Moving Forward

My birthday came and went in a bit of a blur. The day started with a welcome hugs from the lovely Ben and Jodie, my two sweet young colleagues working with me. Jodie who is a whiz in paper crafts made me a lovely bouquet of paper flowers. Other friends brought me pot plants and  cut flowers. 

In-spite of a pre arrangement that we would go out for morning tea/coffee, when the time came the team had their own plans. One of them sneaked out and got us all coffees and we shared them together. More gifts arrived. I feel so special and loved on my birthday!

Another group of friends past and present took me out to lunch at the famous Taste Baguette restaurant on the campus. Taste Baguette is famous for their smooth coffee by a number one barista! 

My desk on the day turned out like a florist shop with all the fresh and paper flowers I received that day. The many coffee cups weren't only mine. The team thought it would be fun to build a wall with empty coffee cups from Taste Baguette! 

I have been working on a commission piece for a go-away gift using my eco-print fabric. The recipient is a furniture designer. She is moving to New Zealand. I had a free run with the fabric and design. The fabrics speak for themselves. I only added stitchings. 

The photo didn't do it justice!.

I have given it to her and she loved it. The fabric was dyed using Eucalyptus bark, leaves and iron mordant in some places. The simplicity is in the prints and lines. I called it Bush Colour. Laura is taking a small piece of Australia with her wherever she goes! 

On my daily walk last week I noticed that the Eucalyptus iron-bark (Sideroxylon) were in full colour so I couldn't resist to photographed them. I use the leaves from these trees when I want an instant result. 

I unwrapped these bundles and jars a couple of weeks ago, but I missed blogging about them on the last post. Some of the jars had been sitting for about a month. 

Here are the Eucalyptus leaves, tea-leaves bush berries and copper pennies from the jars after the bundles have been removed. The goodness is still in the jars, so I preserved the dye to reuse again next time.

And here are the results from the jars and bundles above. So much nicer to put them together like this. Below is another piece from this batch too. I'm very happy with them!

BTW, if you are looking for that special handmade gift for a special person in your life, I'm taking orders for commission pieces using my eco-print fabric. The pieces can be handmade journals, wedding journal, bags, purses, wall hangings, wrapping cloth (Furoshiki or Pojagi), quilts or anything you may think of. 

I have also been thinking about opening an Etsy shop sometime in the future. You can guess by now that I have lots of dyed fabric. I need to make some room in my stash so that I have an excuse to dye some more!

Until next time

Nat