reira he makutu i roto i tenei wahi

ok.

I cheated.

I used google translate in the hope that it would find the correct Māori words for

"there is magic in this place"

(although I will confess that when I pasted the answer back in, and asked her to detect the language,

Granny Google came up with 🌸 Hawaiian)

forgive me. 

there IS magic in this place

...the place being the wonderful garden in the lovely Lud Valley that Judy and Michael Keylock have been opening (along with their hearts) for over seven years now, to let me play with leaves and words, paper and cloth while Chloe cooks up the most delicious food. 

we eat the food that has been grown in the garden while making colour from leaves that drift underfoot. 

there is a particularly special plant, Griselinia littoralis, that doesn't get a mention in any of the traditional New Zealand dye books...but contains a rather fabulous colour (first discovered thanks to my friend Rachelle, who bundled leaves from it during a class I taught in the Whitireia Summer School at Kapiti in 2009).  cooked in water it turns the colour of tea...but bundled it delivers the sweetest pink.

only two species occur in Aotearoa, with a further five in South America. 

sometimes they are epiphytes and live on a friend.  rumour has it they arrived with the Māori (apparently a decoction of the bark could be of use against venereal disease. hmm.)

at the end of each day I went to my favourite place (in the whirled) for a swim. there's something about diving into cold water and bursting up into air again that makes me feel like a new woman. 

and that experience is not only fabulous, but free!

wandering in the Suter Gallery on my way to the airport, I encountered a painting of Huria Matenga who looks astonishingly like my maternal grandmother

even flying in and out is a wonderful experience, as the land and the sea unfold below

though it's so very hard to leave.

which is why the four of us made sure to find a time that suited us all for a return, which looks like being in the third week of April next year (when we can once again have an open fire)

fingerfood

ha.

i bet when you read "fingerfood"
you thought of the wedding reception in "Love Actually"
or
if you are my age
of prunes wrapped in bacon
strange stripy sandwiches cut on the diagonal
and those funny lurid coloured cocktail onions

that's not what this is about.
i'm talking the fingerfood that is the soft caress of SilkyMerino
fresh from the cauldron

it's just too delicious.
and i can't stop running my fingers over the surface.

the fabulous thing about SilkyMerino, aside from magical properties in the dyebath
and that it is delivered as an extremely useful tube
is that the merino part is pure new Australian wool sourced from fine wool producers in NSW
mixed with a little silk
and then transformed into this superb fabric.
this dress was made for my agent, Jen Loew
who trusts me that it's going to be perfect for summer in New York
as well as any other climate anywhere else.
she specified comfy.
comfy is winging its way to her.

and of course it has a little camouflaged pocket.
of which there will be stories in the 'shapeshifter' book
[which is the next one in line once i finish the student celebration book]
and did i mention that it smells really nice?

Where do I begin ???

I am sitting in an airport once again

heading home after a fabulous three days  at

Beautiful Silks

Thank you my wonderful class 

(some of whom even came over seas to join us...from the South Island, Tasmania)

As well as from my home state South Australia 

and

Newcastle on the east coast. 

We sewed (by hand) and dyed

and sewed and dyed some more

Posting just a few pix via my Batfone 

more tomorrow

Meanwhile 

there are a couple of places left in some fabulous workshops coming to Beautiful Silks very soon

World leaders in pattern cutting Shingo Sato and Julian Roberts 

[the calibre of people you would expect to be invited by RMIT's Fashion Department]

Visit 

www.beautifulsilks.com to sign up - i know Julian puts on a fabulous performance!

and
thank you so much to the handful of kind folks who have ordered a copy of fieldnotes
i am truly grateful

finding my feet

it has dawned on me that it is the first time since 1985

that i am living in a dwelling on my ownsome

[note ownsome, not lonesome]

the faculty here at the Oregon College of Art and Craft

have been so kind and welcoming that i feel as if i have been here for more than five days

but that's all it is, so far

even so

the studio walls are filling.

i shall have to grow taller

or find a ladder

in order to make the most of the space

i have been wandering and gathering surface textures

as well as a few words

marvelling at the wonder of the leaves

gathering

and then bundling them up

with happy results

and i had a somewhat larger bundle going

a little ambitious for the pot

but a quick flip solved the spatial issue

then

later today

 a kindly former student

took me to the Japanese Garden

afterward

i felt as though someone had taken my soul out

given it a good scrubbing in a hot bath

fed it a lovely warm bowl of chowder

and tucked it in again between freshly pressed sheets

that had been dried in the sun

then read it the most beautiful bedtime story in the whirled

NB the chowder [mentioned above] did not have any koi in it

so now i am back in my wee cottage

reading this splendid book

which i found at Gold Beach

where i called in on my journey because the nice woman at the coffee shop down by the cannery dock makes the best ever double shot moccha frappes, except that it was Sunday and her day off [and who shall blame her, it was a glorious day] and the coffee shop was closed

anyway

on pages 14 + 15 there is good advice

i'm glad i bought it even if i did pay rather more over the counter 

than i would have from the Book Depository

if you live in the North-West Pacific and like food 

it's essential reading

and

the philosophy applies to dye gathering.

except that windfalls don't get much of a mention.

at last

at long last

in this dusty corner of

the driest state

on the driest continent

it is raining. not much

but enough to lift the spirits

housekeeping becomes a challenge for small arachnids

the resident goose is happy again

me too, i'm having raspberry lassie for breakfast

 

 the whirled is bedecked in moonstones

[my favourite gem]

 

all Sam wants is a lap

unfortunately for him, Felix is firmly in possession

pigtures

it's quite exhausting

having to help with the bundling

sometimes

a pig just has to get away from it all

and have a good wallow

 

autumn leaves

here's what i was doing today

with a pocketful of windfalls

Acer palmatum

to be precise

the folks at Shakerag will be able to hold the results in their hands soon

but for the rest of you

i'll post the unravelled boiled bundle

tomorrow

oh, and Zen Habits had something really sensible to say today

[well, he does most times]

go here to have a look