The sunday session 28 & 29 - the joy of tea-bagging

wow, what a busy couple of weeks.  I've had the absolute joy of having my little sister and her boys visit.  it's been a year since i have been able to be the worlds best aunty and also get to hang out with these guys and get to do some exploring around my new city with them.  And was it great...HELL YEAH!

speaking of exploring, when i moved to melbourne - nearly a year ago - i ran into my friend Beck.  In fact, i have managed to run into Beck at least 4 times in the city on random occasions. it's such a great feeling when that kind of universal collision happens.

she recently invited me to join her and her colleague Ramona at a natural dying workshop as part of their craft companion journey, i jumped at the chance.  check their book out.  it's totally cred.

these ladies are handmade life and have a gorgeous studio at the Queen Victoria Markets on Victoria Street, and even walking past and looking through the windows is enough to inspire even the least crafty person to get a bit excited about doing some simple fun projects.

on their link they have a variety of short workshops that you can do in an afternoon, while enjoying a fabulous afternoon tea, great company and laugh after laugh.  well worth checking it out.

at the session i went to, we were using products that we may have readily available to dye silk fabric and to learn about how you can also dye wool, should you wish to be a little more adventurous. knowing that you can take simple household products, such as turmeric, tea, berries and even onion skin and be so creative was right up my alley.

after learning about many of the techniques available, it was time for us to have a crack.

and we were introduced to the joy of this fantastic DIY.

we then got to prep our own dying project.

i decided to use magnets to bring mine together, but of course, there's soooo many possibilities.

 

my dyeing was done with turmeric - so impressive and yet so easy and voila - i have a gorgeous scarf. the yellow was an unusual choice for me, but i was drawn to the effect of the turmeric.

this is what you also get... hand made deliciousness..

so why have i titled this post the joy of tea-bagging, well, it's not what you think....but i really want to explore the simplicity of using the one thing that most people have in their kitchen to create an amazing natural colour palette. the tea bag. for me it evokes a colour reminiscent of the 20's and 30's glamour.

i love the feeling of this era and would like to put my own twist on it using teabag dyeing on silk and then creating some looks. bring on summer!

so let's step right into full colour and check out what i have been wearing.

on week 28, i was all about the snow queen look.  the white on cream on cream dream.  i was wearing a thrifted white linen skirt, cream jumper from uniqlo, cream vest thingy from lee cooper, brown boots from spurr and my fave cream fur hat that i op shopped sooooo long ago. i can't even explain how much i loved this look and i can't even explain it's simplistic elegance, but the word's simple and elegance probably don't belong int he same sentence if i am involved.  yet it just all worked.

for week 29, i am crushing on the double quilted ensemble.

firstly, it's double quilting.  that's what most people seem to have on their beds at present, but not me, i have taken it to the streets.

i picked up the skirt at uniqlo last week, and teamed it with a uniqlo turtle neck, my quilted vest i got in india way way way back in 2007, my men's shoes from tarocash and those hot pink tights. dang i felt good, with my big fancy hair and my dark sunnies, until the weather changed and then i kinda froze my tits off...we took my nephews ice skating - i didn't dress for this so sat it out, but after sitting for an hour at the outside ice skating rink watching my nephews and my sisters enjoy themselves in the absolute coldest and rainiest afternoon of the year, i eventually used my smarts and decided to fuck off home. where warmth and wine was the winning combination.

 

well, i am hoping i will be back on track with my weekly words, after what has been a few hectic weeks.  i'm off to go in search of silk, so i can make my tea-bagging dream a reality. 

thank you ladies of handmade life, i look forward to sharing this project and joining you for some other sessions. x