Wild Women Textile Arts Group

Hi wild women! I'm about to embark in doing some dyeing with eucalypt leaves (and possibly bark). There are quite a few eucalypts in nearby parks and when it's cooler I'll go collecting. As a complete babe in the woods with this eco-dyeing world, the whole mordant thing has been a bit of a mystery to me. I found this great article by Sally Blake and it really helped! Here is the link https://sallyblake.com/eucalyptus-dyes-1/ Hope you find it interesting and helpful too! Carolyn

While most of our attention yesterday was focused around Pat's Free Machine Embroidery workshop we did have some Show & Tell items display:  Eileen modelled her exquisite capelet from  Svenja's Precious Fragments wokshop  in November   A number of people brought in their work from last week's Eco-dying workshop with Wendi Trulson - please remember to upload your photo's to the shared album Here is the March progress shot for Caroline, Helen, Maggie and Leona's 1 Year of Stitches 2017 challenge contributions

A huge thank you to the amazing Pat Skene for leading us through the workshop today - we had so much fun, while picking up lots of practical hints and tips. We all worked through a series of warm up exercises, which I found invaluable having never tried free machining before. Strange how the circles seemed to come so much easier than the straight lines! Click on the image to see other photos from the workshop Pat's stunning jackets and sample pieces were such an inspiration. Such exquisite examples of appliqué, cutout work, reverse appliqué, cable work, stifling, etc.  Looking forward to seeing how we individually interpret and utilise these techniques in our own work over the coming months. I have created a shared album of photos from the day which you can access here or by clicking the photo above - please feel free to upload your own photos from the workshop.

Hi Wild Women For those of us fortunate to participate in the Eco dyeing workshop today, give this a try. Hold your paper accordion up to the light. What do you see?  Here's the amazing volcanic lava glow on my pages. The eucalypt leaves and dollar leaf gum leaves provide a visual splendor. Light shade material?

What a fabulous day we had with Wendi Trulson today!  Inspired by our gorgeous surroundings (thank you Helen and John for hosting us in your beautiful home) we all came away with some stunning examples of eco dyeing.  We learnt to dye with tea and rust, made a sandwich of leaves, paper and cloth, and create our own personal time capsules of colour in a jar - which Wendi has challenged us not to open for a year!!