today i was planning to write about what i'd been up to this week
that i needed to make a new scarf [gave the last one away to my uncle who drove from Colorado and back again to visit with me on the weekend]


with the added confession that i was missing the fragrance of home so much
that i actually went and bought some bunches of eucalyptus to play with [sound of hand being firmly smacked]

and that i then quite unexpectedly found a friend here in Portland
whilst wandering the Hoyt Arboretum [with aforementioned uncle]

it's a snow gum and so is an excellent choice for its location [in the wintergarden]
except that it may get bigger in this protected locality than at home in the Australian Alps
[where it would be clinging to a hillside and subject to horizontal ice storms]
and crowd out its neighbours

Eucalyptus pauciflora : snow gum

that it is getting cooler by the day
and so some armies were needed to keep my gathering paws warm

prints from windfall snowgum leaves

and the other side

note : the slender leaf prints are quite a different colour to those on the SilkyMerino shown in the photo at the very top. this is because the sleeves were snipped from a sweater that had been washed several times and thus had been premordanted with a sodium-rich substance

i was also going to mention that there are easier ways of straining bananas
than putting them through a pillowcase
the straining part is fine
it's the washing of the pillowcase that is the tedious part.
bananas have fine stickability and if even minute parts are left attached are almost impossible to dislodge once dry

wandering in the Japanese Garden again yesterday
i betook myself to the small shop there and leafed through a few books
one devoted to furoshiki offered a the perfect answer
reminding me that a piece of cloth can be used to hold all sorts of things
so i tied a piece of cloth to the handles of the strainer by the ears
because there were too many bananas to stuff into a sock



it does look a little as though i have just regurgitated my porridge
but more of that later

continuing my stroll i found an exquisite pond


in which leaves and fir needles were floating
here's a closer look


and then when you take the colour away


it looks curiously like a fusion between the hands of Dorothy Caldwell and Christine Mauersberger
which is kind of sweet, because i first met Christine when we both took Dorothy Caldwell's class in Ohio back in 2009

which was around about the time, or a little after, that i remember receiving a number of emails from Cassandra Tondro with questions about various processes described in my book Eco Colour

so it was a bit surprising to read in Handeye today her description of the ecoprint idea as coming to her from the pavements. maybe she had indeed previously discovered the technique that way [zeitgeist and all that], but if so she didn't mention it in the correspondence.

Christine  kindly said a few words which provoked a comment on her blog suggesting that i in turn had purloined the technique from Karen Diadick Casselman. actually, i didn't.

to set the record straight :



and as for printing on paper, my great-aunt, Master Bookbinder Ilse Schwerdtfeger was doing that back in the 1930s except that unlike her great-niece, she used pressure and time [and a few "eye-of-newt" mordants] whereas i use a cauldron. i wrote about her work in IAPMA Bulletin 52



and now if you've read this far you deserve a gold star. and what i had been planning to mention somewhere along the line and now comes just as you're dropping off is the hot news that Christine Mauersberger has recently been confirmed as teaching down-under next year at the Geelong Textile Retreat, that splendid annual event organised by Janet de Boer and her tireless team and TAFTA

the event also features other luminaries including Dorothy Caldwell and Sandra Brownlee [but i think their classes are already full]

and before you leap to the comment box and tell me to get back in mine...i'm not criticising Ms Tondro. i just found it curious that the appellation 'ecoprint', as well as the process should serendipitously appear from the pavements.

that's all.  and i think it should do for a while.

it pains me to confess that
in order to reach my bed
i was having to develop the agility of a mountain goat

while looking for the floor
i piled some of the books on my bed
here they are


that delicious cloth in the background
was stitched by my good friend Roz
who blessed me with it as a surprise
last year

'Sternenmelodie' is a feel-good romantic novel set in the Vienna of the Austro-Hungarian empire. i reach for it when i am too tired to think

'the Curly Pyjama letters' by Michael Leunig are [to quote the dust jacket] " a small fragment of the vast correspondence known to have taken place between lone voyager Vasco Pyjama and his friend and mentor Mr Curly of Curly Flat"

Stephen Fry writes deliciously. the "Ode Less Travelled" is both entertaining and instructive.

'Pilgrimage' by Stuart Kestenbaum, poet and also Director of Haystack Mountain School of Craft. it's the current "morning dip" book

'The Devil's Horn'- a history of my favourite instrument, the saxophone. Nancy Zeller kindly alerted me to the existence of this book

'Here & There'....A.A.Gill is a marvellous writer and this is full of bite-size stories about wandering. [note to self : there goes a suitable title for the autobiography. sigh.]

i discovered 'Finding your Way in a Wild New World' after Roz [see above] kindly sent me an article about 'making" and while i can't locate the original at the moment here's a link to a related quote
Robyn of Art Propelled asked me if i'd come across it [the book]. Beck talks about mindfulness, wordlessness, stillness, oneness - all practices fundamental to the way i cope with the whirled - i'll be reading and re-reading, i think

'One Day' - heartily recommended for a trans-Pacific flight!

i'm studying 'Some Plants are Poisonous' [along with the thumping great volume on diseases of animals written by Hungerford...the on-farm bible] because i have been given the task of preparing a talk on [surprise] Poisonous Plants [with specific relevance to dyeing, because we don't wish to be dying....just yet] and i have learned that indigofera species are poisonous. which leads me to wonder if it is really safe to be standing in a concrete pit full of water and indigo leaves as part of the extraction process

so 'Indigo' is feeding my need for more knowledge of blue

'Centering'  helps me with my inner balance and is a much-treasured gift from my friend Desiree Fitzgibbon . suspect it helps me in my stone-stacking too.

'The Hare with Amber Eyes' was recommended to me by Jenni Worth.

and lastly 'Slow' magazine. i rarely buy magazines but this one has lots of interesting reading, gorgeous pictures and interesting things to follow up in it


...now to get the pile off the bed
so i have somewhere to sleep tonight.
meanwhile
a thought for today

"that which knows doesn't speak, that which speaks doesn't know" 
Lao Tzu [from Martha Beck's book, see above]

i opened my recent copy of Textile Fibre Forum
and found something that looked familiar

the flyer for the Beautiful Silks Natural Dye Symposium
has an image of my work as background.

which was a bit of a surprise

but i reminds me to remind my readers of this splendid opportunity
to participate in workshops that all have natural dyeing as their common thread

i've signed up for a couple of classes including Velma Bolyard's shifu books
and Trace Willans' all natural mixed media workshop

________________

while we're on the subject of workshops, my friend Pam de Groot
is keen to wander Europe
teaching her own brand of magic

_________________

and in case you hadn't noticed in the sidebar, a lovely place to investigate [and follow bountiful trails through the virtual forest] Robyn Gordon's blog

__________________

also in the sidebar, helpful reading for those who want a guide to buying fabric

________________

last but not least
an image of a delectable patchwork piece i was shown by a friend recently

Elizabeth Rimmer is [among other things] a poet, gardener and riverwatcher
her first collection of poems, Wherever We Live Now will be published by Red Squirrel Press in 2011
nip across to her blog
for a glimpse between the covers


http://burnedthumbblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/poem-for-artist.html

i'll be off the radar for nine days or so
brewing cauldrons at Yankalilla
[note to burglars, don't bother - there'll be someone here at all times and they can be quite fierce]
which gives you plenty of time
to swing across to Sophie Munns' page
and read about things that are really important

the sun has risen on September 14
[Happy Birthday, Alexander von Humboldt!]
and i had the difficult task of choosing a story
from the delightful collection posted in response to
the laundrette picture

it was not an easy task - had finances permitted
i would have sent you all something
in the end
i settled on two
Shazz and Jude
so if you'd care to email me your postal addresses
something will wing its way to you shortly

and in other news
last week's retreat at Strathalbyn
turned out to include no less than three
sets of mothers and daughters
[four, if i count myself in two of them!]

my mother has kindly written about her experiences
you might like to read her views of the week
three posts so far, beginning here
then part two and part three

needing a chip wrapper?

here's a link that popped up in my mailbox...called Learning to Love You More


a curious site that offers participation in an intriguing range of projects and tasks. a refreshing change from sudoko or thumb-twiddling for those with time to spare?

grandfather disappeared on New Year's Eve, 1940 and it wasn't until some while later that the family knew he was still alive, let alone had been sent on an extended holiday to Siberia by the Soviets. small surprise, then, that grandmother left Latvia on the last train out (three children clinging to her skirts and laden with her portable sewing machine) when the Germans were leaving in 1944, running from the returning bear. that her brother had been executed by the Russians in 1938 may also have tipped the balance.

so with this background history the book i am reading at present 'the silencing' (available from Perceval Press) carries particular weight. this book graphically depicts journalism and the fates of the outspoken in post-glasnost Russia. illustrated by stark images of the places in which the subjects of the book were 'eliminated' it discusses the tragedy of contemporary media as 'informational weapon' and the disappearance of truth along with those who dared to publish it.

John Howard's Australia was already beginning to slip quietly down this path in terms of interning suspect persons...and I haven't yet heard anything about Saint Kevin repealling the legislation that allows those suspected of terrorist sympathies to be held in custody for weeks at a time WITHOUT their families being advised of their whereabouts...AND apparently if their whereabouts are determined and discussed, then those doing the discussing may also be arrested. feel free to correct me if i'm wrong, but that's my interpretation of the legislation. which still stands.