Easter Antics



There are no less than nineteen of us gathered at my parents house over these few days...the entire family under one roof!

 Blessed by mild weather we have feasted and frolicked. And lucky for me there's been much creativity : ) in the great company of my nieces and nephews..

I was inspired by the children's eggs at kindergarten to colour these eggs with the smallies, using wet crepe paper. So simple and fun for even the smallest of hands.

But this year I have surely found my all-time favourite way of colouring eggs.
With onion skins : ) 

I've really enjoyed dyeing fleece and silk this way in this past. But doing this with the bigger children and the excitement and mystery of seeing the lovely results, really lit up my little world this Easter Sunday.

We gathered flowers and foliage from Nana & Papa's garden  and made little egg parcels to cook, using both white and red onion skins. Inspired by this tutorial over at Ulicam. I can certainly imagine this becoming an annual ritual now. The only shame was that I could not find any white eggs...on which the effect of both of these projects would have been far greater.

 I'm very in love with these little nature paintings : )

I will be back in a few days 

with more makings and doings from our stay ; )

I hope you've had a wonderful Eastertime x M

Finished!

I've been craving the chance to finish this piece. I was waiting for two clear days, the first one solitary so I could lay out surface detail. I usually strive to do this part without distraction. Well, I gave up on that idea and just got on with it. Bit of chaos in my living room but no-one got hurt ; ) I've felted much bigger pieces than this in the past so I don't know why this was a bit overwhelming...something to do with felting in the round and the delicateness of that early stage.

 I cannot tell you what a stretch this was for me in terms of confidence. I wouldn't ordinarily dream of attempting to make a garment. I gleefully worked without a pattern and wondered how on earth I would get it to fit me. You can see in my last post how much it needed to shrink. But watch out, it happens fast in the end! At one stage when I unrolled it and shrinkage was 'live and happening', my watching boy said matter-of-factly 'It's definitely not going to fit you...That would fit me Mommy.' And I did wonder, it looked mighty small indeed compared to the giant dress of the day before. But alas all was well, I laid an old dress of mine on top and the sizing seemed close.

 The felting happened effortlessly, the patches of pre-felt literally seemed to melt into each other. I'm quite smitten with this method of building a nuno-felted piece. I worked the piece inside out for quite a while in the beginning, so there were some magical surprises when I turned it right side out and saw all that happened and changed. The best part : ) despite parched hands and sore muscles.

                                                                      

The final rinse...and that orange-peel texture that tells me I'm done.

My longtime friend Catherine, a feltmaker herself, happened to come through for the night when I was just finishing this off, so I asked her to give it a whirl. It was fantastic to see it on someone else, and boy doesn't she wear it well..?

I haven't decided yet whether this one's a keeper or whether I'll list it for sale in my upcoming Etsy shop. It shall be known hereafter as the dingle dress : )
There are two things I'm most excited about in the end. I can make clothes now, without the need for sewing machines or patterns. If I could make one garment this way for each of us in the house over this next year, I'd be thrilled. Both lads have ordered waistcoats ; ) And, if Jenny and I could begin to teach others how to make wearable felt, imagine the possibilities and the joy of seeing what people come up with! Thanks to sunny Catherine and thank you for reading.

Giant Celtic Dress

A bunch of you have been asking me if I've finished the Nuno Felted garment I made at Pam De Groot's masterclass in Dingle...Would you believe the answer is still 'not yet!' I'm chomping at the bit to finish it, but am short on time. In the meantime, here's a sneak preview. Do bear in mind that it's in the pre-felt stage, and based on about 40% shrinkage hereafter. The story so far...

Using the finest materials of pure silk and wool, practically everything started out white...and our first day was spent in the dye kitchen, concocting and dipping, binding and clamping. All new to me. It harks back to the tie-dyeing of the 70's, but has evolved into the more sophisticated 'Shibori' techniques. In an earlier post I pondered our weird and wonderful materials list for the workshop, well, mystery unveiled, these were all objects for use in resist dyeing. I'm more of a wooden clothes pegs and conkers kind of girl, though I did also use mini Cd's to create the effect you see above in the green silk line-drying. Love it! We ducked in and out to the clothes line, between showers. A great bunch of women to create amongst, with a warm-hearted trading of materials and ideas.


Our second day was spent making sheets of pre-felt. To cut these up and re assemble them with hand stitching, in the spirit of Pam's mosaic felting technique
seemed a novel idea to me. It would have been lovely to get into that therapeutic space of sewing carefully but alas, speed stitching was the order of the day ; ) I used different threads in different places, Pam saying it could be removed afterwards or not. I've come to love the folk art style of visible stitching so I plan to leave mine. Pam's pieces of wearable art that she brought to share with students were absolutely awe-inspiring. I was especially struck by the natural dyeing she'd done using her native eucalyptus. She hails from Austrailia and was teaching feltmakers dotted around Europe for six weeks. We were honoured indeed. All thanks to Sharon of Handmade Sessions.
Somehow we managed to burn the midnight oil despite minimal sleep, as the youth at our hostel partied into the wee hours, and beyond! I felt as though I was making a patchwork dress for some celtic giantess. Difficult to imagine how a couple of days hard labour will transform it into a tunic that fits...but every now and then whilst stitching, I got glimpses of a dream-like garment one could float around the landscape in : )

And now the work of felting begins. And if I wasn't daunted before, I sure am now! But I will be back, hopefully wearing this.

Thank you for reading, and thanks to my dear Aunt Marth for taking these later photos. Can I say how lovely it was to have a visitor who was so genuinely interested in the work, who wanted to savour every detail and as you can see, she did : )