Dyeing with Nature

The kids have been back at school for nearly two weeks now. Over the holidays I did very little craft wise, so it took me a while to get back into the swing of felting again, but this week has been much more productive than last week. I have been experimenting with my natural dye kit that I bought from DT craft and design at woolfest. I decided it would be easier to felt items first then dye, rather than dye the wool tops. Here are some of my pieces, which are slowly making their way to etsy and folksy. I love the fact that you're never quite sure how they will turn out, it makes the process much more fun.

Dyed with teal (and some left over logwood)

Dyed with logwood

I did some more flowers today using madder, they have a real autumnal feel to them. As soon as they've finished I'll share them with you.

And here's something I've been meaning to blog about for a while. Do you remember this top I made on Charity Musoma Van der Meer's workshop, well I made a similar one for my daughter in lilac. She wore it to her leaver's disco (she's just moved up to Junior school).

Woolfest 2009

Woolfest was fantasic, we were blessed with good weather, which was just as well as we were camping. I met lots of lovely people (so nice to meet others who share your obsession with wool), saw lots of beautiful inspiring things and spent a little money as well. Business wise, it's been my best year so far, I think my concentration on branding has paid off as the stall looked a lot more professional than previous years. Here's a few pictures:

There I am wearing my top / dress that I made on Charity Musoma Van der Meer's workshop the week before. It was a two day workshop organised by the IFA, I really enjoyed it and came away all inspired. I wore my top both days at woolfest and although it was very warm I did not feel uncomfortable in it. It is made from silk chiffon and super fine merino wool (one layer). I've just made a similar one for my daughter that I am going to dye purple, and then I'm going to have a go at making myself a skirt.

Right, I must go and do some work now so I can take a break to watch Andy Murray play at Wimbledon, I'll leave you with a few more pictures from Woolfest.