Crochet Cushion in Purple

12 weeks ago I hand dyed some wool using purple carrots. When one dyes (that being me) one does not always have a purpose in mind. I love to potter and tinker with pots and plants and brew. I am always on the lookout for wool ball ends in the op shops...but have noticed lately that it is cheaper to buy a whole ball of natural wool when on special and then you are guaranteed no moths visiting with the wool.

Diving into my bag of dyed wool oddments  I decided to go with this pattern .

It was a pick up and put down ordeal, and progress was slow. (It doesn't help the creative side of me to function if I am working full time) 

So eventually we got to a stage of it being big enough for a cushion.

I started the edging following the pattern and did not like it, so instead made my own up.

This is the  underside (wrongside) of the crochet

 A closer look at the trim.

 And one completed cushion

Natural wool dyes in pomegranate, purple carrot, acorn, eucalyptus, and berries

Cushion for sale in shop

Stamping

I've been doing a little stamping today. I first tried to stamp white fabric ink on to a naturally dyed cotton but it just didn't get the definition of line that I was hoping for, so once it was dried I restamped with black to give a kind of echo effect. It kind of makes the mushroom pop out more. This is just a scrap that I was doing in between stamping a dozen mushroom bags for a friend.

Drying sheets stamped and ready to be set with heat of the iron. Thank goodness it is cooler today

Here is a pomegranate print made up into a pull string bag today, the pink fabric is also naturally dyed with same berries as the brown of the mushroom bags above. Its amazing the differences in colour extracted just a few weeks apart. Same material, same plant!

A here is a photo of my lovely chairs rejuvenated by my father. They make my other chairs look very ugly and make me  very desirous to find some more chairs like these. There is no staining on these chairs just natural wood and wax. I have been instructed to give them a couple more waxes to lift the shine and ensure it penetrates the wood to protect it. I love them!

Pomegranate stamp block

I've been waiting for my stamp book by Gennine to arrive and have been informed that it wont come until some time in November. Being the impatient type of person and having already bought myself a ezy carve stamp block I could wait no longer. I already had the tools for carving from my lino printing days and was expecting a similar type of effort to carve the block. May I say that it does carve like butter. Too easy. No sore wrists just lovely easy to carve block. All I need to do is get a finer carving tool to make more defined corners. Easy peasy!

 My pomegranate block. I'll need to work on a little more definition. I originally started carving this so I could print labels for my hand dyed scarves, but decided to do some fabric printing on some let  over hand dyed berry material my daughter used to make a hippy cape with.

Pretty happy with my start in fabric stamping.
Will make a larger printed piece of material later. It dried really quickly too.

Pomegranates

A little colouring fun after work. I'm still loving pomegranates. injected a little whimsy into the colouring but only a little. I'm thinking that I might have to be a little less constrained and become more fee flowing in my brush work, work with colour and not be so exacting. Exercise the brain and the mind by trying to do things differently.

Painted Beginnings

I decided to have a quick dash with the acrylic paints and start the pomegranates in colour.
This is what I have so far. I have to wait to layer the paint to build up some depth especially to the leaves.

Pomegranates

The completion of daylight savings hours has caused some disruption to my sleeping clock, as it does for many other people I imagine.

Last night I came home from work and really didn't want to settle down to bed straight away despite it being an  hour later than usual. So in old time it was already 11.20 pm and I'd only just gotten home from a shift of nursing. I scrubbed up and then settled into bed with cup of tea, thinking what can I do?

I pulled out my "new" book of Glorious Inspiration by Kaffe Fassett and decided to sketch the pomegranates that had caught my eye the day before. It was just a quick line sketch, mainly cross hatching, but effective in its own right.

I think I might try a wash of something similar and maybe make a series in differing techniques... maybe.

The original design is by Luca della Robbia (circa 1482)s. Trinitia, Florence.

and my quick sketch