The Progress of a Square

The squares are made with fine wool on a size 2.00 hook, so I will need to make quite a few if anything is to become of them.

Each one is a combination of the plant dyed wool and some of the original natural colours.

Left Overs.

Having made a few dye baths recently I had several pots of dye left over, with some life still left in them, so I dyed a few skeins. I put skeins in the logwood bath and left them for a few hours or over night without heating them.
What was left of the walnut hulls and the alkanet made a very nice grey.
The yellows are a mixture of weld, dandelions and fustic.

Tiny Books and Cards

I have been making more little books and cards with pressed flowers. It is a good idea to have quite a few handmade things in stock in the event of a craft fair or sale of work.

These are cards which are like the books but only have one page inside.

They are made of tea stained paper and the end papers from old broken books.

Logwood

Recently I was asked to dye some woollen cloth for someone who is making a garment for the Cambrian Wool Challenge. Logwood was the colour he chose and for this task my giant saucepan was needed as some of the pieces of fabric were quite large.

 

I look forward to seeing how the finished garment looks.

Workshops

 This year I will be facilitating Natural Dye and Cyanotype workshops with Make it in Wales.
On Saturday 28th. March I took samples of dyed wool and some of my cyanotypes to the launch of the company in Aberporth. I met the other facilitators who will be sharing a variety of skills from jewelry making, sewing and tapestry to macine knitting, weaving, paper folding, photography and more.

The launch was open to the public and there were taster sessions for people who wanted to have a go at some of the activities.
It was a lovely day and so inspiring. Many of the courses, which will be daytime or residential, will take place in the beautiful Bryn Berwyn Country House.

I crocheted squares from some of the yarn which I recently dyed. I felt that this gave the wool a context and meant that I had more than just samples to display and talk about.

Here are a few images taken on the day by Suzi Park.

 

Metamorphosis and Otherworlds

We have a show at Ysgol Celf Caerfyrddin (Carmarthen School of Art). It is a group ehibition by some of the staff and students called Metamorphosis and Otherworlds. It is running in tandem with another show, Thin Place, at Oriel Myrddin .

Tracy Young

Peter Spriggs and Jonathan Cox

For this show I have created twenty cyanotypes of plants that are believed to be protective against evil. Traditionally they were hung as garlands or draped on window sills to keep the inhabitants safe.

All the plants which I photographed grow in or near to my home and I could have included more but it was getting quite late in the year so I missed some of them. Luckily I already had a few images, like the Foxgloves and Herb Robert, that were suitable for the purpose.

Most of the work which I now make involves investigating my home, its wildlife and its history.

When restoring and repairing parts of our house we found iron under every threshold, red wool thread in a wall and a very old shoe on the chimney. This is what prompted me to look at ideas and objects associated with safeguarding the home from unseen malevolent forces. The iron, the red wool and the shoe survived reasonably intact as evidence of these beliefs, their pressence thought to have a long term effect. The fragile nature of plants, however, would have required fairly frequent renewal, perhaps at set times of the year and on occasions like the birth of a child.

The exhibition is interesting and diverse and I hope to take some more photos next week.

More Cyanotypes

When we first moved into our home 42 years ago we found a large pile of discarded bottles in the top corner of the half acre of garden. This place used to be a small farm and was first built at least 200 years ago so some of the bottles, most of which are broken, are very old.

For a long time I have wanted to make a record of each bottle and prompted by an idea which I had for an exhibition I finally got around to making cyanotypes of some of the bottles. As you can see from the tomato ketchup bottle, I have included some which were in recent use as we are also part of the history of this place.

I have made some of the cyanotypes into books for an exhibition at Le Porte Peinte Centre Pour Les Arts in France.

The images are stitched onto tea stained paper. Guessing at the possible contents of each bottle I created cyanotype words in Cymraeg (Welsh).