Category Archives: Leaf prints

January 12, 2015 · 5:54 pm

Home made mending kits

On a visit to relatives not so long ago, I discovered that an entire family were depending on a single tin of buttons and needles and thread for mending.  When we visited, I was called on to assist in mending and when the tin could not be found–repairs could not be made.  I decided that this was not good enough.  So when we got home, I made up two mending kits to add to the family resources, as two members of the family are reaching the fledging stage of life.  Each comes with a Pohutukawa-leaf needle case, a seam ripper, thread, buttons, and a few other basics.

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Pohutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa) is native to Aotearoa/New Zealand and widely grown in Australia.  Here is the interior view of one of the needle case.  They are simple: two layers of leaf-printed wool blanketing, blanket-stitched together.  The leaves gave completely different prints on each side, so the outside of the needle case is one side of the leaf and the inside is a print from the other side.

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This kit makes use of a tin left behind by recent Austrian visitors. It contained a rather delicious Austrian chocolate covered delicacy, but not for long!  I’m delighted to find the next use for this tin.  This kit was big enough to also fit a pre-loved darning mushroom.

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These little kits have found their way to their new homes by mail–I received a text message of thanks today.  And now, I’ll finish on a gratuitous koala picture.

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The appearance of this amazing creature on a Manchurian pear tree at my place of work is not a good sign.  It arrived in a period of extreme heat and little rainfall, no doubt seeking water (and fame, I’m sure–in the bush, koalas are much further away and very hard to photograph effectively–JOKE!).  Over the years a koala has turned up in this spot once in a while–presumably the same one–and water is provided.  In a day or two, it heads back to the nearby eucalypts, since koalas have a very narrow dietary range.  Sometimes one or two can be sighted from a glass walkway up on the second floor, hanging out in the treetops, to equal fascination on the part of passing humans.  Enjoy!

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December 30, 2014 · 4:30 pm

Leaf print experiments

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I’ve been trying leaves I don’t usually use and some different strategies for cooking them up. Prunus leaves, kindly contributed by this block of flats.  I am sure they wouldn’t mind!

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Maple… I think this is Japanese maple.

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I have tried several different sheoaks.

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Some of the results are really spectacular.  My favourite is quite green, very exciting.

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Here it is beside the prunus prints.

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They are pretty pale…

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The maple leaves were interesting, and I love the impression of the string ties.  And this sheoak came out better than any other so far.  I tried 6he leaves out on a linen collar, and wrapped it around a rusty spring I found in my leaf gathering travels.  This bundle was so small I overlooked it, so this one had a long time in the pot, which is no doubt a clue for future experiments.

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Some results were less exciting.  I did get a pale green print from our birch leaves, which is a first and might be promising.

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I went back for more juvenile E Polyanthemos and this time, not so great prints resulted, but I did get some that were quite green, and that’s promising too.

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Meanwhile, the saga of the neighbourhood bees continues.  The lorikeets moved out of this nesting box, and the bees moved in weeks ago.  There is now honeycomb visible in the opening.

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December 16, 2014 · 3:33 pm

Pecan leaf bag

Some time ago I acquired some pecan leaves from a tree grown by my friends.  They were always destined for the dye pot!  Some prints turned out crisper than others, but overall I loved these prints.  They were printed onto leftovers from a skirt lining and some other plain cotton fabric I bought at a church fete… it clearly had a weaving defect of some kind that meant none of the selvedges and none of the grain in the fabric ran straight.  Best not used for clothing, perhaps, but I have had a great time taking it from plain white to all kinds of other treasures.

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Once I had pieced all the oddly shaped sections together, I had four decent sized panels, and the challenge of choosing which I would prefer on the outside and which for the inside.

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In what turns out to be just about a signature of my sewing, I preferred the pieced together panels to some of the whole leaf prints.

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But the whole leaf prints were good too.

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I decided to give this bag to some friends who live locally.  I often see them in the distance with one calico bag or another in hand or over shoulder… so it seemed likely this would be useful to them.  And I love that they live nearby and that they are fellow carers for the neighbourhood and its people.  I slipped it in their letterbox with a little card…

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December 12, 2014 · 1:08 pm

Guerilla saltbush planting–and more solace pennants

The latest round of saltbush seedlings have gone out into the big, wide (hot, dry) world.  With the occasional alyssum seedling carried along for the ride.  We loaded up the wheelbarrow and headed out with our well soaked seedlings.

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There was precious little soil to plant them in, in places… but we will just try them out and see how far they get.  We were planting by a pedestrian and cycle crossing, and I was a bit surprised by how many people thanked and congratulated us, perhaps giving us credit for planting that has been done by the council, as well as the 20 or so plants we were setting out.

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Once they were watered in, we wandered off down the road to spread a bit more mulch and pick plastics out of the mulch council has supplied.  Since planting we have realised that the council workers who are watering the council plantings are also watering the ones we put in–awesome!

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There have been yet more pennants for Solace… I went to a conference and spent the quiet evenings, of which there were few, stitching away on these.

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Some are double sided… I told my sister (we had dinner one night while I was conferencing) about the project and she asked what I was writing on the pennants.  When I said ‘ladybirds’ she laughed and said she felt that way about ladybirds too!

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‘Weeding and revegetation’ seemed an appropriate one to show in this post… but when I made this pennant I was thinking of dear friends who weed and care for precious places in the Blue Mountains and beyond… and of pulling out caltrop in the new plantings in our street, which is part of the route of a bikeway!  Caltrop produces the ‘three corner jack’, a vicious spiny seed capsule more than capable of piercing a thong (flip flop) or deflating a bicycle tyre.  For another contribution to the project, you might like to go here and be inspired.

 

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December 8, 2014 · 3:06 pm

Bag making

There came a point in the end of year crazy-pants where I couldn’t stand all the bits and pieces that were lurking around my office/sewing space. Finally, I decided to take action.  Who needs a potato sack in residence in their work space for months?  It went the way of so many potato sacks round here.  This one was a particularly nice sack, with quite a complex weave structure (for a hessian sack).  The printing was even less wash fast than usual (for a hessian sack) but hopefully it will now have another life being appreciated for its carrying qualities.

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Then there were all the small pieces of fabric left over from other things.  I created patchwork from them and soon had enough for a bag (or two!) lined with eco-prints I like less.

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These are mostly small pieces of pre-loved garments that have been turned into other things, with or without prior leaf prints.  This one has already gone to a happy home with friends who use bags all the time.

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And then there was the ongoing bag patching ritual.  There were three or four new holes… so my favourite bag got yet another patching job.  From this:

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To this!

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December 4, 2014 · 9:25 am

More ‘Solace’ pennants

I still think the idea of India Flint’s Solace project is wonderful.  Having made some contributions that were not to specifications recently… I felt moved to make some that were.  I’ve been piecing together scrap fabrics from other projects as well as using small pieces of treasured fabrics.

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I often think that growing plants from seed is so wonderful that it couldn’t be any better, more exciting or more awe-inspiring if it were magic.

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I am not sure anyone could be who they are without being among, being with, being part of a community.  I know this is true of me.  So friends are at the heart of all that gives me hope and capacity in life.

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And then there is kindness.  Kindness imparted or received. Kindness observed.  Even the kindness of strangers.  Kindness between strangers may be a special kind of treasure.

I found another contribution to Solace,  from Mo Crow, here.  You might want to visit and be inspired.

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November 12, 2014 · 6:27 pm

The quest for Eucalyptus Polyanthemos continues

One weekend recently, I went to Norwood.  Well, really, I was deposited in this well heeled inner Eastern  suburb while my beloved went on a mission further from home, with a plan for collecting me on her way back.  The idea was that I would look for a birthday present for my Mum.  I had a few other goals in mind that involved the very nice bookshop there and a bit of random wandering.

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At some stage I decided a gelati would be perfect, as you do, given the chance.  So, gelati in hand, I wandered away from the main road and down a side street to see what I could see.  There on a bank sloping down to an unlovely carpark were some glorious sheoaks and some not-so-common eucalypts.  To me they seemed like plausible instances of E Polyanthemos, but the tallest I had ever seen.

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The evidence there had been many-anthers was all over the ground.  I think my eyes were caught by the fluttering of somewhat oval leaves in the breeze.

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Before long I was climbing the bank and dodging the cars.  Some of the trees had been cut and had re-sprouted with juvenile leaves that were almost round, and quite large.  My manual (Holliday and Watton’s Gardener’s Companion to Eucalypts) says ‘The juvenile leaves are blue and almost circular, the apex notched.’  Round, yes.  Blue, yes.  Notched?

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One thing led to another, as it so often does (well, in my case)… so I picked a small sample and tucked it in my bag.

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After a long walk and as much shopping as I could take, I sat myself down at a bus stop and waited for the return of my beloved.

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This morning I unwrapped the resulting bundle… very pleasing.

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And another from the same pot… which is a little greener than the picture suggests…

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And now for today’s completely gratuitous flower picture. This poppy is a completely different colour from any of its predecessors.  You have to love nature, and the frolicsomeness of bees rolling around in pollen…

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November 5, 2014 · 12:14 pm

Solace

India Flint posted some time ago about a new project of hers called Solace.  It speaks to lots of issues I think about a good deal.  Holding tough issues like climate change in my mind a lot, I found the concept of solace as a companion on that path a piece of genius.  She has asked for participants to make flags that could form part of an installation: ‘a collective impromptu poem, recorded on cloth, to sing in the winds’.  I love this idea too.  I pitched it to a group of friends who meet to figure out what we might be able to do about climate change.  We were thinking about despair and discouragement and how to respond to these things, and Solace seemed like one way to me.

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I packed my threads and other necessaries (and dinner…).  The core concept is to create a triangular flag (pennon) with a word or words stitched on it–so we needed thread and cloth.

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I also packed fabrics to share around… this one is a print of an extremely fine-leaved native she-oak… and sadly I wrote its name down in a very special secret place I cannot find now…

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This print resulted from a tip India gave me at her workshop.  It was so exciting when I unwrapped this bundle it is hard to believe months have passed without my having another attempt at that glorious green!  My dear friend took this piece of fabric home with some marigold-dyed thread for him to finish later.  There are some others in development too…

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This one is a print from a friend’s pecan leaves.  India proposes: ‘Stitch on it a word or a phrase or a sentence that might act as a wish for peace or an acknowledgement of beauty, imply a sense of stillness or simply something that  gives you solace. It can be as brief or as long as you like. A haiku, a snatch of song, a word that takes you where you want to be.’

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Now for the confession.  I can’t quite believe that I managed to take my eye off the rather simple instructions and make these shapes and not triangular flags as requested. Do not follow my example in this respect!  I am not sure how I’ve become so forgetful, or so bad at following instructions!

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I will either have to make some more–which I might do anyway for sheer pleasure and participation’s sake–and keep these ones at home–or just send these and hope that they will be OK in a crowd of triangles.  Perhaps with some triangular pennons for company.

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So… there is my start on joining in Solace for now. Anyone else participating?

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October 15, 2014 · 4:22 pm

Quilt border dyeing

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I came into a lot of fabric and various other items from a friend’s mother a while back, as some of you might remember.  Most of it I found happy homes for among friends and their connections, and through the Guild.  However, I did keep all the calico and other forms of plain, undyed natural fibre fabrics.  There was cotton sheeting, parts of calico sacks, pieces of cotton fabric from which some item or other had been cut, and some small pieces of linen that  might have been intended for embroidery.  There was one piece of raw silk, too, I  believe.  The cottons joined the other fabrics that have been queued up for the soybean bath.

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I have also been re-mordanting fabrics that didn’t turn out as I had hoped, and some that I mordanted with tannin to no especially good effect in the past. Here is one such piece of cloth before dyepot.

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I kept remembering India Flint’s wonderful statement at the workshop I went to.  Perhaps I am quoting freely, but it went something like : ‘Everything will be beautiful when it’s finished. And if it isn’t beautiful, it isn’t finished.’  So all manner of things hit the bucket, and then the dye pot.  Others are still waiting.

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I think these fabrics will make a good quilt border, and hopefully I now have enough to get all the way around my quilt.

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Even the over-dyed or previously tannin-mordanted fabrics came out more interesting than they went in.  I think they will make good binding for the quilt.  They should tone in nicely but offer some contrast.  Recent measurements indicate that I have more than enough so…. no excuses, it must be time to assemble this thing!

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October 2, 2014 · 3:47 pm

Quilt progress!

The sashing has all been attached to my quilt. I am being a dog aunty, looking  after a friend’s dog for a month.  She wants to help with everything, but especially if it involves food.  Sometimes you just have to check whether there might be food involved.  Other times, rolling on the floor is essential and apparently the quilt doesn’t stand out a special part of the floor.  I have a new appreciation of all those for sale ads on Ravelry that mention pet free homes.  I don’t think I knew one animal could lose so much hair.

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Luckily she is cheerful and good natured.  She has been making friends all round the neighbourhood and leaves our hens alone.  So, I’ve gone from this…

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To this…

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At this point I cut out the border and discovered that I did not, in fact, have enough cotton  eco printed and ready to go.  So there has been some unsuccessful bundling followed by a fresh round of mordanting processes.  The pile looked so big… but some of it is made of fabrics that won’t be a good match… so there will just have to be more dyeing.  Colour me not too sad about this!

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