India Flint - sprouting in the compost heap

Posted @ 14:22:20 on 15 August 2010 back to top

dairy flat workshop

am delighted to report that the Dairy Flat feltquilt workshop planned for February 2011

has filled - we'll have participants from across the globe gathering together for stitching, dyeing and felting in the New Zealand summer

mapping country - the windfall projects

over the years teaching has given me a great deal of pleasure so i've been thinking about ways of giving back to my many students

i'm pondering a number of rather long-term projects inspired by the research i did for 'second skin' [the book that will be published next year] into boro and kantha textiles as well as furoshiki [wrapping cloths] and ideas of 'making do', 'lost and found' and 'make do and mend'

the first project will focus on cloth [the subsequent project on paper]

it will involve windfall dyeing, stitching and the nurturing of community between the [mostly] sisters who like to meet over dyepots

initially through the distribution of materials, a stitching project with on-line support and a series of celebrations over dyepots; and then weekend workshops in which we come together to dye the stitched pieces, share a feast _ and enjoy the unbundling of work [which will be photographed at the end of the day]

in due course i am hoping it will result in a book, featuring the work of each participant, discussing new colours found as a result of windfall wandering [in the last few years students have discovered several interesting dye-related things about plants that weren't previously known, such as the blue print from Sourwood - Oxydendron arboreum leaves and the pink print from Broadleaf - Griselinia littoralis]

and including stories about the regions where the workshops take place, information about the participants and [just for fun] a collection of the recipes used to prepare the food we shall have shared at the feasts

there may even be an exhibition at the conclusion of the project.

if you would like to be considered as a possible participant in this project please send an email to

with your name, physical address [this will help to determine where the workshop days will be held] and - if you have attended a workshop with me - a note reminding me where we met, please

the email account has been set to provide an auto-response. if you don't receive a response within a few minutes of sending your message, you'll probably need to check your spam-filter and also save the address above to your list of permitted contacts.

by the end of September i'll hope to be able to assess whether there is sufficient interest to pursue these ideas.

clearly there will be a cost involved to cover the workshop, materials and a copy of the book.

once the initial expressions of interest have been gathered, i will be able to determine the budget for the project and set the fee for participation. numbers will be limited [we're not reproducing the King James Bible].

i look forward to hearing from you...

_ the feasts will be prepared by my daughter Violette using fresh ingredients sourced from within each of the working regions - participants at Shakerag this year may remember some of her comestible offerings...

while i am putting the idea into the public arena please bear in mind that this proposal is copyright.

the curate's egg

a new beginning...

after my 365 posts over at blogger someone decided they'd had enough of my ramblings there and took the liberty of re-arranging my pages so i've taken my bat and ball and retreated to my cave [here] where i shall continue to tell stories, but perhaps not quite so frequently.

a new beginning...