some workshop dates

and a little something for my paid subscribers

The past two weeks have been a bit exciting in terms of drawing squiggly marks in the diary. A parcel arrived from Maiwa with the new dresses we have been working on together (for more than a year now!). They are so beautiful I don’t really want to dye them, if I’m honest…but that is my job, after all, so I’m considering the options very carefully indeed.

Pieces are drifting in gently for ‘requiem’ so far I have received five, which is splendid as these are very early days in the project.

I am thrilled to bits to have been commissioned to make dance costumes for a production at the Opera House (that cute one in Sydney) in September this year, have been invited to teach in the Netherlands next year and am also happy to confirm that the workshop at Glenmore that I had to postpone last year is at last going ahead on October 25 + 26 (this year). You’ll find the links to booking forms and contact emails here.

I’m still editing the next online course for the School of Nomad Arts. I had so many ideas that it would have taken me the next three years to produce physical examples for them all so I’m working on ways of explaining all the possibilities by simpler means. Better to keep the price down rather than painstakingly produce each one. More on that soon!

In between tweaking my dance card and ordering last minute yardage from Beautiful Silks (down to the wire now, friends…sadly they will cease trading on July 7) for the costumes I have been experimenting with things from the kitchen, in the spirit of waste not, want not. I have also had to purchase a new washing machine as mine completely gave up the ghost (I was tempted to write “shat itself” but that’s not terribly polite so I had better not). I abhor trawling around the shops so I was online at midnight last night, finding one that seemed reasonable value, was nicely marked down because it isn’t the latest model with all the bells and whistles, and best of all it will be delivered next Thursday.

The first experiment was a slow dye with strawberry hulls, but as I haven’t taken photos yet and am typing this 100km from home (so a little far from the sample for a quick snap) I’ll save the extended story for the next edition.

The other experiment was not a bundle, simply an immersion. Here’s a picture of the sample after a thorough wash (not in the broken washing machine), posing amongst doodles on the large piece of paper that covers my dining table.

I’ve been feeling for a while that there should be an incentive for my paid subscribers to keep supporting me, so the simple story of how this colour came about, in the kitchen (while cooking dinner) and without adjunct mordants, is for you.