Passing days…

… here in Perth have gone quickly.

The weather has decidedly turned to fall with a crisp, cool note in the air. We had a lovely day of rain on Sunday that filled the water tanks.

Two days of mud play with 14 lovely ladies resulted in some marvelous work accomplished. Since Perth is predominantly on sand, some creative collecting was necessary to have mud/dirt that was suitable to use. Wound up with some really lovely colors.

On Monday Wendy, owner of the big copper pot, arrived. We filled both the copper and stainless steel/rusty nail pots with cold rainwater, kept a fire going under each pot and had 17 pieces in each pot by the time we were done bundling. Some did go into pots as free and easy cloth, no wrapping involved.

Tuesday was the grand opening of the bundles. The copper pot did well – a nice reddy brown achieved with the addition of eucalyptus tree bark in the yard. The stainless steel pot did super dark stuff as it had been sitting almost a week with things rotting in the pot’s water.

Still not getting many actual leaf prints, but the colors we are getting are lovely. The currajong seeds left a very yellow little spot! Pics will be posted, just not sure when.

Martien and I leave for Lake Grace early tomorrow morning. Will be doing mud and gut workshops there, too. The social scene in the evenings sound really grand: local pub for fish and chips on Friday and watching the local thespians produce Harry Potter and the Terrible Ripoff on Saturday. Can’t wait!

And I will be wearing my newest op shop rearrangement to the play!

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Detail of the top half of the garment – made from the polyester lining of a silk dress that Martien is using plus a tan silk blouse that I found. Rather stylish overall!

Play day

Had a great day yesterday (Wednesday) introducing Perthians/Perthites? to the fun of working with sausage casing. Some really nice items were developed – will post a block of pics on my flickr page at some point, but not today.

Today was spent chillin’ at home, catching up on emails and finances, gathering more olives off the ground, giving Martien a hard time, walking around the block, bundling more op shop clothes. Here are pics of the olives, currajong and lemon gum that I used:

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And here are the lovely things ripening on the back yard:

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Perth adventures

If I wait any longer to write in the hopes of getting pics up first, you might never hear from me! Multiple pics seem to undo me, so…

Perth is quite lovely, weather, location and people. Martien and Geri have fully welcomed me into their home, along with the ever present Clementine.

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We’ve been full swing into the Easter holidays here since my arrival last Thursday. Friday was the annual Pétanque tournament – didn’t win but also did not come in dead last! The best part of the tourney held along the Swan River, besides the great group of friends that I became part of for the day, was the numerous stoppings for tea and lunch and more tea. (Tea here means a whole lot more than just something to drink!)

A good part of Saturday was spent op shopping (think Goodwill and St Vincent shops) for items to be used in natural dyeing and/or mudcloth.

Sunday saw us enjoying Kings Park as well as a park further east on the Swan River where we also did our bit to keep fires to a minimum by gathering up various leaves and plant material.

Monday Martien got the fire going under a large stainless steel roaster and, after some rolling and tying of cloth/plant material/sticks, we gave the whole bit a go in hot rusty nail water for several hours. Patient waiting overnight before checking on the outcomes.

This morning held a bit of crisp chill in the air; it has warmed up very nicely. Our bundles have been unwrapped and magic has happened

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We will do more dyeing next Monday when Wendy comes over. ITMT, casing calls as we prep for the class tomorrow.

Posting pics will happen, just not promising when!

Woo Hoo!

I beat out the snow showers yesterday by cooking up some contact dyed clothing on Monday. Unbundled them yesterday and am loving the results! Still need to be rinsed/washed.
The real surprise came from the avocado skins and seeds. Normally I get a nice green from the skins and a salmon color from the cut seeds. This time – blue with just a hint of salmon! Thinking it might have something to do with the egg whites I dipped everything in, but that is not clear just yet.
I so love the magic and surprise in the dye pot!

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Get ready…

… For a fabulous adventure! I will be heading down under early next month for three very full months of teaching, traveling and time with friends.

The piles are growing of things I need and want to take along. Making sure it all fits and comes in within the weight limit will be a trick!

My hope is to keep this blog updated regularly during my travels…. Time will tell!