I am featured on Jenjies's Crafty Stuff

I am featured again, this time on Jenjie's Crafty Stuff's blog.
Check it out and also have a look at the other arts and crafts people she is featuring.

Magic Yellow Cosmos

The flowers of yellow cosmos are not only a beauty in the garden, they also yield a variety of vibrant colours.

I'll give a short overview of a few colours you can achieve with this wonderful flowers.

The yellow and orange flowers both give the same results. I haven't tried other cosmos.

The wool is first mordanted with alum. A mordant is needed to fix the dye to the fibers. I use the natural rock alum, I am lucky to have a supplier in this area.

After boiling the flowers in water, I put the wool in the dyebath and let it boil until desired colour intensity. This will give a yellow colour.

Now the fun starts. We can modify the yellow colour in many different ways:

-soak in water with vinegar: the colour will turn more into a lemon yellow.

-soak in water with soda: this yields a bright orange.

-soak in rusted nail water (this is obtained by putting rusted nails in water and vinegar for at least a few days): you'll get an olive green.

-soak in rested nail water, rinse and soak in soda water: the wool becomes rust brown to dark warm brown.

I only use natural and non toxic ingredients in my natural dye techniques. This keeps it safe for me and for the planet.

One of my result with yellow cosmos dyes:

brown and orange vest

Seasonal Dilemma

It is getting hotter here, in the tropics of Far North Queensland and working with wool makes it even warmer.

Visitors at the market tell me that it is too hot to even look at wool.

So, I started to list winter items in my etsy shop, hoping they will find a new owner in a cold country, while focusing on other local projects.

Time for a change! I am ready to change direction with my business, so it's all fitting in perfectly.

I will still be making felt clothing and also extend my creativity in other areas, something I have been willing to do for years.

I will upload some photos of my wall hangings that I made in the past in a next post.

The challenge with clothing is often the sizes. And because I make mainly one off pieces, I need the right person with the right size who likes the right colour and in in the right season and possibly in the right mood!....

Back again...

Now that I am catching up with my orders, I have time to write again. I am slowly filling up my etsy shop and also started a newsletter for those who like to know more about my work and arts and crafts in general. You can sign up at this blog or at my site, http://lizetfrijters.com

A bit about myself

As a self -taught textile artist, I learned from life and from my mother's enthusiasm in textile works, especially knitting. I have an ongoing interest in organic gardening, textile, art and craft, natural materials, dance, life and many more...

I started knitting at the age of 5 and never stopped working with textiles. Of course I have breaks sometimes and usually can't wait to start a new project again. I seem to never run out of ideas, which is fantastic.

I learned many more textile techniques over the years and feltmaking became one of my favorites.

I am also a designer of cooperative eco-games. You can find my games at

http://livingearthgames.etsy.com

I live in the beautiful tropical paradise of Far North Queensland of Australia and love it here.

I love creating pieces that are beautiful to the eye and soft to the touch. I hope you'll enjoy my work and I love to receive comments, you can comment at the bottom of every post.

If you like to contact me by email: lizet_frijters(at)yahoo(dot)com(dot)au