Long time since last post

After a long period of feeling non creative and generally off colour,I've finally managed to produce something worth showing .It's a poor picture,because the light inside our 1650s house is dreadful, even with flash.The garment has recycled fabric and natural dyed pieces with a 'lace'edging,constructed much like my snow queen work last summer.Have also dyed some fabric with bought dried walnut husks, which turn out to be nowhere near as good as the real thing,of which there is a lovely bucket full festering away in France.Never mind, will soon be back there in the big studio with my lovely machine!

the final piece

My pre felt arrived from the UK yesterday at last,so I carefully split the layer and embarked on the last section of my walnut dyed fabric for some sort of garment-not sure what yet.This is the piece before dyeing but after all the manual work.

Both of these pictures illustrate perfectly how the final dyeing process ties all the surfaces together and makes for a more harmonious whole.

Learning by experience.

No matter how much experience a person has, i.e me,in dyeing and fabric handling,mistakes happen.I should have known that if i wanted two reasonably similar pieces of fabric, they should both have been dyed in the same vat-obvious to all but an idiot, i.e ,me.I collected some walnuts, made a lovely vat and dyed my first piece,then thought,maybe it should be darker, and added a piece of rusty iron.The second piece came out grey-ish.Drat! Collected more walnuts which resulted in my other half falling in a ditch, made another vat and dyed the whole lot again,which gave a match, but not such a nice brown.Will I ever learn?
Anyway, still have a third piece to go to make a garment, so maybe I'll remember what I did!

This is the fabric,made up of recycled scarves muslin and devored silk ,felted to a very thin layer of prefelt.

The overdyeing brings all the differing elements together,and dulls down anything which is too bright or jarring.

Check out the texture-I really love what can be done with this devore fabric,

Exhibition at St Avit

Took a trip to St Avit,to the Palissy museum to see an exhibition and having walked up the hill to the village(finding walnuts on the ground for dyeing which was a bonus) we found that the exhibition is only open in June on a sunday!Never mind, i did take some photos and i will go back,plus i have already used the walnuts and have a lovely warm brown on silk.

This is the door to the church in the village,which seems not to be used any more-no seats or evidence of people.It is all very atmospheric and slightly musty smelling.

These are the faded wall paintings in the church,which would look fabulous if restored,but still gorgeous as they are.

Finally,one of my best accidental photos ever,a view through the window of the exhibition we couldn't see.I,m not sure if these pieces were put here because they were inspired by the church tower in the reflection, but it certainly makes a dramatic image.