woad and recycling

Part of a shawl i've just finished,using old lace etc and dyeing all of it with woad.

It has involved several trips to vide greniers and brocantes and a lot of digging in my scrap bags ,but the end result is worth it.Very satisfying to have something nice which is having a new life.

Another view.Some may recognise pieces of my bathroom curtains!It always surprises me how many shades of blue come from one magical dyestuff,depending on the fabric involved.This has been a good summer for woad and rust and the temperature today is still soaring-too busy for woad today though.I'm off to teach at FELT IN FOCUS in Denmark next week and really looking forward to it,as i haven't been there for about 30 years.It will be nice to re visit Copenhagen for a couple of days,before going on to Odense to teach.

Finally,look how low this lake near us is-partly due to water being used for irrigation,partly lack of rain.Should be level with the trees.Still very tranquil and not a soul in sight except us.

Best woad vat ever

This week the weather has been hot and relatively dry-perfect for woad dyeing, so I set to and made a vat.In the middle of creating the stock solution a friend came around, we sat down for coffee and I forgot what I was doing,so the woad sat there all wrapped up in the heat.When I went back to it,this is what I found.

The crust was fantastic and the colour underneath ,bright yellow.This was done using woad from Bleu de Lectoure which is near-ish to us and so particularly special, because S W France was a big woad growing area, so it seems fitting to use their extract.This is the bucket before I started to dye-pity you can't smell it!Finally, the first piece to go into the vat. More pictures later,when the blue fabric joins the slow cloth.

exhibition at the Washington gallery

We have been working hard towards this exhibition, which will be the second showing of work dyed with rust and woad-come and see it if you are near!I love the colour combination and woad is especially important to me, because my house in France is in the old woad growing region.I grow my own, with varying success and will be creating a dye garden this summer, because I can spend a longer period in France this year.All very exciting!
Then, when I teach my eco friendly dyeing, the plants will be on the doorstep, literally.

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.