Dungeness

 We have just got back from a few days in Dungeness, Kent. This is a unique area that has something like 30 per cent of our native flora, the whole area is a nature reserve, and yes it does also have a nuclear power station. I fell in love with it at first sight though I do realise that miles of shingle may not be everybody's cup of tea.
The photos are just a small selection of the ones I took just to give a flavour of the area. It is also rust heaven. Its just laying about everywhere and there are loads of rusty old boat winches at intervals along the beach.

Sea cabbage 

Tracks from the lifeboat cradle

This is still an active fishing area

Derek Jarmans house

The tradional houses are more like overgrown sheds and would have belonged to the fishermen. They are mostly painted black and there are still some beautiful modern versions with picture windows being constructed. This one belonged to Derek Jarman the film producer, he made a beautiful garden which the current residents are keeping up. Most of the houses don't have boundary lines so it is difficult to know if are intruding on to somebody's land but some of the other gardens are very attractive, hard to acheive in such a hostile landscape.

Proud Mum

If you have been watching The Mill on Channel 4 in the UK or are interested in industrial history or textiles watch The Real Mill on More4 at 9pm tonight. I am shamelessly promoting this as my son was involved in the making of it.
He also has two films showing at the Venice Film Festival next week.

I think its over

Rust on silk

Detail

You may have noticed that I work in bouts of activity. I think this one may be over. I have finished all my little projects and probably will be having a break from dyeing experiments.











I will be working in the background on various on going projects but may not be blogging for a little while.

Dyeing yarn

Well who would have guessed that dead buddleia heads would produce this beautiful mustard yellow.

from left to right silk, white wool, the thread that India Flint uses, off white wool and off white silk no mordant was used. 

The recipe for this came from Jenny Dean's new book, A Heritage of Colour.

 I haven't washed to yarns yet so they may lighten also they are not very evenly dyed as I had too much stuff in the dye pot but I don't mind that.

A little something I have also been working on.

Wall with ivy

Close up

Close up

Evening sewing with various scraps, gifted, dyeing experiments and old clothes. The ivy is cut from a favourite skirt that literally fell to pieces.

Woven cloth sampler

Sampler of cloth weaving techniques from
 Jude's class

Close up

Close up

I tried to post two of these on the Forum over at Jude's but they wouldn't send, to big for my email I think, so anyway now they are here.
I had fun doing this though didn't have an embroirdery hoop so the thread weaving is a bit wonky.
I may even get round to turning it into a cushion cover one of these days.

Some more results from our fun day.

Rose leaves and fushia flowers in silk

Top wallflowers and onion skins, left wallflowers in copper bath
right euculyptus print overdyed with wallflowers in copper bath

detail wallflowers on silk

detail euculytus overdyed with wallflowers on silk

all of the above metal objects bundled with day lilies in wool

Not bad results from the bundling, very pleased with the wallflowers, you can't really see the full effect from the photos, these have not been washed yet but if the colour holds I think my flowerbeds may be full of wallflowers next year. These were frozen, the original colour was a very dark red, which turned purple when bundled and predominately green when cooked, interesting.

and some rust dyeing as well

hearts

houses and a moon?

One rusty piece is still in the garden, the cloth was soaked in salt water and then brushed with tea once bound up, put in a plastic bag and left outside for a week. They have all been hand washed, even the paper, Khadi paper is very strong.
These are odd small remnants of cotton.