there and back again

i've been there and back again...to Halls Gap in Victoria for a marathon 6days teaching and to Ararat for the opening of 'planeta'. 

the detail above is of a sample from the 'mapping country' class. a rich sticky brew from a bagful of eucalyptus bark collected in Swan Hill by a student...from the tree by the veterinary surgery. with no other appellation it became known as "the vet's bark" 

more pictures will come soon meanwhile here's a lovely link from Toyoko Sugiwaka co-author of Handmade style: Felt ...#69 goat and cat

stumped

here's a mystery...a student brought a bag of leaves to a class recently, in the assumption they were "gum leaves". while they resemble eucalyptus in many ways the undulating margin is unusual. also odd is that the torn edge on the leaf seems to be self-sealing and the whole leaf swells up like a wee bubble when heated in water.

it makes a very pretty ecoprint - gold with tiny purple and chocolate spots...quite leopard-like!

if anyone knows what it is i'd be delighted to be enlightened...

appendix [March 3, 2009]... problem solved by Dean Nicolle of the Currency Creek Aboretum

The tree is Eucalyptus utilis (coastal moort). This species is native to the south coast of W.A., but is very commonly planted throughout much of southern Australia as for a quick-growing screen and shelter, especially in difficult coastal sites. In fact the name utilis is Latin for utilize, because it is so commonly planted. The species used to go under the name E. platypus var. heterophylla, so you might find it under this older name in some books.

thoughts at dawn

while there's nothing we can do to ease the pain of those who have lost family and friends and homes in the terrible fires ... we can offer support.

donating through the Red Cross helps with the basics and i know of folks who are giving their caravans for housing; but there'll be other things that are missing that are not so easily replaced such as the stash of threads, yarns and fabrics that those of us who work with textiles always have about the place. not to mention those favourite books.

seems trivial but i recall even 10 years after Ash Wednesday thinking i'd just rummage in the cupboard for some treasure or other to make something with and then recalling that it now formed part of the foundations of the rebuilt house

so here's the thought...

we're not such a big country in terms of "knowing somebody who knows somebody"... if we take the trouble to find that friend of a friend who could use some help and make up a care parcel designed specifically for that person it will do a little bit of good towards rebuilding a life.

i've sent one off already and if you know of someone else who could use a little something from India Flint i'd be happy to hear from you. email me via the contact page on my website with a mailing address for the person and a brief outline of their textile interests and i'll see what i can do.

clearing claustrophobia

yesterday it was all crowding in on me...and while standing up on our hill breathing in the cold smoke from distant fires & gazing at the dry paddocks round about i felt it was suddenly time to cut and run for a bit.

there's nothing like driving at speed to the coast with the roof open to clear persistent headfog. sadly i forgot [or was that fogrot?] to take a camera so all i have to share is this midnight watercolour [assisted by a splash or two of Bombay Sapphire]

the view from the  Bluff overlooking Encounter Bay was magic...the sealine all misty, waves deep blue, big surf crashing in on Petrel's Cove and giant granite boulders laced with lichens all around. 

Hans Heysen did a rather better job of it...but at least my cobwebs are sorted...for the moment.

comic relief?

South Australia - the driest state on the driest continent - already has a reputation as the village idiot given twice as much water [in an average year] falls on Adelaide as the city needs to function...but this water isn't considered safe to use and is allowed to flow out to sea.

those in government still [seriously!] think that the stuff that's pumped from the once-mighty Murray [and has been through seven sets of intestines, never mind the rest of the chemical cocktail it carries] is of higher quality. they've saved a bit of this lovely brew in the reservoirs where the daily evaporation rate of an average half-inch off the surface is concentrating the salts and so forth nicely.

one of those reservoirs has been constructed on the River Torrens up in the Mount Lofty Ranges. further down where the Torrens puddles through the city of Adelaide there's a weir that holds back the "Torrens Lake". or did.

 

a night or so ago, while the lock-keeper was having a cup of tea and a bickie and not really paying attention having dropped a few stitches on his knitting... one of the little motory thingies that controls part of the lock decided to give up the ghost, let the water gurgle out and dribble away to the sea.

nobody noticed in the dark and so the city woke up to these jolly scenes.

i happened past the riverbank on other business later in the day and was politely informed by a gentleman reclining at the riverside with a bottle in a brown paper bag that the way to park your car in the river like this is to let it roll down the embankment [with some encouragement] and drop it in the river whereupon it apparently floats to the middle and then sinks.

i enquired whether his information was gleaned from a wealth of experience and he giggled. which may or may not have had something to do with the bottle in the brown paper bag.

local opinion is that the river is going to look like that for some time...at least until the next rains; as if they pull the plug on the reservoir upstream Adelaide residents will have to bathe in champagne or asses milk... because there certainly won't be any water left.

and i'm betting any fish that happened to be swimming past the mouth of the Torrens when it was spewing forth its disgusting effluent into the sea are feeling more than a little queasy now - the water is so revoltingly putrid and polluted that bathing has been banned for years! 

could be worse

it's bloody dry here at Hope Springs. all five dams are empty, so are the soaks and the remaining stock [down to a third of the usual headcount] are relying on water from three bores. 

rainwater is rationed and the lick-spit-and-promise style of bathing [as practised in the lower house] is rivalled only by the Queen Victoria method [described by my mother as a three-point landing, go figure] which is now the custom in the house of my parents just up the hill.

however considering that the 26th anniversary of my "phoenix-birthday" looms large next week i'm well aware things could be a lot worse. ["touch wood" she says while knocking firmly on her head]

that said i am mystified that reporters of the appalling fires to the East still refer to them as "the mighty forces of Mother Nature" or similar nonsense.

the three main causes of bushfires are usually Men, Women and Children -  and in that order....

our thoughts and prayers are with those suffering as a result of the terrible firestorms in Victoria.

to assist the victims via Red Cross please follow this link 

ticket number 2

a little while ago [it seems like months but was only January 9] i asked my readers to supply a few pearls of wisdom to my whirled. in return i would put all the names into a hat and then pull a name out. that person would receive a hand-felted ecoprint gift.

luckily i pulled out a second name...as the original winner, Suzan, hasn't written to claim her prize. i guess not everybody wants such objects.

the second name [as Martha in her role of scrutineer will confirm] was that of my dear friend Rachelle who lives here in Aotearoa [where i have been for the past two weeks].

if only i had brought said object with me, just in case!

Suzan, i hope nothing untoward has happened in your life and that it's merely a personal aversion to felt that has stopped you replying....and Rachelle, i'll be posting a parcel to you next week - providing i can overcome the battle of the suitcases and get my abundance of thrift store materials packed and on to that plane for the land of Oz...

and in case you were wondering why the post opened with a dog picture? that's Mollie, who [along with baby Knuckles] joined us for the week.

we run a pretty flexible ship....here's Mollie [below] enjoying some cuddle-time on our last field trip for the week, when we visited a beautiful local garden and dyed our cloth maps with windfalls [AND were treated to morning tea which grew topsy-like into lunch]

one of the conversations during the week touched on the subject of masterclasses. although i do have an MA - which, in the absence of being qualified by a Guild as a Master would, I imagine,  permit me to conduct such things - i choose not to label my classes as such.

i'll confess to having thought about it...but i'd rather keep the door open to anyone who wants to learn about plant dyes than put up a virtual wall and keep a percentage of potential participants out, if you see what i mean.

these past two weeks i've had several participants who might not have come had the course been labelled a masterclass [which it could well have been, as 'mapping country' is pretty challenging]...but it's been those not directly from textile backgrounds who have brought other wonderful skills to class and very kindly shared them. 

these coupled with long-standing textile practitioners in a range of specialisations, along with polytech students on summer 'holiday' and workshop students who have been in my classes before [some several times!] have made the past two weeks absolutely fantastic. 

a highlight of the second class was Rachelle discovering hitherto undocumented colours [so far as i can tell] -  glorious pinks and rich reds from the leaves of an indigenous New Zealand plant - but i'll let her tell you more about that [if she wants to]

edgewater sewing circle

today it's the day of the wandering sewing circle...which begins quietly in the morning-fresh classroom, develops the odd ripple and bubble over lunch and finally arrives in a fairly effervescent state [except perhaps for the recumbent figure behind the central gorse-bush] at Edgewater Park on the Waikanae River.

we use river pebbles tucked into the work as guides to stitch patterns adding richness and texture to the surface of our cloth maps.

  

much later, in the Wellington Botanic Gardens i stitch happily in the looming dark, listening to wild banjo music under the ghostly fingers of the tall trees... 

mapping country at kapiti

we began mapping country today under benevolent skies, taking mindful walks with concertina-folded pages, collecting marks at trig points determined variously by birdsong, distant dogbarks, the triumphant crowing of the pompous rooster next door or just the song that was playing in brainspace at the time.

each participant had their own system for wandering and stopping - all wandered in the same area, but each sheet of collected marks turned out quite differently...

and today for the first time ever we had a boy in our midst! not only the first male student but also the youngest ever...