We had Katherine from Blooms Endless Summer and her husband visiting our holiday place for the weekend and we thought we would do a spot of natural dyeing using some donated tablecloth scraps. Whilst the fabric was mordanting we went foraging in the bush for interesting shapes – think Banksia leaves and kangaroo paw flowers, […]
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Having had Fibres West 2021 cancelled due to WeStern Australia going into lockdown, the 2023 conference was so much more special. I enrolled in an Introduction to Mordant Printing and Natural Dyeing course with Julie Ryder from Canberra and it did not disappoint. I am quite slapdash when it comes to mordanting but I now […]
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As in Mary Quant-ified! I came home from my holidays keen to make another Fibremood Zita to fill a gap in my wardrobe for when it’s very hot. I spent hours dragging stuff out of my stash to find the very fabric I wanted. I began with some unevenly onion skin dyed cotton, but didn’t […]
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I saw the MILAN AV-JC zero waste trousers advertised and fell a bit in love with them. They have a paper bag waist which does absolutely nothing for my waistless body, but I couldn’t resist. By the way, the black bits on these are the belt loops – so cool! The pattern says to use a […]
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Quite nice alliteration in the title, which makes me happy. Thanks to Wendy from Corramook Cranky Socks and Karen from CSMLove, I feel mastery of my vintage Imperia circular sock machine is within my grasp. Low level mastery – I’m not getting ahead of myself here! I think a big difference was made when (coach) […]
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It’s Natural November on Magamsewalong over on Instagram, so I thought I’d make a top as naturally as I could. I made the Closet Core Patterns Cielo top for the first time. In this iteration it’s very similar to other patterns I own, and I would have liked a fancier sleeve but didn’t have enough […]
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In July I was lucky enough to do an eco-dyeing workshop with Penny Jewel, organised by WAFTA. It was just for protein fibres which are easier to dye than cellulose, but I wanted to improve my dyeing outcomes and I learned an enormous amount. Much of the fabric was provided and this shirt came from […]
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I have still got quite a lot of my naturally dyed yarn, so I began making more circles, more or less as a way of learning to crochet different textures and patterns. Before I knew where I was I was making myself a vest and thought I’d experiment with scrumbling a whole garment. Several people […]
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It’s that time of the year in Perth where the Oxalis, also known as sour grass and soursob, is everywhere. it’s an invasive weed so no-one minds when I collect it from verges and public places. This is me, after a swim, helping myself to oxalis near the pool. And this is how I extract […]
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We’ve had a top sheet that kept ripping across the top, and I dutifully repaired it each time. The first time I French seamed it so it would feel nice, the second time I overlocked it, and the third time I didn’t bother sewing the torn off strip back on, simply hemming it. However the […]
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