Last winter weekend

Heavy rain outside on our last winter weekend. I haven't posted anything for a long time. The winter has been not as easy this time, full of illness and dark days though lots of things have happened. It seems the whole world has some sort of turned upside down. So many bad things are happening all over the world, wars, natural disasters, which can make one worry. So it is good to be in here, sitting at the fire and listening to the rain drumming on the tin roof.
I have slowly started to work again on some small things, some chocolates, some floating pauas, slippers, a poppy bag, haven't figured out yet how to attach photos here on the tablet properly. Today I finished a fairy, I think I'd better call her fairy, because she has a lot of green and I am still thinking about to make her a flower hat.
I am making all this things because we will have here in town on Labour Weekend end of October the first Art Trail KOAST, which will hopefully be an annual event, and I am part of it.
In October starts also a new Saturday Market here in town for growers and artisans and I will try my luck there.
So it will be an exciting spring !

fun on the knitting machine

No, I haven't finished the rug yet. After lots of problems I finally managed to get it going ok. I had bad problems with the selvages, it was my own fault of course. I did not want to undo it  but widened it while weaving. It does look not very nice, but let's see how it looks when it is finished. But at the moment, it has to wait, because I discovered the knitting machine again and made already 2 garments, a third is at the moment on the machine half  finished.

This is the first top I made. It is very simple. I made 2 parts, the front part about 10 cm longer than the back, knitted side to side. Then the front was turned before sewing together, finished! No need for a pattern! The felted flower brooch is one I made years ago and it fits very well. I like to wear this!

And here is my second top, also my own pattern, which is not really a pattern.

This time it is straight knitted in two halves. I used 100 stitches for each half, I am a big girl....
While knitting the second half I attached already the first one always on the end of the row, so now sewing was required there.
This top can be made in so many variations, that's really fun!
The yarn I was using is a cotton/acrylic mix I bought long ago on Ebay in Germany. I used it already for a lot of things and there is still some left. I've got it in 6 colours, 3 in purple/pink shades, a white, a light blue and a black one.
With the white one I started today a 'waterfall cardigan' a pattern which was in Knitting Machine monthly November 2012. I saw recently several photos posted in the Machine Knitting Facebook Group and have to try this out. And what is already knitted lookes quite good. And the best, it is knitted in one piece and no sewing required!

Trouble with the loom

I spent the last weeks getting used to the loom I had been given last year.

My friend suggested I should try to weave Krokbragd. She has already made several wall hangings and they look stunning. Because I was also given quite a lot of carpet wool I decided to weave a little rug.
I looked through my stash and found a cotton I thought would be suitable as warp

My friend came to help and she wound the warp and also threaded it. She did a brilliant job, I found only a small threading error, when I started the pattern.

I haven't woven for some years and never on a floor loom. So I read a lot how to tie the pedals, because this loom has a rising shed. But of course in the end the pattern was upside down, grrrr. So I started again and tied the pedals differently, but guess what now it looks like it is upside down again, hmmmm feeling a bit lost right now and fed up.
Besides the front beam has started to slip, doesn't hold the tension and the warp is not strong enough, I had already to fix a break. Looks like it wasn't a great idea to do a rug. But I am NOT giving up, will find the solution!

a colourful top

Almost a year ago I bought some fabric from Spotlight, used a pattern I already had and cut it. Well and then I got distracted, made all sorts of stichting on felt and forgot about my top.
But today I dug it out, checked it

and tataaaaaaa!    -   the finished top 

and it fits perfectly 

I love the patterns from Atelier Hardy in Germany, they fit me very well.

Happy New Year

Already January 10, I hope everybody enjoyed Christmas and the New Year celebration.
I spent my time with lots of cleaning and reorganizing the house. Its an ongoing challenge to have a functioning living space and a functioning workshop. But at the moment there is no reason to do much felting, I have boxes full of things and it is not sell-able here. People don't have money for buying art, a friend who is a great felter is now dyeing cheesecloth in bright colors, just cuts holes in for the arms and is selling it cheap at the Artisan market ($23) and has great success. The tops will not last longer than 3-4 washes but they are bright and cheap and people are mad about it and she can make a living.
Well that's not my way, so it will be hard to make a living. And I really would like to make a bit a living from my work without lowering my standards. Well I guess that's what lots of artist would like to achieve and the most don't.
New Year - new challenge

more dyeing

I added more leaves to the scarf: in the middle griselina and fire spike and along the outside hydreanga leaves. I put some impatiens flowers to it as well, but didn't expect much from it.

For a test I put eucalyptus leaves between felt layers, put the 2 bundles on my home made steam basket, added more eucalyptus leaves to lots of water and let it boil for about 45 minutes and then cool down

2 days later it looked like this

I started to unroll the bundle, the leaves were still in

and in the end  I am quite disappointed with the result

there is hardly any print visible but the strings are very clear

still wet

not much to see when wet

after drying and ironing

A hint of the eucalyptus leaves is still to see and the griselina made light pink prints. Genereally it has a pleasant greyish colour.
I wonder what is the reason why I do not get any nice orange prints from the eucalyptus. Is it the water ? We are on town water which is pretty yak in Kerikeri with lots of clorine. I use a carbon waterfilter to get rid of the clorine taste, but it doesn't take out all. Maybe I should collect rainwater for dyeing? I would not want to use our pond water, it is quite polluted with all the septic tanks around.
I am using an aluminium pot, maybe this is not good? Do the leaves have to be fresh and green?
I have to experiment more !

And the result for the old t-shirt was not very exciting either

It was boild with eucalyptus leaves which makes it  look like dyed with tea

some eco dyeing

I brought from a recent dog walk some gum tree leaves home

so I decided to do some eco dyeing experiments

I used eucalyptus (bottom) and griselina  (the yellow bigger ones) and some leaves of a weed I don't know the name of

arranged them on half of the dry silk scarf

folded the rest over

and made a bundle

I made some sort of tripod from an old leftover wire from the aviary

put water with some vinegar in the pot and tried to close the pot very firmly with foil and an old lid.
I let it steam for about an hour.
After cooling down a bit I had a look to the bundle

and I was a bit disappointed because there was hardly any colour to see.

So I steamed it for another hour but still there was not much change. So in the end I put the bundle into the hot water after turning off the power and let it cool over night.

In the morning I had this result

eucalyptus is clearly visible but not very dark

not much to see from the griselina, just some hints of pink
and nothing from the unknown weed

It is still not very colourful but at least some prints are visible.

I put the used eucalyptus leaves back into the water and added some more leaves and also some vinegar and put in an old stained white t-shirt

This is now slowly simmering and I will let it cool over night.

In the meantime the silk scarf is dry and shows the prints a little bit better

I think I will put some more leaves on another time to add some more pattern. First I need to read India's books another time to find out what I could do differently to achieve better colour.