This is the colour wheel I made for part of the colour theory module I studying at the moment. I handstitched every piece on it.

These are back to front but it won’t matter

Tied and dyed and drying



I’ve set up my laundry for dyeing!!! It’s great having a spot I don’t have to pack up. My lecturer Suzanne Gummow was saying last week if you don’t have a permanent place set up you won’t do any dyeing or sewing for that matter because no one wants to set everything up and then pack it all up again afterwards. She’s right so I set up a spot in the laundry.

Of course I chose the day after the heat to do my dyeing!! It doesn’t matter they’ll dry.

Now I just have to make space for my sewing machine!

On facebook Dignity For Disability posted this:

This fabulous art festival is truly inspiring, and a great opportunity for aspiring disabled artists. Put it in your diary, you won’t be disappointed!

The Outsiders Festival – Adelaide 2010 will be held in September 2010.

“…”outsider art”, consists of works produced by people who for various reasons have not been culturally indocrinated or socially conditioned”… “Working outside fine art “system” (schools, galleries, museums and so on), these people have produced, from the depths of their own personalities … works of outstanding originality in concept, subject and techniques. They are works which owe nothing to tradition or fashion.”
Michel Thevoz, Curator of the Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne

Love this, I want to see more groups and individuals with opportunities to share their talents!! Visual and performance arts!!

Format Collective looks like another good way to do this! From their website:

Format Collective is an arts collective based in Adelaide, Australia.

We connect Adelaide’s underground art scenes. We’re fringier than the Fringe.

We put on arts events in and around Adelaide such as the annual Format Festival (including the Academy of DIY, Adelaide Zine Fair & the Street Dreams street art festival), the art show Big!, Renew Adelaide, and the alternative text workshops called Big Words. We are now also running the Format Zine Shop in the centre of Adelaide city.

This is a wrap around skirt I made last year at college. I dyed it back then but didn’t like it so I dyed it again, using rust dye, recently and left it out on the clothes line for about a week too. It doesn’t look good in this photo and I’m still not quite happy with it. I’m wondering about printing on it or over dyeing it a much darker colour. Any ideas anyone?

I’m a lot happier with these experiments with disperse dyeing with bleach. I used full strength bleach, applied it with a spoon, rinsed in vinegar and then water, dried and then ironed them. I want to try some more using different coloured fabrics.

Extreme Craft “A compendium of art masquerading as craft, craft masquerading as art and craft extending its middle finger”.

Found this Extreme Craft blog today all about creative reuse and homemade craft from all sorts of ‘stuff’. Apprently it’s very trendy at the moment. I didn’t realise I was so ‘in’ or ‘with it’. Haven’t we all been doing this for years before it had a name?

A new word I came across which I like is ‘trashion’!!!! I’m sure I can make plenty of that, but would I wear it?? I don’t know. It would depend on what it was. I haven’t completed my wrap around skirt I made for this summer. I need to re-dye it because I’m not happy with the colours.

I just finished this bag the other day but today I just realised it’s made from old scrap wool which was my Grandma’s and my Mum’s and also the bluey green I used for the handle and putting it together is from an old jumper I bought so that I could unravel it and use the wool. I’ve felted some of it too. I didn’t realise I was so in vogue! ha ha ha 🙂

A Butterfly Basket

T H E T O Y M A K E R

This is from the website of Marilyn Scott-Waters.

Welcome to my odd, little world of paper toys, holiday cards, valentines, sun boxes, baskets and bags, origami and ephemera… all for you to make. My goal is to help grownups and kids spend time together making things. It is my wish to amuse and delight. Enjoy, Marilyn.

This site is “chock a block” full of paper toys to make. Many of them are in colour for you to print out and make but there are also some which are black and white for you to print and colour in. All the files are .pdf format.

I’m going to make a paper airplane with one of my students today 🙂 These would make great Christmas presents!!! You could get the kids to make them for parents, aunties, uncles and grandparents as well as printing out a heap and putting them in a folder for a child’s present! I think it would keep them occupied for ages.