A Crown of Autumn Leaves

When autumn gathers, the tree

That the leaves sang

Reddens dark slowly, then, suddenly free,

Turns like a key,

Opening air where they hang

Felt by Yvette Cals
Poetry by Annie Finch

Erosion Bundle (Part II)

My erosion bundle has rested in this hedge since I collected it from my dad's garden a couple of days ago.

You can imagine my disappointment when I found it, seemingly unchanged, tucked into the heart of this bay tree. It serves me right for not trusting myself to keep it suspended from a tree in my own garden. The temptation to peek or meddle would have been too much for me.

The gentleman's napkin that wrapped my little bundle, revealed things that I forgotten all about. Pine cones, heather, ears of barley, all damp from the rain.

Natural paper, and beech leaves, they seem so right together don't they?

A mixture of natural fibres. Wool of natural colour, or dyed with natural dyes. A small selection of pre-dyed wool that was given to me as a gift.


The heather has changed a lot. softer, less vivid in hue, mingled with alpaca wool.


A felted heart resting on some green cotton nuno gauze. I'm looking forward to playing with these.

And at the centre, another bundle with an acorn cup peaking out.


I enjoyed unrolling this nuno silk so much. Magical oak leaves...

Leaving their enchanting prints.

A label for the first felt kit I ever bought. A reminder of the artist who introduced me to felt, and made the shroud that I buried my baby girl in a year ago today.

Its funny how things turn out. I look back now, and find myself a changed person with new outlooks and skills. I marvel at some of my inspirational blogging friends that have also endured a lot. Who smile, create beauty, and share kind words.


You have all been a blessing in my life and today, I am feeling fine, optimistic.


I see so much potential for this bundle, and am thrilled with my silk prints.

Have a wonderful week end xJ

Eco Dyes and Egg Decorations

This week end I have really been doing the Easter thing for my little girl. We hid chocolate all around the house for her to find. We then went on an Easter Egg hunt at the Botanical Gardens, did face painting and made an Easter Bonnet.

When we returned, my little girl helped me wrap eggs in flowers, herbs and onion skins to Dye Latvian style as explained by India Flint in her book Eco Colour.

An egg about to be wrapped in skins, petals, leaves and silk

My egg bundles simmering away

Dyed hard boiled eggs rubbed with a little butter

I have also done a lot of natural dyeing this weekend. I brought a huge bag of seaweed back with me from Wales. I have been boiling and simmering wool in seaweed dye for 2 full days. The smell is not for the faint hearted :)

The first of the three pictures shows some merino after simmering for around 10 hours and then being left to rest in the excess dye solution overnight. The third picture shows the other half of the wool batch after a further 10 hours simmering. It is difficult to see in these pictures but the second batch is slightly darker by maybe 2-3 shades.

The iodine in the seaweed has produced a very nice pale amber colour.

I did not use any mordant as was unsure which one to use.

I think I will have to make some felt with this wool and experiment with starch. Traditionally, starch and iodine combined will produce a blue black colour but I don't know if this principle will still apply after the iodine has been through the dye pot process. I will have fun finding out though :)

We have had wonderful sunshine today. It has been very energising.

I hope you have all had a good week end xJ

Wearable Eco Art and a Bazaar Launch

Here you can see a picture of an embroidered nuno felt scarf that I made using Merino wool dyed in Nettles, a little Merino wool that as dyed with Blackberries, some samples of eco dyed wool, Blended Blue Faced Leicester wool, Vicuna, Tussah Silk and Bamboo.

Tomorrow I will list this scarf along with some photo's taken in natural daylight in my new online shop Natures Whispers Bazaar. I already listed a couple of items and plan to work very hard over the next few weeks to increase the stock levels.

You can enter the Bazaar by clicking on the picture above, the highlighted text or by clicking onto the link that will be a permanent feature on my side bar. Please feel free to look around and leave comments.

Wish me luck xJ

The Erosion Bundle Project

Whilst over at Love Stitching Red's place the other day, I saw her post on The Erosion Bundle Project. It sounds like a lot of fun and a great incentive to produce a piece of eco art guided by nature and our wonderfully unpredictable English weather, so I thought I'd join in!

Here are some things that i have gathered to include in my bundle. There is a lot of natural coloured wool and wool that has been dyed with use of plants, vegetables or berries. To the bottom right hand corner you can see my blackberry and nettle dyed wools. Next to it is wool dyed in blueberries and felted into the shape of a heart which was a gift from my friend Judy at CJ Stitching & Blooms. I love the heart and have been wondering how best to incorporate it into one of my own felt projects. The erosion bundle will be perfect. I have included natural coloured hand made paper, an olive soap box, leaves, acorns, pine cones and an ear of barley. There is also some small swatches of the predyed pre-felt made from the blended silk and merino that I was given for Christmas. Finally, I added the tag from my feet felt kit which I bought from Yuli Somme last spring. It felt like this should be included in the parcel as making the feet felt was my first encounter with felt making and lets just say, I have not looked back since.

I have wrapped the bundle in layers like the party game 'passy-the-parcel'.

The first layer began with an old key that is no longer needed. I wrapped it in a 50cm2 piece of nuno silk which in tun had oak leaves, pine cones, and acorn cups inserted in between each roll of the silk. This bundle was then tied with a piece of merino lace that I had tried to make into lace jewelry back in the summer (I didn't get very far with that project!).

Next I wound the silk parcel in a mixture of natural blended Gotland wool and some blended Blue Faced Leicester wool. I wrapped some wildflower seed heads inside and bound it with a little apricot dyed alpaca wool.

Next I wrapped the natural wool bundle alongside a sprig of Anglesey heather and dried beech leaves and the last of the pine cones inside a small square of green cotton nuno gauze.

This was then placed inside the olive soap box, surrounded with the dyed wool, wrapped in natural paper and then wrapped again in recycled metallic gift paper before being tied inside a white cotton men's handkerchief and being placed in the snow between the heather and red robin in my front garden.

I will probably move it to my dads garden and suspend it from his cherry tree in the next few days. My dads garden gets a lot more exposure to sunlight, and well, its much prettier and has more wildlife in it.

It will stay in my dads garden and will be left untouched until the end of April/beginning of May, when I will open it again and begin making a piece of eco art with the contents.

Fun stuff!