Being ill and the importance of craft/art

Posted by Helen on the 1st of January ( but started on the 23rd)

I have been ill, unfortunately quite seriously ill. First I had week in bed after one trip to A & E and to the out of hours doctors service. with aching limbs and a high temperature while DH bought me beef tea which was all I could eat/drink and which has done wonders for my figure, I am now a new slimmed down smaller me.

However when feeling better I sat beside a roaring log fire made by loving DH and rediscovered my old love affair with crochet.

I used to do loads of free form crochet which I always think is painting with stitch, and had a tunic "Fire in the Rain Forest" accepted by the Millennium touring exhibition of the Weavers Spinner s and Dyers in 2000. Not many people saw it as for some reason the way they displayed it all sorts of little ends appeared and it came back in disgrace. After a few ends were sown in again it has been fine and much worn by DH . It is hand spun Wensleydale, silk, mohair and of course all naturally dyed! My inspiration for free form is always Silvia Cosh and James Walters Crochet Workbook published by Batsford, a very much cherished possession. It was the first craft book I ever bought ( gosh! that does take me back!) and from it I learnt a lot about design , planning a project as well as about free form crochet. I also have her sweater book and made my self the Celtic jacket from hand spun naturally dyed shetland spun long draw ( which I also took to A&E as I was feeling so cold).

My crafts have made a difference to how I coped . Much to the ambulance crew amusement I took Dominque Cardon Natural Dyes with me and sat in a wheelchair in the waiting room for my results reading all about cochineal and then about mollusk purple.

First of all I crocheted wrist warmers for my sister in law who has a poorly wrist which after two ops is now giving her problems with arthritis . The lovely multicoloured dyed yarn, and white silk and linen yarn was spun by Anne and the others were her dyed rovings. I bought all these from her at the Artisan Market. Now with the bit firmly between my teeth I investigated my stash. DH had requested a felt beany but was prepared to accept a crocheted one in lieu so off I set off working out a beany . I soon discovered that I needed to spin a little extra yarn so my Lendrum was installed in a cosy corner by the fire and I spun my lovely teeswater in cochineal over dyed in indigo all curly and then a dive into my stash gave me some hand painted Shetland tops in cochineal and logwood for the ply. At this stage I was very wheezy and unable to even walk comfortably upstairs so I was surprised at how my breathing improved after a couple of hours gentle spinning while listening to the Play on radio 4 ( a very good one). My health then nose dived down and I ended up in hospital a medical mystery on Boxing day. After investigations for blood clots on the lung I was found to have an area of collapsed lung with pneumonia and also had pleurisy. My consultant-quite wonderful- rushed into the ward yesterday morning saying before I say anything give me your email address I have a friend who is interested in what you do! Then she told me I could go home but back in the new year for further investigations. I have to take it easy for six weeks :(

While I was on the ward I read more of Dominique Cardon and made notes for a day dyeing with cochineal which I think will be great fun to do as she has lots of different recipes which sound interesting. Then every now and again I picked up my crochet. The poor lady opposite, confined to bed, was very interested and asked what I was doing and before long all the patients on the ward were all involved as we discussed colours and decided on a rib to finish it and they encouraged me to produce a flower on the side when finished. Some of them tried it on and I felt very pleased with how it came out- especially considering how it been done! It looks more like a cloche hat than a beany This was definitely a cooperative hat with inputs from five people-great fun.

Incidentally this was the NHS at it's best. I was seen by a medical consultant about 8pm on Boxing day, the nurses despite being very busy were unfailingly pleasant and friendly and informative. They worked very hard. A bed was often stripped cleaned and made up again with a new patient installed within 45 minutes of being vacated. The respiratory ward where I was was spotless. As Glan Clwyd Hospital faces East towards the Clwydian range and I was by the window on the fourth floor we watched two magnificent sunrises. The first of which the sun rose looking so like a orange you felt it could be plucked from the sky and eaten! The second it was so brilliant you could not look directly at it.

Finally I want to welcome the new followers to my blog and finally to wish you a happy healthy year full of interesting textiles and of course natural dyeing.

More on the Artisan Market , Mittens and Stoles

Anne wearing one of my stoles and looking pensive

Posted by Helen

One of the features of the Artisan Market was my friend Anne, one of the two hand spinners at the mill, ( the other is Wendy) and who decided to model my turquoise and silk fine felt stole. She started off just seeing what it felt like and as the day wore on she got more and more enamoured of it. When a customer said she liked it and on being told it was for sale asked to try it on Anne's face was a study in dismay! She was wearing a lovely jacket in a very soft muted turquoise-unfortunately in the only photo of her that I have it looks grey, with which the stole looked fantastic. By the end of the weekend she had decided to buy it and I had two commissions to make one as a result of people seeing her wearing it. All three have had to promise to lend their stoles back to me as they are needed as samples for the biannual summer school of weavers, spinners and dyers, where I am teaching Felt Stoles. Incidentally Anne fastened the stole with a fused seaglass brooch I had bought back from the Harbour Gallery on Jersey. I bought 4 now of course I wish I had got more as they compliment the fine wool of the stole.

These are someof my fine Felt mittens , which just as the stoles are made from ultrafine 18.5micron merino and silk. These are now for sale on my website . My favourites are the big multicoloured one so if they don't sell I shall shrink one down to fit my hands and let DH who was a model for the large size choose another so in a way I don't want to sell them but on the other hand I might as well. I loved making these and I have to confess I rather proud of how light and fine I managed to make them. The mittens even the large ones are under 50g in weight for the pair. The 18.5 micron merino is so lovely to felt with.

Artisan Market

Posted by Helen

Today was day one of a two day Artisan Market at Trefriw Woollen Mill near Conwy North Wales. There were three of us there, Anne , myself and Wendy. Both Anne and Wendy demonstrate spinning and sell their own work from May to September and Iwas invited as well probably becuase the market came out of a suggestion of mine that since Anne was there all the way through the winter for the first time she and Elaine whose family owns and runs the mill ( three generation family business) should advertise her presence to the local Spinner Weaver and Dyer Guilds. Somehow this became a two day Artisan Market in which I became involved. To enable us to make up a poster I took some photos mostly of Anne's work at the end of the day I was visiting her using the candle light symbol on my camera as the light was going and fortuitously this came out quite well. I made up the posters, Elaine did a fantastic job advertising the market to local papers, Anne and Wendy dropped leaflets around the place and I emailed and handed them out to people who came to my workshops . This was all very much at the last minute having been organised about six weeks ago so none of us were hoping for much -given the normal take up of craft fairs, the recession etc- but to our astonishment we were busy all day , the first visitors if not quite queueing to get in at 11 am were nonetheless there on the dot. Wendy asked everyone how they had heard of the event and we were all fascinated to learn that we had fibre enthusiasts coming as a result of my email, interested members of the public coming because of local advertising and friends of the mill as well as guild members.

I managed to take a few pictures but generally when there were not so many people around but here they are to give you a flavour.

I sold lots of inks-I was so pleased as at the Woolfest I did not sell a single bottle but this autumn they have really started to sell. Maybe it is the addition since the summer of purple, blue and bronze.

Two New Blogs for Natural Dye enthusiasts

Posted by Helen
Hi every body I am back from Jersey which I will blog about later but this is just to tell you that there is a new natural Dye blog, Jenny Dean's wild colour, on the blogging scene. Jenny Dean is the author of a number of dye books including Wild Colour and produced one of the first books The Craft of Natural Dyes (I think - I can 't find my copy at the moment so that bit is from memory) which focused on environmentally responsible dyeing. Jenny is also very knowledgeable about dye plants. I also took a very enjoyable and interesting natural dyeing workshop with her years ago which I can still remember and for which I still have my samples.

While I was away in Jersey and with a bit free time on my hands I started a new blog. This is Natural Dye Inks and I hope that as well as my paintings in natural dyes that all those who has brought the inks from me will also post up their pictures too.

Welcome to two new followers who pooped up while I was away, Madeline and Fibre Fanatic.

Peacock blue

Posted by Helen
Welcome to Sarah and Twisted Sister as new followers of the blog. It is nice to know you are enjoying the blog but please do leave comments-they make my day. :)

I am very excited as I am dyeing a lovely range of colours using indigo sulphonate. Enys when she arrived for her gardening stint - in this case cutting down the Cosmos and lots of cups of coffee, said to me that the colour was peacock blue. I had said it was a dark turquoise but in fact I think she is right. Where is it you might ask? Well the problem is the difficulty of photographing natural dyes. It is often a problem but is particularly so when I have used more than one dye as I have in this case- indigo sulphonate and persian berries. My first attempt at photographing looked a dingy blue. I put it alongside some indigo dyed fibres and it looked even worse. I tried it bracketed with green and with blue -still no good. another friend suggested putting it alongside a cochineal red. This is better and is the one you can see above but the real beauty of the colour does not come across. This is so frustrating. I tried on my website putting up a photo of some merino dyed in madder and logwood and it simply looks dark blue whereas it is the most beautiful dark purply bronze. I have been told by some people who come to my workshops that the colours on the website simply don't do justice to the colours in the flesh as it were and I agree. It seems to be something to do with the complexity of the colours. So for the moment you will have to take my word for it the colour I have got from my indigo sulphonate is fantastic.

I am happier with my new book covers , made with the paper I painted with my new bronze and blue inks. I think they look striking and Iam happy with them.

Light,landscapes and trees

As a child my mother took me to see the Vermeers ( we lived in the Hague then), the Impressionists in Paris when I was 12 and Turner on the return to the UK. It is only very recently that it dawned on me that I responded to all these with an inner excitement I did not recognize at the time because of the light and how it falls.
As I have surfed the blogging world I have loved the blogs which show landscapes as well as art work as this shows the light that the blogger are living in ( if that makes sense). This is particularly true of the Australian blogs such as herewitht or India Flint's blog as the light is so different to the light here but also recently Leigh in the USA showed the autumnal trees near her. How much do people think the light and the colours around them effect their work either consciously or unconsciously?
Well here are some pictures taken to day and in the space of a half hour morning walk ( about 9am) with the dog . You can see from at least one why I wanted blue and bronze inks!

Welcome to new followers of my blog Patrica, FontaineFleurie and PepperJulies who have joined in since my last post. It is great to having you all here, keeps me on my mettle and it has definitely increased links as I always look at the blogs and often the other blogs a follower follows.

I am busy getting ready for 21/2 days of workshops at the Harbour Gallery Jersey next weekend. This is the first time I had to go by air to a workshop destination. As I dye all the fibers and make up packs for all my workshops this has been an interesting exercise. Two boxes with the packs for the main workshop went off last week now I am packing a large suitcase with more packs, extras and a small shop. I am hoping that I can get most my clothes into my quite capacious overnight bag which will go in the overhead locker in the aircraft. Enys, who always travels light says you just need one change of clothes and enough knickers to last! I am not sure I can travel quite that light but I definitely will have to restrain myself from slinging in extra pairs of shoes just in case and one or two extra sweaters.

New Natural Dye Inks: blue and bronze

Posted by Helen
Welcome to some new followers of my blog Yvette, Willington Weaver( Hi Alison) Mollys and Martine.

I have been busy making new ink colours. The inks have been a bit quiet or rather the sales of them have been quiet but have suddenly started to pick up. Every time I ran a workshop someone would buy a set of 5 or 8 and people have been coming back for more and like ripples in the pool they have been getting to a wider audience. Two local artists , amongst others, have been using them; David Brightmore and Jan Gardner. It was David who started me off on the journey of actually making inks rather than concentrated dye baths, which I had been using and tells me that he has sold some of his pictures painted with my inks and he has also been back for more.
Last week Debbie Bamford went off to the original reenactors market at Coventry taking with her my medieval inks; a medieval black, yellow and red, the black and the red being new. She sold a few and says that there was a lot of interest, but it takes time for people to buy something new: it is seems so odd to hear my medieval inks described as something new as the very name makes them sound antique and you would expect re-enactors to leap on them with cries of joy, especially as Debbie sells quill pens, but apparently not, apart from a discerning few. In the meantime having a few days free between the end of one set of workshops and the next series in Jersey I decided to bite the bullet, gird my loins and face the challenge of blue. The reason for the girding of the loins part is that I thought the only way to make a good blue was by going via saxon blue. Saxon blue is in fact indigo sulphonate which is indigo dissolved in concentrated sulphuric acid. I was a bit concerned about using this as my memories of A level Chemistry were rather in a dim and distant past , but one of the people who came to my last workshop on mitten making is Pam who teaches Chemistry . She went through safety procedures with me so on Sunday I made some indigo sulphonate wearing goggles, face mask, vinyl gloves and old clothes., stirring finely ground natural indigo slowly and carefully into a measured lot of concentrated sulphuric acid. It had to be left for two days but today it was ready for use so I experimented with making it up into an ink and here is the result.

The first is a weak concentration and the second a higher concentration . The texture on the surface is the paper's (I think) which is a heavy weight rough textured paper 425not- i.e paper that has not been either hot or cold pressed to give a smooth surface. However I was a little concerned about the look of that ink so when I made up the full amount I made sure that the thickener was very well dissolved and smooth.

My next ink is a bronze. I have long been wanting a bronze. The recipe I have for bronze ,which I found in Dominique Cardon's book Natural Dyes, and which apparently was designed for the Marquis de Pompadour, the husband of the courtesan Madame de Pompadour mistress to Louis XVth. The recipe was for brazilwood and weld and I used a variation of it for the fibres for the felt bronze bell which I made with the children of Bodfari school. I was really pleased with the colour . I have been trying to replicate this in ink but it had not worked but after a lot of experimenting using a combination of three dyes I made a bronze I liked. I am not going to say exactly what the dyes are -a girl's got to have some secrets- and after all I do sell them, but above you can see the result . The painting in the blue and bronze is a sheet of watercolour paper destined to make five covers for my dye books which continue to sell steadily. One of the things I really liked is the interaction the blue and the bronze, sometimes it went a very gorgeous green , but a tiny bit of blue on the brush made the bronze go into different bronze colours. Quite yummy in fact!

I noticed that India Flint describes herself as a mark maker which description I like very much and wished I had thought of-sigh- It occurred to me that what I do when I make my dye book covers is not painting but making marks and above is another also in bronze and blue but using different brushes and marks. Finally I have put in one of my pictures- a design for felt which never happened as when I tried to translate it into felt it did not work, but I like the painting.