MORE ODDITIES ON THE WASHING LINE

A week or two ago, this is what my washing line looked like.

I had been making silk paper, and put it out to dry in a lovely breeze. Making silk paper is a little bit like felting, but the silk fibres do not hook together in the same way as wool fibres. You need to bind them with a medium like Textile medium, or even diluted PVA or wallpaper paste.

The resulting 'paper' can be quite beautiful, has a lovely shimmer, and can be put to a multitude of uses.

                                  

I have scanned some of them to show you.

                                    

                                       

                                                        

You can still see the imprint of the net that I use to make the 'silk sandwich', but this will be ironed out - literally!!

Lately I have used pieces of silk paper to make cards. The paper makes a beautiful rich background for pressed flower arrangements.

This background inspired me to do something different.

So I went off to my stash of lace, and found what I needed.

I think I like the lace pieces almost as much as the pressed flowers - and they have the advantage of being much more acceptable to a fussy quarantine officer if the cards should be travelling to Australia or New Zealand!!

I was panicking because I was running short of window cards, and also wanted more of the lovely dragonfly lace motifs!

My dear online friend Peggy, from Kaliko Kottage, was able to come to the rescue with both!

Meanwhile, this is what my washing line looks like this morning!

These are pieces of woolen jumpers (from the Op Shop) that I have felted in my washing machine using very hot water! This produced beautiful thick and versatile felt pieces that I use for many things!

                             

Believe it or not, I have a load of real washing sitting in my machine, waiting to be hung out. How boring!!

PRESSED FLOWERS

Only a month now to the start of Spring, but our Norfolk Island gardens cannot wait, and are already starting to produce some lovely early blooms to delight us. I have enjoyed gathering the lavender, floral sages and the early violets to use in some projects.

Many years ago I bought a microwave flower press, and have made use of it on many ocasions. It takes just a minute or two to do what takes weeks and weeks between the pages of a heavy book, or in a normal flower press.

One of the main reasons I have been pressing flowers lately is to make cards like these.

I will tell you more about these cards in another posting.

Every January and February, meanwhile I gather the floral spikes from the silver artemesia for the Country Womens' bookmarks that I make. Because I need so many, and use them throughout the year, I  dry these between the pages of a heavy old atlas.

I had not made any bookmarks for a while, and Margaret had offered to come and learn the process so she could help me keep up the supply. So I removed the artemesia  foliage from the atlas and placed them in a plastic container.

Imagine my amusement and amazement when I discovered I had another helper. Basil decided to help the pressing process along! Now Basil is a very large cat, but he remained squeezed into that container for a whole day!!