Eco dyeing

I recently attended an eco-dyeing workshop. We had 5 pots of liquids - brown onion skins, red onion skins, eucalyptus, avocado skins and seeds, and crepe myrtle bark - which we boiled up for about 2 hours. We then added fabric (I used silk noil) and let the brews simmer for a further 45 minutes. However, as you can see from these photos, there was very little difference in what came out, apart from the way I had tied up the fabrics - and the leaves that I wrapped in 2 of the pieces (4th and 6th photos).

It was a relatively easy way of trying eco-dyeing but I don't think I'll be doing it again any time soon.

Handmade beads

I meet with a group of friends once a month to try out different techniques (and try to actually use some of the things I acquire over time). Last month, we made beads, using fabric, paper, Tyvek and even a painted baby wipe. They were easy enough to make but I didn't really get into it. I can now cross it off my list of things to try - I don't think I'll be making lots of beads in the future.

Some are made with long triangles of fabric, while the baby wipe one and one of the painted paper beads started off as long rectangles. I blasted the Tyvek beads with a heat gun to give them more texture:

Fabric swap - January 2015 - Gelli plates

I have joined a monthly fabric swap through the Surface Design group on StitchinFingers and the theme for January was Gelli plates. So I unwrapped my plates and started playing around on fabric (I had only used them once before and that was on paper). My efforts were rather basic but it's a start:

 The fabrics I received in return showed a much greater level of sophistication - something for me to aim for:

A wedding

I've been making more bags, this time for a wedding. My daughter-in-law's sister was married yesterday.

It took me ages to settle on a design for the bride's bag. I wanted to do hand embroidery or beading but in the end I opted for this machine-embroidered heart design with a pair of ladybirds. But I did hand-stitch the beads in place around the top of the bag.

 

I then stitched the names of the bride and groom, bordered by hearts, onto the back.

I also made this bag for my d-i-l, whose black dress featured a fern design in silver sequins on the bodice: