Sub cut 101

So here is Julian at the workshop in Canberra. It was a whirlwind day and a whirlwind tour for him. Here he is cutting live and modeling a garment he made insanely quickly.

Below is my dress which needs some work. I possibly should have saved my gorgeous silk till I had practiced it a bit, but oh well. I will tweak and tweak till I'm happy. I have some ideas of how to transpose this to felt. It will not have the same drape as a woven fabric but interesting nonetheless
The second dress is one I made once I got home. Sorry bit hard to model and take snaps at the same time. I probably should have moved the windex and the washing basket too!!

.

Passion for cloth

I have pulled out the boilers again and dyeing 7m of twill silk for a workshop with Julian Roberts I am going to on Monday.

I am clearing a spot for my new veggie patch and have to get rid of some old root stock of passionfruit vine in the process. Remembering India said you can get green from passionfruit I stuffed a whole lot into the pot and cooked away. The dye was a subtle light green in just the copper and I dyed 1/2 the fabric for about 1/2 an hour first then I pulled it out and put some leaves in it. I put eucalypt leaves in the other half of the fabric and here are the results below. I really like the green with the other and I can't wait to see how this dress works out.

Home of the big Guitar

Australia ( for the uninitiated) is fond of a big icon. We have the big banana, big pineapple, big prawn and the list goes on. I will be traveling soon to the land of the big Guitar. Yes TAMWORTH. Northern Tablelands NSW!

I will be conducting a workshop in mosaic wearables, wraps, jackets, skirts, whatever takes your fancy! We will be dyeing, making felt, cutting it up and making felt all over again!

There are only a couple of spots left so if you are going to be in Tamworth for 18th, 19th, 20th March and don't want to miss this get in contact from the email to the right. 

So what have I been doing?

Summer cleaning!!!!
I missed the spring clean as it was a busy time. For me the Christmas break is the only decent block of time I get to really effect some changes in the house. Something gets hold of me and the cleaning and de-cluttering begins. I get a ruthless glint in my eye and the expulsion of all deemed unnecessary is underway.

I did not quite need the truck pictured above but it felt good to bring some order to the chaos of the home. Sometimes with everyone working it never seems to be the right time to deal with things. I even did some gardening, though there is  a long way to go there! For me this is also a cleaning out and preparation for the mind. Having the chaos around was effecting my work. Does anyone else suffer from this?? I need to be able to go down to my studio knowing that the house is not in greater need of my time.

In other words it is a load off.

A little balance is restored if only for a while. Now back to work!