Natural Dye Day With Trudi Pollard

I have been having too much fun recently! My wonderful friend Trudi Pollard is the most amazing artist and natural dyer! I have been doing shibori, indigo and natural dyeing for the past 7 weeks and yesterday was our natural dye day!

I am soooo hooked on natural dyes, have a look at what we did. We used brown onion, puff balls, fig leaves, silver dollar and chilli bush! And before you think of hacking your chilli plants in the yard, it's not that sort of chilli bush....the aussie native one! Chilli bush is my favourite and I want to do more and more and more. Of course I want to put my felt in, but this was a rather large communal class, which I am not a fan of....nothing worse than your pieces of silk being taken by others.....and of course you find out later!


Going from left to right the colours are: Puff balls, chilli bush, fig leaves and brown onions. The silver dollar will be coming tomorrow, it needed a longer cooking time! The beautiful thing about natural dyes, is that they all work together, no matter which way you put them. How amazing that these colours all come from plants. Trudi has so much knowledge, far more than anyone else I know of. We are all getting on her case about writing a book, as the Inida Flint book Eco Colour is good, but she doesn't give away many of her secrets. Trudi is so generous with her knowledge and skills......I haven't met anyone quite like her....she is one of a kind.

Retreat, Recipe and Reactions

I could always start listing the excuses why I haven't blogged in a while....but no one really wants to hear that. So lets catch up!!! I am in love with my own japanese soup I have created, our exhibition is going well, art awards went well, retreat was sensational and am getting over the flu!

My Japanese soup: Enoki mushrooms, soba noodles, japanese soup stock, spring onions, nori roll sliced thinly and some cooked chook. Chuck the noodles and mushrooms into the stock and cook for about 5 mins. Put into a bowl and add the chicken, spring onions and sliced nori roll. Man it's fabo and so good for you. Even my kids eat it!

I woke up on yesterday and decided to go and get my second tattoo. I have had a tat for 13 years now and this one is pretty special. It is a symbolisation of my family. My husband is the single star and the other stars are for my boys who roam this gorgeous planet and for my two babies who watch us from above. The single star hurt like hell.

Have had all positive reactions so far, my hubby liked it, my kids had their stars picked out at first sight and happily tell everyone who has which star. Am waiting for someone to give me a bad reaction.....sometimes I love to able to use my vast vocabulary to it's fullest extent!

I am the luckiest daughter in law in the world. This is my wonderful birthday present from my wonderful inlaws, Ted and Jan. I actually got 2 of these stands, in solid jarrah. I asked Ted to make me one in pine for the market stalls, so I can hang my bags and bits and bobs......so of course I got 2 solid jarrah. You have to love an architect.

The first edition of Felt has just hit the stands.....a damn good magazine, about to send an email to the editors and let them know that. Go and find this at your newsagent!

The most gorgeous letter box in the world. What you don't see, is the antique spoon on the back, which is the handle to open the door. This is made by a local cabinet maker in the hills.....he is about to make some bird houses too!!!

How happy was I when my shipment of water balls arrived from Germany. And it didn't hurt that I was on my way to a felting workshop I run on Thursdays. The girls were all too happy to grab one and start squirting away. They are soooooo hard to find, but after a year of persistently annoying the right people, I found a source.

The following pictures are all from our retreat at Camp Simon in Roleystone. We had 26 Feltwest members come along and we had such a grand time. The location was stunning, the hall so big we had room to move and most of us had double tables. Food was good, company sensational and the opportunity to felt all day and night.....simply glorious.

I made a vow at the beginning of the weekend, not to make a 3D vessel or form. That vow was on Thursday night, by Saturday morning I was felting a vessel. I was enticed....Heather came back from a quick jaunt and starting waving my favourite natural fibre to weave and sculpt with, under my nose. She told me where it was and I was gone. Back in about 15 mins, and felting within another 10. Actually the piece is gorgeous and I will photograph it when it's finished.

I was very proud of myself though, I actually did a heap of nuno, which was a first for me. I really enjoyed it, but still love my sculptural work better. It's good to have some time off though and now I may incorporate some nuno into my sculptures.

Heathers scarf laid out.

An abstract design I was working on.

Lee Ann Davis, amazing felter and stitcher, a sample of some of her work.

Sharna's piece partially laid out.

Heather, our dye pot master, could not resist doing some natural dyeing. Lindy and Heather had two pots simmering, one a fungi pot and the other natural vegetation from around camp.

Nancy's rug after it was pretty much felted.

Sue Eslick, our tea cosie queen, with a great hat she made. We made her wear it sideways, as it looked better! Sue also won our name badge challenge with a lovely mini tea cosie badge! I got equal second place!!

Some of the name badges in our challenge. Mine is the funky purple and green one!

Mary Anne made this stunning baby jacket, and this was just a sample! I have been inspired, she so generously gave me the pattern and now I am going to have an attempt! You may never see the pictures of my attempt!

A pic of some of our work at the end of the weekend. Everyone went insane making hats. I said next year we need to have a hat challenge!

General Update

I have been busier than a one legged man at a hopping contest! My entry for the Melville Art Awards is due in about a week.....so I started on the weekend. I was always one of those students at Uni, who started their assignments, a day or two before being due. I work well under pressure. I thought I needed a good start though and have the base of the felt and fibre sculpture completed. Now, comes all the stitching of fibre......will take some time.

Mondays I am now doing a porcelain jewellry workshop, Tuesdays sees me doing shibori, Wednesdays I'm trying to do some business work, Thursdays teaching felting, Fridays cleaning before Anthony comes home and weekends are usually art. I haven't stopped in about 2 weeks and am a bit tired, but loving every minute of what I do. Hence if I have promised something and not delivered.....you're not the only one!

I have to still post some pics of my fabulous hat I made with Sue Eslick...sorry Sue will get onto it...promised her pics! Everyone who sees it wants to make one!

A friend Sue Espie and I are going to be doing the Oxford Street Markets in June, July and August. They are being held on the last Saturday of each month, on Oxford St...will give the correct address when I find it. If you're around, come on by and say hello.

It's 5.48am and the kids are still asleep....thank god.......better go and start some work!

Castaway Sculptures

For Mothers Day, my family took me down to see the Castaways Sculptures. This is an annual sculptural competition held on the beach at Rockingham. All the sculptures are made from recycled materials. (Or I should say....a component of each sculpture is made from recycled materials.) These were some of my favourites. The merecats were my fav......and strangely enough, the artist is a friend of mine, but didn't know that until after I saw them.

One of the funniest things we saw all day, was real seagulls coming and joining their rather 'still' friends on the sculpture. If the little brats didn't keep scaring them away.....I would of had a great picture.

Beautiful Puppetry

I was luck enough about a week ago, to meet the very talented Leon Hendroff. Leon is a graphic artist, who is also into making marionette puppets. Some felt caught my eye at a local market and when I started to look at the stall, these amazing little guys where staring at me and wanting to come home with me. Now who am I to go against their wishes.

Leon is involved in the Spare Parts Puppet Theatre here in Fremantle. It's one thing to see his beautiful puppets, but to see him manipulate and move them is something different again. I am planning to have Leon come and run a workshop for us at Catalyst in August.

Cosy Workshop

Today we had one of our Feltwest workshops, which was Cosies and Hats, with Sue Eslick. Hats and cosies are both made using the resist felting technique. Sue is the Cosy Queen and has perfected them beautifully. She also very generously shared all her patterns, which we all appreciated a great deal.


Two of these hats were made at a workshop with Judit Pocs, an amazing felter from Hungary, who has largely influenced many of us here in the west. The green hat is one which Sue has made for our Earth exhibition at Mundaring Arts Centre.



These are Sues coffee cosies, as every good coffee pot deserves some dressing up as well.

Sue does these rather weird, but strangely appealing little guys. Not quite sure if we should call them cosies or hats....or something weird that crawled out of the cupboard!!! One thing which you will either love or find gross....is the fact that their eyes are semi attached....they can come partially out of the head!

These are the traditional tea cosies which Sue creates. She has a lovely technique and uses both prefelts and fabrics in her designs. I think the dragonfly is my favourite, with it's wings being made of silk tissue. Very pretty indeed. Below is the link to Sues blog for more inspirational work.

http://suzcosies.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html

Finally.....Bungled!

Well 'Bungled' is finally finished and ready to go the Mundaring Arts Centre. I didn't realise how sore ones fingers can get, if you are not a hardened hand stitcher. I shouldn't complain...it was only 2 fingers.....but it did hurt!

We have had a sad couple of days at our house...we think our beloved Yoda (gorgeous torty girl, 12 years old), has gone to kitty heaven. We haven't seen her for days, which is not like her at all....she loves her food and pats and loves too much to miss out. My friends cat ran away to die and sadly we believe this is what our Yoda has done too. I had her for 12 wonderful years, longer than my husband. Actually Anthony had seen Yoda before he even met me. For months he caught the shift bus to work, which happened to be across the road from my house. He would always see Yoda sitting in the window, watching the world go past. I miss her terribly and wished that we had a special place in our garden to lay her to rest....instead we have special memories in our hearts.