Turquoise and Purple

I joined the Handweavers and Spinners Guild of Victoria yesterday in order to take the introduction to weaving workshop in May. I have been wanting to learn weaving for a while now. This is a good chance for me to actually do it. The only kind of weaving I am interested in is a rag weaving (Sakiori in Japanese). I would like to use my eco-dyed silk to weave with and later, silk saris as well. A dear friend Jeannette (no blog) is giving me a loom. When I know how to weave I will pick it up. It's nearly a thousand Kms drive from here. It's worth the drive to visit her and pick up the loom at the same time. Exciting times ahead for me. So wish me luck on this new textile venture...!

There is also a cool shop at the Handweavers and Spinners selling hand spun yarns, knitted items, raw fleece for spinning, books and dyes both natural and synthetic. I like supporting fibre artists so I bought this gorgeous hand spun wood and silk yarn to make my favourite scarf for myself. 

The scarf is done by crochet using fine yarn. It has to be something very soft as well. When I touched this  yarn I fell in love with it. It has a skein of fine silk running through it. Beautiful to work with too.  Turquoise is not a colour I normally wear, but I love all colours, so I'm sure I can wear it too. 

Unfortunately photography is not allowed in the shop, but I was told only after I snapped this photo of hand made scarves. I don't know why people are so protective of their goods if they want to sell them. The more  people can see them, the faster they can sell them.

Now for a serious topic, dyeing! I have not dyed for a couple of weeks now. I'm actually running out of silk for dyeing. I have to search for the new premisses of Ziguzagu for more silk. Ziguzagu has moved from the warehouse location to a shop front location at 440 Malvern Rd. Prahran 3181. It will be easier for passers by to find them there. I'm planning to visit them next Saturday. 

Okay, back to dyeing. In this batch I used purple carrots and eucalyptus leaves to dye with. Above is cotton thread I included in the bundle. The purple carrot gives out a very intense colour until the last drop.

I found this cotton blouse from an op-shop. I wrapped diced carrot randomly inside and steamed for an hour. The dark patches result from rusty nails. It will go perfectly with a pair of jeans. Can't wait to wear it to work next week.

A close up of the imprints from juvenile eucalyptus leaves. I like placing the branches randomly on the cloth and let nature do its thing. This is part of the long piece of cloth below.

The purple bits happened in the steamer when one purple carrot bundle touched another. Luckily it happened to both ends of this cloth. It looks like a well planed pattern! I wished I had left it longer before  opening it, but I had a few minutes of excitement opening it this morning so it was worth not waiting...

Hope everyone is keeping well out there. Busy and exciting time ahead for me as the Japanese Textile Study Tour is only 4 weeks away. I will be posting lot of photos during the tour on the tour Facebook. It's public so you don't need to have a Facebook account.

Enjoy

Nat