Thinking

I may not be around for a while as I am going through the process of working out in which direction to go with my next two exhibitions, so a bit of brain time is necessary.
This is the quiet time of the year followed by the solstice and other festivities and the awakening of the earth though with the mild weather we have been having there are already signs of these. Seasons greetings to all.

Quarry Exhibition

Cards in progress

Sinclair Taylor

Stephanie Wooster

Vici Campbell

Joan Hall and Helen Nock

Gail Darke and Linda Haile

Linda Haile

Debbie Pawle, Gail Darke, Simon Taylor

My stand

Jack Hicks

Gail Darke, Simon Taylor and Emma Lomax

Sorry if I have omitted any names, but I think that is everybody. Some amazing and unusual work here. There are some more images on my fb page: www.facebook.com/debbie.weaver.1884
and details of opening times etc on the poster.

Eco printing/dyeing - some thoughts

Recently I have been slightly disappointed with the results of my eco printing especially compared to many of the results I have seen on fb and other blogs where the results are amazing with beautiful colours and prints. It seems many practitioners are now using iron blankets, iron water or ferrous sulphate. I am not criticising the use of these I am partial to using a little iron water now and again.  However I am not sure that I would want to use these in my practice when I am dyeing a wearable item, which is the direction I am moving towards. I wouldn't want to wear something against my skin that had been in contact with iron.
I guess I will to have keep to my subtle colours, which I do like, or move to Australia.
If there is anybody out there who achieves amazing prints and colours without using anything other than plant material I would love to know your secrets.

In the meantime 2 and other stuff

For some reason these didn't upload off my camera last time, first three are of fungi growing in the garden.
I have also had info sent to me by blogger about stuff I don't really understand so can you let me know if you are having any problems seeing my blog

In the meantime

 At the moment I am busy dyeing scarves and weaving more pebble hangings for the christmas open at Weston quarry. In the meantime a few pictures of autumn colour from the garden. These photos haven't really picked up the colours properly.

Sorbus and winter jasmine

Rose hips and nameless shrub

Continus with paperbark maple in front

Cotinus, many of the fallen leaves are now in the dyepot

Open studio

 I have been dyeing scarves for my studio opening, woad and pomegranate.

Eco dyed clothes and cushions

 Some photos from the studio opening, last day tomorrow.

Liz Hewitt, eco dyed and indigo dyed scarves

And a small piece of weaving, working towards future exhibitions now.

South West Textile Group at Westonbirt

Skirt, top and scarf

This is my piece for the SWTG exhibition at Westonbirt Arboretum which opens today from 10 until 4 finishing on 20th of this month.
 I have seen some of the other work being displayed and it looks like its well worth a visit. See their website for general information http://www.forestry.gov.uk/westonbirt

Indigo

After my last experiments with indigo dyeing I wanted to try direct printing with the plant.  I am quite pleased with the results, but they are more faded than I would have liked so I need to work out how to get more intense colour. Its all experimental as I don't really know what I should be doing. If anybody out there is also trying this I would be interested in their methods. I bundled mine in the usual way and then put them in a pot with a fairly gentle heat for about two hours, it took a while before any colour came through. My friend Liz has also been dyeing with the plant so I am looking forward to seeing how she did.

Blouse dyed from previous indigo dyeing session
with leaf printing round hem

Hem

Plant dyed silk noil

Love the colours just need to be more intense

Puzzle Wood

Not much writing or much else going on at the moment. Visited the Puzzle Wood in the Forest of Dean a couple of weeks ago with my Mum. A bit dark for photos but here are a couple, a truly magical place. I hope you can get some idea from these. It has loads of pathways and 200 steps and was used as an iron workings. The landscape is partly natural and partly human made. It covers 14 acres and took us about an hour to get round at a leisurely pace. We saw a shrew and heard lots of rustlings. You can imagine fairy's living here.

Followers

I have a couple of new followers but no details if you have your own blogs I would love to be able to have a look.

So excited

View from the Shore

I have just had this piece selected for the exhibition 'Threads' at Salisbury Arts Centre on from 1st October to the 12 November. The selection panel were
 Polly Leonard, Founder and Editor of Selvedge Magazine, Michael Brennand-Wood, Textile Artist, Lecturer and Arts Consultant and Louise Evans, Visual Arts Manager, Salisbury Arts Centre. 

Saved

Tie dye organic cotton scarf

Rescued by my friend Liz who just happened to have an indigo kit. We had a fun day despite choosing the only day of the week when we had rain, so controlling the temperature was difficult.
I also dyed some papers the next day. The indigo was by then exhausted and although I got good results on the paper the fabrics only came out the palest blue.

I have also been dyeing a few silk scarves with plants from the garden.

On its third dye, looks better now, was
very nondescript before its indigo dip.

Very pale and pretty, garden flowers overdyed
with indigo

This one is also an overdye

A bit of a hippy top

Silk scarf, leaves and rusty pole

Dyed with horsetail and garden flowers