A book of umbellifers

cover

I’ve always loved umbellifers and have lots in the garden, even allowing carrots to go to seed, so decided to do a whole book on them. I first sun printed a load on to fabric, then added more images, printing directly from the flowers with acrylic ink and also using decolorant to remove colour.  As well as the sun printed fabric, I used some that I had previously dyed using low-emersion dyeing and arashi dyeing techniques.  The rectangular pieces of Evelon were coloured using transfer dyes and plant material as resists.  Finally, I added machine and hand stitching, beads, sequins and mother of pearl buttons. On the cover I used acrylic mat medium to attach a real head of hogweed. View the Post

Impressions of Japan

Japan Book Cover

At the end of March, just in time to catch the beginning of the cherry blossom flowering, but before too many tourists arrived, I visited Japan.  We spent most of the time in Kyoto, which still retains much of the flavour of the “old” Japan and which I found fascinating.  One of the highlights was going to a flea market, held once a month in the streets around a large shrine.  Here I found some fabrics, including a piece of silk, shibori tied  ready for the dye pot and an old hand written journal which I later discovered to be a crop record on an estate.  I decided I would make a photo album with a difference – using fabrics and some beautiful paper I had bought there as the pages.  It is a double sided concertina book as I wanted the pages to remain as I had constructed them.  Many of the fabrics I have purchased over the years, some recently through eBay. View the Post