nemo ignorat

sayonara

another cloth-thing has left my needles, a pair of trousers bundle dyed with red and yellow onions skins. The busier I am with other textile stuff the more productive I get. Weird.

In the background you can see our huge tree in the back yard during my favourite season.

The tree is as tall as our house and overgrown with one wistaria. Not much to see during winter but in spring when the wistaria is in full bloom it is a sight to behold.

I do hope there will some blooms left and that I won't miss the complete rose season during my stay in Japan. Who would have thought that this year everything is blooming so early.

Anyway, tomorrow I'll be sitting in the plane to Tokyo. Sayonara, I will tell you all about it in two weeks time.

what once was a sofa cushion

Another travel companion left my needles. A nice tote. I love backpacks but I haven't had a nice one which suits my needs for a long time now. And my red velvet bag is way too heavy in itself, so I needwanted a new one.

honestly, I love the crewel embroidery but I wouldn't be caught dead with a sofa cushion like that on my sofa. Especially not with my four legged friends on the same sofa.

But as a tote it's grand.

It was embroidered (not by me) on a sturdy. densely woven burlap oder linen. I added a cotton layer behind the embroidery so that I would have a nice inner pocket and protection for the embroidery threads.

I still have my katazome stencils to cut. Bryan sent us wonderful shibugami (stencil paper) but I can't decide on the motive. I's drawn about 10 and now I have to decide. And soon. I'll be off end of next week.

manteau-de-lit

I'm going to Japan end of month. To Bryan Whitehead and his Indigo Textile Workshop. This will be a first in a lot of things for me. I never flew before let alone some long distance flight and of course, I've never been to Japan before. It seems a lot of people in my vicinity already had this experience (long distance flights and/or Japan) and so they gave me a lot of nice hints and tips.

One thing all mentioned was that it gets really cold on long distance flights and that I should wear something loose and in layers. So I went to the stash where I still had this linen doubleweave.

And then there was this manteau-de-lit pattern I really covetted for.

and then a travel dress.

I'm still wearing it just to give it a try.

It's quite roomy and comfortable. DH means it looks a bit tribal. We'll see if I'll actually be courageous enough to wear it on the flight.

new online classes (for German speakers)

since I know that some of my German speaking readers prefer this blog to my German one (which is understandable, I don't really write a lot personal stuff in my German blog) I opened subscription to my two online classes thais year. My indigo online workshop will be between July 1st and August 10th and the local dyeing on cotton and wool will be between August 11th and September 15th. The classes will be held in German only.

More informations on the classes here.