My Birthday

I had a birthday last week. I did not go out of my way to do anything special on my birthday but friends, colleagues and family had other ideas. I went out to 2 lunches, many morning teas and dinner. Not bad for celebrating being a year older! I received birthday presents and some e-cards from distant family and friends. Thanks everyone!

I have been busy as usual. Only 3 more weeks till we leave on our around the world trip. I'm starting to get a bit excited now! 

I did a few batches of dyeing these last weeks. The results are getting better and better, and I don't do anything different from what I did in the past. I'm so thrilled to get rich colours and patterns from my dyed fabric. 

Below are some photos from my birthday, and dyeing results. 

Birthday dinner at Steak Ministry

A selection of art journal supplies from Mel Tan

Knitted cowl-neck and other gifts from my colleagues

Bolgatanga African market baskets from DD Kitiya

Some gorgeous gifts from Myra and Cynthia.
They know I love blue!

One of a kind birthday gifts. Rusty objects from
Geo's daily walks on her farm.

Since Jacky's Create Journal Workshop at my Treehouse Studio, I reshuffled some furniture to make more space in the Treehouse. I can now have up to 6-7 people in a workshop at the Treehouse. I recently acquired a vintage silk houry/kimono from Kazari/Ziguzagu. I have the right spot to display it in the Treehouse, the only wall space available being the wall the BORO cloth was hanging. I took the BORO cloth down and hanged the houry/kimono in its place.

It looks beautiful on the wall. The designs
on this kimono was individually woven.
Finely silk woven. It's so beautiful. 

These two chairs are now replacing the long vintage
bench that was there since I moved into the Treehouse.

Baskets are now overflowing over the bookshelves,
but I love them!

Below are some results from a couple of batches of dyes I did in the last couple of weeks. Some of them are better than others. I can use all of these in stitching projects by varying colours and textures. What I need now is time to stitch! 

Jacky called them eco-roses. Collections of dyed silks

Great result dyeing with vintage Japanese wool and eucalyptus

Cotton thread I dyed a couple of weeks ago by wrapping
it around rusty tin

A tint of yellow from wattle flowers and eucalyptus

I made this gorgeous piece of milky merino into a cowl-neck

When opened this piece I thought I wouldn't be able to
do better than this!

Only half of the leaves were removed in this piece

When I opened this bundle, I thought yes, I could!

I also got domesticated last weekend. The olive tree we have in our garden produced a lot of olives this year. I was too busy to do anything about them until last weekend when I had some free time. I started by soaking them in water for a week. Even though the olives are quite small, they are the tastiest olives I have ever tasted. 

I got all necessary ingredients and was ready to bottle
them after a week of soaking. 

Using all jars available I packed and filled the jars
with brine water and a little olive oil. 

It doesn't seem like I have been doing much stitching lately, but I always have a hand stitching project or projects nearby. I keep forgetting to photograph them. I will try to remember to do that soon.

Until next time

Nat

Family Visit and some Dyeing Time

Our son and his family came to stay for a week and they just left this morning. The G-kids have to start back at school and their parents need to go back to workback to work. Unfortunately it was far too short. 

We had many sessions together at the Treehouse Studio. We stitched and created lots of small things. We also had a DS's birthday here. Mr Notjustnat and I arranged to take DGD for her first musical, The Lion King. She was thrilled and took it all in for a 6 and a half year old. We enjoyed it too!

My daughter-in-law Bron and I stole some time together and did some dyeing. The weather was as horrible as it could be this past week, but it didn't stop us putting on a couple of dye bundles! We also went out gathering some new leaves together too. In doing that we found some beautiful Australian native fruit Finger limes, and I made marmalade from them. A very busy, but productive week I would say!

Mr Bear enjoyed a visit to the Treehouse Studio

DS's Birthday Cake, raspberry cheesecake, yummy! 

One of the scenes from The Lion King, awesome show! 

DGD's framed eco-dye artwork. Never too
young to dye!

Various Eucalyptus leaves. Blue tint from red cabbage.

Intense green and red dyed on silk.

Eucalyptus leaves on wool.

Seriously red! Eucalyptus Nicholii on silk scarf.

With a little help from purple carrot.

Australian native fruit. Finger lime

Ruby red marmalade made with Finger Lime fruit

Below is a poster from one of my students Glenise who took my eco-dye workshop recently. She asked if I could spread the word for a good cause. Glenise is organizing a fun event to raise funds for Gembrook's CFA (Country Fire Authority). If you can, please support our CFA. They are doing a great job for our country communities.  

She has kindly offered me a table to sell or promote my dyeing products and workshop. I turned it down this time because it was too short notice and with our trip only around the corner. I can't fit another thing in!

Have you noticed I've changed my blog banner? What do you think? The weather continues to be horrid, and it will be the same for the rest of this week! Hope you all keeping well and warm or cool!

Until next time

Nat

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

Birthday 2014

My birthday week has started! I can't seem to just celebrate it on the day. It usually takes a week to fit everyone and everything in! My actual birthday is on 28th Aug. Starting from last night (Sunday night) my lovely friend Mel took me into the city for dinner at Mamasita, a Mexican restaurant. We had a lovely night and managed to get home in one piece! The next event is on Thursday when 12 of my friends and colleagues come to have lunch with me here at the campus. Then on Thursday evening I will join Mr Notjustnat and my daughter Kitiya for dinner in the city. Speaking of the city, I don't know if you have heard that Melbourne has been voted the world's most liveable city in 2014. I'm so glad to be living in Melbourne! 

Now where was I? Have been a bit busy lately with the Tree-House Studio. Every evening we are working on assembling the double wardrobes we got from IKEA to use for storage space. There are some updated photos at the end of this post. In between all that I squeezed in some dyeing and stitching. 

I posted the photo of that eucalyptus branch on Instagram and Facebook a couple of weeks ago. If you love eucalyptus trees as much as I do, you would put all the nice pieces of them in your dye bundle! I didn't open it until the weekend and the result is very pleasing, don't you think?

These three bundles included the one above. I was asked if I soaked and mordant them with iron and how long I steamed them for. I only wet the fabric before wrapping it. The answer is. No soaking or mordant and steamed for 1 hour.   

A week after steaming I just let them sit (dried) in the steamer. The outside bundle was completely dried when I opened it, but the inner part of the bundle was still damp.  

Another shot after the leaves were removed! Fantastic effect of two types of eucalyptus leaves used. This one was wrapped around a copper pipe.

Another bundle was wrapped around a steel pipe and only used one type of leaves eucalyptus (Sideroxylon) in this bundle. 

Putting them next to each other makes a lovely palette of colours. I don't think I can separate them. They are made for each other!

I dabble with a little stitching in my spare time. I started another simplicity block way way back. I wanted to use a couching stitch over a string that I had used for a dyed bundle. I finally got round to doing it and quite like the effect!

Another little stitching is this journal cover using fabric dyed with coffee, rust, eucalyptus leaves on vintage Japanese fabric. 

Prep work on the cover ready for Coptic binding into a journal. I will show you again after I finished it. Below are some photos of the Tree-House studio close to completion. 

The railing has been installed. The steps and railing timber will need to be oiled to bring out the natural colour and grain of the timber.  

Inside painting and flooring is all completed. It's a lovely, light space. Exactly what I need. The first piece of furniture are the double wardrobes we got from IKEA.

This is one wardrobe made up of two modules. After two evenings we managed to assemble it. Both wardrobes are going on the far left corner of the room. 

One of the two sliding doors is in place. The mirrors on the doors will make the room look bigger. There is another door to assemble, and then we have to start  over again for the second wardrobe. Both wardrobes will be placed side by side along the same wall. It's looking good so far. 

Thanks for checking-in on my blog. I'm sorry if I haven't been to visit many blogs lately. From now on I hope to get back to doing more visiting again. Hope you are all keeping well. Spring is on the way here in Melbourne.

Until next time.

Nat