Needle felted darning

I came across a great idea for darning holes via a wonderful dutch designer Heleen Klopper and I've been actively seeking out holy woolly garments to mend ever since. You can buy her packs of wool tops and needles from the totally brilliant Third Draw Down design shop in Fitzroy, Melbourne. However since my house is brimming with the fluffy stuff I have been darning to my hearts content.

This is a little woollen top that I have had since I was about 12 years old, I still remember the shopping trip with my mum to buy it. I've almost worn it to death and the moths have tried to consume it over the years but I've managed to save it from the scrap heap. It's felted over the years and too small for me now but I might cut it up and make a little kids waistcoat with it, we'll see.

 

I like the random placement of holes, if I was embellishing it purposefully I don't think I could have come up with this pattern. There are about 32 moth holes in this. Someone's had a feast.

 

Here is another. I felted this old jumper, darned it and cut it up to make this little waistcoat for a 2-5 year old.

I'm back

Well finally the dust is settling. We have made our move to Melbourne and things are starting to find a bit of rhythm. We're expecting a new baby in July, have set up a lovely new home and have begun tapping into the creative Melbourne scene. There has been much making since my last post and I hope to find the time to post a little more regularly.

I have a new Melbourne business selling some beautiful organic Merino wool clothing from Germany alongside my handmade woolly items for babies and children. http://www.woollykins.com.au


I just love Disana clothing, they are such a wonderfully ethical company with affordable and totally natural and colourful clothing for children, I simply had to bring it to Australia because I couldn't find anything so adorable here.

It's getting cold here in Melbourne and so I've been making some additional woolly pieces for children out of some wonderful offcuts of Welsh woven wool blankets. They are small pieces but just enough for a cute but smart and warm waistcoat for a little one.

 

My winter toddler pantaloons are made from some beautiful 100% worsted wool suiting fabric that I picked up at a London carboot sale on a recent visit back to the UK. I just wish I had more time, I'd make pantaloons all day long, they are so popular on Etsy.

 

Since we're expecting a new winter baby in July there has been a bit of baby knitting going on of late so I'll post some photos of these too soon. Who doesn't love miniature knitwear!

Eco Dyeing Normandy

On a recent trip to Normandy we did a little natural dyeing, Eco-Colour style with locally sourced fabric, water, rust and plant matter. Not having yet got my hands on India Flint's beautiful book, we just experimented with the little knowledge I have picked up from the very inspiring and rapidly growing fan base of this wonderful and exhilarating method.

Being in quite idyllic surroundings in a sleepy village surrounded by flax fields called Malleville-les-Grés in Normandy, we couldn't help but photograph our experiments. Here's the (little) method in our madness...

 A trip to the local beach to collect the sea water for mordanting the fabric...

Then a walk to our local brocante to find linen and silk for dyeing...

Very pleased with our linen haul and we even found a silk scarf, most pieces only one or two euros! We also found some beautiful rusted objects that would have been wonderful for making rust prints. We got a couple of pieces of iron to add to the dye pot.

Soaking the fabric in the sea water... 

We left these soaking overnight. We didn't have enough time to dry them before wrapping the bundles so I'm not sure how effective the sea water mordanting would have been.

The next day we collected our plant matter. 

One bundle included this old rusty chain and padlock and a few Hydrangea leaves and a bunch of Rumex tops...

With little helpers we laid out hydrangea flowers on the silk scarf. 

It might have been setting oneself up for disappointment to make this look so pretty at this stage!

Wrapping the bundles in the rain. 

...all tied up

A large bolster cushion cover made from fine linen was opened out and this became a bit of a test piece where we laid out various wind fall including cherry leaves, some kind of spurge, beech, rose, rumex, a fern etc

The silk bundle and the linen test bundle were boiled in the filtered sea water in an aluminium pot...

A beautiful copper tinderbox...

The rust bundles of linen and leaves were boiled in filtered sea water in an aluminium pot separately. That lovely copper kettle was too nice to use but it made a nice prop! 

After two hours on the stove they then went outside like this to rest overnight. The water in the pot with only plant matter turned a deep red and the iron pot went a murky black.

The next day...

I wish I kept this red dyebath. I wonder which leaves mostly contributed to make this colour?

Opening the test piece. Not many of our chosen leaves did much here or were perhaps given enough time to do much anyway. 

But the fern made a vibrant green print... but sadly that soon after faded away. 

An embroidered linen cloth that was bundled with a small rusty chain and some hydrangea leaves

This was another embroidered linen cloth that had a few sprigs of the rumex in as well as a very rusty iron chain, rings and padlock. It revealed some lovely colours and patterns...

Lastly the silk scarf and the pretty hydrangeas....

Suprisingly the hydrangea all left their mark in quite a lovely blue. The orange flowers (not sure what these are called) left a very vibrant yellow print. 

The red/orange was from the dyebath and you can see the resist of the rope ties. 

We left them drying in the apple orchard...