Nettles, Treadles and Love

I’ve been wanting to do something with the small piece of wool that I dyed in the onion skin vat. I love the color so much. So I decided to try felting it like we did in Katharine Jolda’s workshop.  I wanted to make a smaller version of the purse – like a wallet/pouch thing. […]

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This is my most recent upholstery project.  After… …and before. A friend found it for me at a thrift store.  I was determined to avoid all synthetic materials with this project.  Trying to just stick with old school natural fibers and metal. First thing is to tear it all apart and pull out the innards. […]

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I made these little bags last weekend… They were both made from fabric remnants I had.  One for a young friend of mine, and one for myself. I like this dandelion detail on this fabric. This book has been very handy for learning how to make bags:  Sew What! Bags by Lexie Barnes    

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I finally added a leather strap to my felted bag I made in Katharine Jolda’s workshop. I decided against a button closure for now.  We’ll see if I need one as I use it. I found some leather, and tools to work with, at Frank’s Leather and Hides here in SF.  It is an ENORMOUS […]

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Years ago, when I started trying to eradicate plastic from my life, I kind of developed an obsession with glass jars. Ball canning jars are great, and then I also remove the labels from purchased product jars and reuse them. You do need to be a little more mindful when packing up glass jars for […]

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Sean had a lot of fun oiling the treadle, attaching the cable and getting it to run smoothly.  He had fun sewing on it too. The first completed sewing project on the treadle was curtains for our bedroom.  I got some heavy hemp canvas for the curtains and then some black raw silk as a […]

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Another thing I made as gifts this year were jars of golden Ghee – clarified butter (or drawn butter.) Ghee is pure butterfat – it is butter that is gently heated to the point of separating out the water and milk solids from the oil – which makes it lactose-and casein-free. It is a very […]

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I made some little zipper pouches as gifts for the holidays. I used the cotton fabric I dyed with onion skins for the outside of the pouches. I made two linoleum block prints – a sheep and a ball of yarn.  One for each side of the pouch. letting the ink dry.  I used a […]

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I’ve been saving up coffee grounds from Sean’s morning coffee for the past few weeks. Thursday night – soaked my yard of cotton cloth in tannins (coffee grounds) for 90 min. at 185 degrees. A tannin bath is used before the mordant, or metal ion bath, for cellulose fibers, such as cotton, hemp, linen, flax, […]

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Day #3 was again at RDI. Katharine Jolda was the felting instructor.  She creates felted items and teaches felting and is the inventor of a bicycle powered carding machine, or cyclocarder. She has a great website called Felt the Sun, and the SF Chronicle just had a nice article and interview with her here, and […]

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