Eco Hand Dyed Wool

Firstly, I must apoligise for not publishing a new post on my blog for a while especially when I said I was going to do one, once a week.  I do have an excuse.......our son was married and I made the ring cushions using Machine Embroidery and I also crocheted around 4 white linen hankerchieves for the bride and the mothers and we had to travel interstate for the amazing day.Today I have been in the Kitchen Dyeing Wool with items from the Pantry.
The goodies from the pantry I used were Red Onion Skins, Blueberries, Tumeric and Shiraz.  I have also used Jelly Crystals and Crepe Paper.  These are all boiled on the stove, then added vinegar, to fix the colour, and boiled again for another 30 minutes to an hour.  The colours from these give you a soft coloured wool except for the tumeric. 
I am really enjoying experimenting with natural plant dyes and I have also steamed dyed a silk scarf with pepper tree leaves which gave a nice pale yellow leaf pattern on the fabric.  I attended a workshop back in the Winter, where we were shown how to do the steam dyeing.  Eucalypt leaves give you a wonderful orange colour on wool and a peach colour when using silk. 
You will see the colours you achieve from the photos. 

 Wool dyed with Jelly Crystals.

 Wool dyed with Crepe Paper.

 Wool dyed with Onions Skins, Blueberries, Tumeric and Shiraz.

 Jelly dyed.

Steam dyed with Pepper Tree leaves.

Handmade Cards

Welcome to my handmade crafts blog. Today I will introduce you to a selection of my handmade cards which include machine embroidery, needle felting and quality fabrics.

My machine embroidered cards were made using a Janome 300e and the designs were purchased from Janome Dealerships and reputable digitisers.  Their themes are only limited by your imagination. I use quality fabrics including damask, satin back satin and satin back shantung to name a few.  I use Mettler, Janome, Raimon, Echidna, Robinson-Anton and Hemingworth which are all quality threads.  Using good quality fabric and threads gives you a quality design.

The needle felted cards are made using Fine Merino Wools, Alpaca, Mohair and Kid Mohair and these are then felted into beautiful colours to suit the shapes of the cards.

My website is: www.thegumtreecraftroom.com