Handmade and Homemade

The question I get asked often about my eco-dye fabric is, what are you going make with it? People with the same passion about eco and natural dyes understand that, it's not the fabric we want, it's the challenge of what colour we get from certain plants that drive us to experiment with the different plants. The excitement and participation before you unwrap the bundles is nearly as good as having Belgium chocolate melt in your mouth! Dyeing my own fabric has always been my passion. Years ago I started dyeing with Procion reactive dyes and that got me hooked to dyeing. Since I discovered eco dyeing I would never go back to using chemical dyes again. Of course natural dyes don't give you the bright pinks, yellows or reds. Instead you get the colour of the desert dunes with brown, golden, sand, silvery gray and pale yellow. I'm now content with the colour and patterns I get from natural dyes and I love it...!

I signed up for another of Jude Hill's online workshop 'magic diaries'. I have been very busy lately so I haven't been following the lessons as closely as I should. The idea of magic diaries is to build on what you already started. I have two small cloths I made earlier. With those two cloths I added dyed fabrics and built up to a large cloth. I have used invisible basting ready for quilting. The colour and patterns on the cloth are made by me. I called this cloth "I Heart Nature". 

A weekend at home dyeing. On my daily walk I try my hardest not to pick any plants along the way, but sometimes I just can't resist. I have two favorite eucalyptus trees that I keep an eye on to make sure that the gardeners don't accidentally cut them down. That day I only picked a few bottom branches. I threw in a few oak leaves for good measure. 

These bundles are a family. Can you see father, mother, the twins and the grandmother in front? They are all dressed up ready for bed. 

And this is the family sleep-over. I have to wait to next week to unwrap the bundles and see what colour the family bundles give us!

The result are here after a week of family sleeping over! I really agree with India that the result of the dyed had a lot to do with the water you used. We have had so much rain this year that all the moisture the tree absorbed translate into brilliant colour! Thanks Mr Rain, come again any day!

The whole family got unwrapped and rinsed. They are now hanging together to dry. They are so red I need sunglasses to look them straight! I did experiment with scrunching them instead of rolled in this batch. The effected is interesting! 

Now for something homemade! When I got back from Japan my so called ornamental olive tree was full of olives. It is only three years old, but it produced so many olives that all the branches were droopy because of the weight of the fruit. I love all types of olives, but had never preserved them myself. To have my own home grown olives I thought it was time I learned to preserved them. I got a good instructions from Youtube. I looked at a few different methods and combined them into one. 

After a couple of weeks in the brine the olives were ready to bottle. I picked them twice, the first time when they were still green. After a few weeks they turned darker. I have used different herbs in each jars. Some with only a piece of lemon, some with chilli, and some with thyme and bay leaves.  

I have got more than a dozen jars of preserved olives from one single tree. I'm so thrilled. I have given some away to friends who I know love olives. Some will be taking to DGD, I know she loves olive just like her Yah Ya...!

I don't know where the days have gone since I came back from my trip to Japan. Before the trip I was counting so much for it to happen, but when I got there I wanted the time to just stay still so I could stay longer. It's now August, the month of my birthday and the month I do blog giveaways. I got something for you that I brought back from Japan. So come and enter on the last week of August. There will be an exciting announcement in my next post so please come back for that as well....!

Do you have FAD (Facebook Addiction Dependency!)? I don't know if I got it or not!!!