The basket weaving mania continues! Now I'm combining my love of natural dyeing with basket weaving by dyeing the raffia I'm using with things I can find in my kitchen cupboard. I read about using tea bags as a natural dye in Rebecca Desnos' book, Botanical Colour at Your Fingertips.... Read more →

Once I had finished carving the letter opener I stared way back in January (can you believe it's April already?) I need to protect the wood with a nice polish. I bet you know what's coming. That's right, I made the polish myself! And in a real breakthrough for me,... Read more →

I was so happy to get back to the Darebin Parklands recently so that I could forage eucalyptus leaves for natural dyeing. When I was last there, I'd seen some gorgeous gum leaves on the ground that were all mottled and multi-coloured. I'm not sure why they drop from the... Read more →

My recent eco-dyeing adventure taught me that rust is good. It leaves the most amazing marks and impressions on fabric when you're close contact printing. And I'm sure the rusty metal contributes its own properties to the dye pot, changing the colours of the plants used for dyeing. I'd always... Read more →

I finally made time to pre mordant my organic cotton scarves. You might remember I had a go a little while ago and got it wrong. When you're dyeing fabric it's a case of opposites attract. Protein fibres like wool and silk dye beautifully with cellulose materials such as leaves,... Read more →

Combining hobbies is a passion of mine. Dyeing wool with flowers from the weed known as sour grass or oxalis happily combines nature, foraging, dyeing and eventually knitting or crochet. There's something so satisfying about delving deeper into the process of making and creating your own unique materials to craft... Read more →

You may remember that a while ago I posted about eco-dyeing some organic cotton scarves. They were meant to be Christmas gifts but time got away from me and then it started to seem too hard. The good news is that I finally got around to dyeing them. It was... Read more →

I thought I'd celebrate my return to blogging with a bit of a spring clean of the old blog. I've had a ball of wool as my favicon for a while now but haven't knitted in an awfully long time. It was time to change it to something new. No... Read more →

It feels so good to be back in the kitchen. It really feels like the heart of my home and I am so happy when I am making delicious and nutritious food for my family to eat. I love making things myself. Instead of buying little jars of pesto and... Read more →

Hello! It's so nice to be back here, blogging again. Hope you've been well :) There's a definite chill in the air. A couple of weeks ago it even got to -1 C here in Melbourne overnight. The colder weather has got me making and writing again. It has even... Read more →