Holiday

Back from holiday exploring some of Essex, an area we hadn't been to before. Spent a whole day on Mersea island - apparently it gets cut off by high tides at full and new moon. Lovely to walk along the beach listening to the different sounds of the sea, watching the wooden staked areas appearing out of the water, beachcombing and collecting. Things, thoughts, peacefulness, ideas. Plan to spend this week making bundles to eco- dye and include some rusty nails from an old bonfire site, oak galls and walnut husks found elsewhere on our travels this weekend for a bit of added colour.

More bundles

Bundles waiting for drying space so that they can be unwrapped and opened out. Some look quite dark so can't wait to see how they'll turn out.

Eco dyeing

The first of the bundles unwrapped - elderberries on paper. No tannin.

Bundles

At Alison's today having a BBs get together to talk through ideas for our next exhibition at Nature in Art in 2015. These bundles contain leaves and twigs gathered from Alison's garden and they have been wrapped with fabric and / or paper before being tied up tightly with strips of silk. They need steaming now before opening up to see what the results are.

Basket

Finished the new lining for the baby basket at last! What a difficult job it was as after 35 years it is rather out of shape. But it has lasted well through my children and now onto the grandchildren - ninth one due next month. Just have the Hawaiian style quilt to make now to go with it. My son and his wife went to Hawaii for their honeymoon and were taken with the appliqué patterns. I haven't tried one of those sorts of quilts before so it will be a steep learning curve I think.

Detritus

Saw this little heap on the floor - detritus from various projects and I like the randomness of the pieces just thrown together and abandoned a bit like flotsam and jetsam washed up on the shore. Juxtapositioned layered and waiting.

Eco dyeing on paper

Various papers dyed using some of the leaves etc that we collected on our walk.

Eco dyeing

Went for a walk with two of the grandchildren and collected lots of different leaves and berries. We wrapped them up tightly in T-shirts with a bit of rusty stuff and then steamed them for one hour. After two days they were unwrapped. Some amazing colours! Should have kept a better record of what was used so that we knew what worked best. More structured experimentation needed.