I have worked on a few projects, I’ve worked up a new design which has become a fast favourite, I’ve done another small collaboration with Gemma Patford on some vessels which will be stocked exclusively at Hermon & Hermon later this month, and I’ve been dreaming up new products for sale. I was also delighted to find that I was accepted into Markit@Fedsquare which is happening on Nov 24.

While this has all been going on I’ve also found a new house to live in and will be moving in this Thursday!! My husband also got a new job and we’ve had 2 birthdays and an interstate family visit!! It’s been a bit of a crazy whirlwind, to say the least.

However I have had some dye discoveries recently, so I have something to talk about at last.

One of my flaws is that I am a bit of a perfectionist. I get very caught up in trying to make my hand dyed work look flawless, like it was manufactured. Specifically lately, my Indigo work. I have been trying and trying to get my deep Indigo areas solid and even on my Itajime pieces.

This is really hard to achieve. It’s been killing me, I must admit. While it is something I will no doubt continue to torture myself with I am becoming more accepting when I don’t achieve it.

It’s taken two people this week telling me that what I make is still beautiful and valued for me to step back and see the good in what I do, and not just the parts where I need to be better.

However, even with my new appreciation of dye flaws, I just had to figure out what was causing them. I know that I was doing everything right in my technique, which left me with some other cause to uneven dye work.

Firstly I thought it was that I hadn’t scoured my fabric properly. So I scoured it twice. I’ve been working with linen as well, which also holds onto its oils in patches sometimes. You can’t see it until you dye it, it can be very annoying.  Anyway, I still got patchiness. Not as much as in the past, but a little.

So then I looked at my vat. And i realised that the last time I refreshed my vat was the end of July. So with a new vat  I am seeing markedly improved results!! My blue is bluer and my dye work is even where it is supposed to be.  This is not to say it’s perfectly even, but it’s uneven in the way it should be, if that makes sense. Not a funny, “there’s something going wrong here” way. The difference in the blue though would not be noticeable to an untrained eye, its much more noticeable as you work the vat, and not once work has been washed and dried.

My conclusion on this is that if you run a hydros vat, even if your vat is balanced eventually you will have dumped so much hydros into it that your blue is dulled, and your dye work more likely to be uneven. I think this is probably caused by the hydros re-stripping the indigo as it oxidises, or as it is re-immersed in the vat, because hydros and soda ash when just used in water are in fact a dye stripper. I kind of knew that my vat would reach this breaking point at some stage, but I kept pushing it. At least now I know!

For months now I’ve been dyeing (geddit??) to get my hands on some of Gemma Patford’s rope baskets. From the first moment I saw them I’ve been wanting to turn them blue, and finally she said “yes!”

I’m quite sure I emitted a very girly squeal of joy when she did. I’m a bit of a fan girl when it comes to Gemma, and I do indeed have a bit of a crush on her.

These are available in my shop and also in Gemma’s. I will have some of these wondrous baskets with me this coming Saturday the 10th at Rose St Market in Fitzroy as well. See you there!!!

This weekend I will be at Bend and Snap Market at 1000 £ Bend on Sunday. I’ve got some new goodies in the shape of merino gloves to unveil, dyed with Indigo, Madder and Cochineal. They’re pretty spesh, and super warm.

I’ll also have a few merino scarves dyed with Madder and Cochineal as well as a bunch of yarn of differing bases, as well as my Indigo. Busy busy! I’ve got the yarn mordanting on the stove as I write this post in fact!

If you’ve been nosing around the shop lately you’ll see that I have a few silk scarves on sale. These will be available at the sale prices at the market, as well as a few others that haven’t been listed in the shop yet, and some eco prints. Ooh! And I also have some home wares that are yet to make a website appearance! Gees I really should get cracking and put all this stuff in the shop!

I also did a little interview a few months back with the organisers of Bend and Snap. Click here to have a read of it. 

The second thing I am loving about this market is the venue. It’s at one of my all time favourite venues the Northcote Social Club! Which as most people would know is an awesome band venue. I have seen many many awesome bands there, and have also enjoyed many (not toooooo many) beverages there too.

I’ll be bringing along my Indigo and my Eco and perhaps some other things too. I am also thinking of bringing a mini vat with me, so if you want to ogle a vat, then please come on down and have a chat with me. I’m always happy to talk about vats with people.

Here’s another little eco teaser for everyone. This beauty has been sold, but I’ll get another ready before Saturday!

I started out trying to do some eco printing on silk with eucalyptus. I steamed my bundled leaves and then after an hour happily unravelled them to find…not much. I got some very pale yellow leaf prints, not the glorious reds and pale greens I was expecting.

So I did some overdyeing. My favorite has been overdyed with logwood (above) and has an iron mordant (improving the lightfastness of the logwood as an added bonus). It’s very earthy and rustic.

Then I overdyed some others with purple carrot (above) and also red cabbage (not shown). Interesting results! I created twist resists on these to preserve the original colour so there would be some patterning. I quite like these too, they are pale but also quite pretty.

I also solar dyed 2 scarves (below, shown together), one with a mix of berries and a bit of callistemon, and the other just with calistemon. The darker one is the berries. I actually prefer the paler on in this instance, the callistemon gave a nice earthy dusky pink.

Yesterday I decided to try my hand at eco printing again, being a long weekend I had a little more “me” time. (Thanks husband!!)

Well, yesterday’s efforts paid off, I got some stunning results!

These will all be up for sale at the Rose St Market this coming Sunday!! I’ve also just bundled up some of the Merino so fingers crossed it does as i intend. If so, it will also be available on Sunday.  If you see anything you like and wish to purchase, drop me an email! vic@bindandfold.com

PS, I’ll take some snazzier photos when the weather improves. It’s been yucky and grey all day! Just when I need some sunshine for my camera, poo poo.

This past weekend I had a stall at Craft Hatch, which was pretty amazing, I met some wonderful designers as well as some of the Craft (Victoria) people which was really great.

2 designers I would love to share from Craft Hatch are Shiko and Mara Kapsis. Shiko creates beautiful hand thrown pottery (I picked up a tea cup, and it is divine) and Mara Kapsis creates gorgeous hand screen printed home wares and gift wrapping. If you take a peek on her website though, she has also done some work with natural dyes, which I absolutely would have quizzed her on had I realised!

I did launch my new 100% NZ Merino range of scarves at Craft Hatch, which were received rather well, (yay!) and I have also now begun listing them on the website and etsy. I will have more colours listed by the end of today. These scarves are generously sized at approx. 50cm x 165cm, They’re a really great width and length, yet each scarf weighs approx 150g, making them super lightweight! Merino is really a fantastic fibre to work with, its light yet warm, it wicks moisture, its super soft and is just all round amazing.  They are also perfect for both men and women, they’re all round just great.

Coming up on June 16 I will be at Rose St market in Fitzroy, along with some other fabulous stalls. Rose St market also has a cafe and has a really cruisey vibe. I saw some great work last time I visited, I was really blown away by the talent displayed there! After tackling my first ever market, I’m looking forward to doing another so quickly.

Lastly, on the 30th of June I will be at 1000 Pound Bend once again for Bend and Snap! Bend and Snap has some really cool stalls at it, and they always have little craft projects going on that everyone can take part in, so if you want to get your craft on, then it’s a great market to visit.

I’ve been working on some new stuff for the market, which I will hopefully have ready in time! If you’re in Melbourne, please come down and say hi! It will be my first market ever, so some friendly faces will put me at ease :)

One of my new scarves. You can find this one up for sale here.
I’ve been working a lot with the Indigo lately, so expect more blue from me! More indigo news in my next blog post.