MADELEINE'S HEP HERD

IMGP6469 Originally uploaded by MadeleineS . Yes, we have now proved that Neil Young was right! This weekend I spent two full days at Leith School of Art participating in an experimental textiles workshop. The process under investigation was rust transfer dyeing so we took piles of iron objects, scrubbed them clean, covered them in salt and vinegar, sandwich them between wet fabrics and papers, tucked them up under electric blankets and left them to sleep. But of course they didn't sleep - instead they transformed the papers and fabrics by laying down a layer of iron oxide on the surfaces that dyes the fabric and prints on the paper. The workshop was led by James Donald , a weaver to trade but open to exploring all sorts of textile practices. His enthusiasm for trying things out was quite infectious and the small group of textile adventurers were encouraged by this to push the techninque in new directions. I'm personally very pleased to have been introduced to this process ...

Well more or less - October has been pretty busy. The picture on the left is a detail of one of 17 scarves I made in response to an order from Concrete Wardrobe. The base is silk and the bulk of the felt is merino fleece. The wiggly line made from a few strands of Wensleydale locks. Wensleydale hardly shrinks at all compared to merino. Making these took most of my workshop time in October, though I spent the time in the luxurious surroundings of Mixing Fibres . My own space is just about big enough to make jewellery and postcards! I learned a lot about the nuno felting process and am now on the lookout for another project for this technique. There are more pictures of the scarves and some "inspirational" images like this one on my website (which I spent most of yesterday redesigning). I've used quotation marks as the particular inspirations were taken after the scarf project was completed. The colours were all around me but I didn't stop to photograph them till t...