in my studio in South west France, using mainly rust,woad and some buckthorn with additives.Another similar course will be coming up in June next year.I love the combination of rust and woad and the subtle ranges we can achieve.Come to think of it, this is one of the main attractions of natural dyes altogether,plus it seems almost impossible to dye colours which will not combine well together.

Some of the work has the added detail of thermofax printing on the surface, also using natural dyes as extracts, thickened with gum tragacanth, which is what I intend to use the teal extract for ,when there is some time!More pictures of that later.

teal dye extract

These are the lovely deep colours from a dyeing session in the slow cooker using DT Crafts teal dye extract .The darker shades had alum as a mordant, the lighter none at all and there are still some drying which have had iron as a mordant.I have no idea what the plant is that is used to create the extract and before I teach any students to use this, I really do need to know, as I like to be as earth friendly as possible.My next step is to use the extracts for thermofax screen printing on my felt, so more photos of that when I have time to do some more work-real work ,I mean, not Christmas shopping or reorganising the workroom, which is so badly needed.

December 2nd

I know this is a blurred photo,but I found these fungi at Farncombe and have tried dyeing with them-without mordant, with alum, and now with iron-no result! Does anyone out there know what they are, as I think I may have mis-identified them.My mushroom foraging skills are a bit rusty-good job I'm not eating them.

After the weekend

Back from Farncombe and a lovely, but exhausting weekend ,making Nuno felt scarves and wraps.We started with white Merino/scrim/silk combinations, then overdyed the scarves using acid dyes(not enough time to use my beloved naturals,but I will repeat this in France,using the local dyes)

Farncombe is a gorgeous place to work, but the panoramic views were obliterated by fog this weekend.My group worked really hard, almost to the point of not being able to move by 9.30 p.m on Saturday, so it was lucky that I had planned the dyeing for Sunday morning.

The results at the end of the weekend were lovely and well worth the effort put in by all.

1st December