Kauri Teachers Blog Too!

As many of you already know, I love making things, particularly involving fibre (a.k.a. fabric and wool). One of my goals for this year is to expand my skill set in this area by taking up as many learning opportunities as I can. When I saw rekindle  was advertising a class on using natural dyes, I knew I was interested. Over the course of the class, we experimented with the different dyes, both on their own and mixed with each other. Of all the colours, my favourite was the colour made with avocado stones, which is, rather surprisingly, a lovely, soft pink. We also wrote out the recipes for each of the dyes, as well as some others we didn't have in front of us. It was really interesting to learn about Ari, the teacher's, philosophy around dying. To find the plant matter to make the dyes, she forages what has been left on the ground, leaving the living matter for the plant to continue to use. I am often in awe of nature, but I found it particularly interesting that only...

When school finished last year, I started getting organised for Christmas. I wanted to have new placemats for our table as the family was coming to our house for Christmas dinner. I went to my favourite website, Pinterest, and found instructions on how to make some cool mats using a ragging technique. Several hours later I had 10 double sided placemats that I really loved. My finished placemats. Next time I went onto Pinterest, ideas for rag quilting were on my feed. I loved the look of these quilts and did some research. I read articles and viewed videos. A rag quilt sample, not mine. I had always wanted to make a quilt for our bed and this method looked like a great way to start. Feeling motivated, I tested out two different variations that I discovered when researching. Investigating which variation to use. I decided that I wanted to sandwich flannel fabric inside my quilt squares rather than dacron, as it gave a better ragging effect and would make a light...