Eco Dyeing at Tarndie

 Last weekend, I was down at Geelong for the Art Quilt Australia Awards, my last post was all about my excitement of winning First Prize.

The following day some of us drove down to Tarndwarncoort Sheep Farm or Tarndie for short, for a day of Eco Dyeing.

It is one of the oldest sheep farms and properties in Australia and was built in 1848 and now classified as a National Trust property. The same family still owns the property as it has been handed down through the generations.

As it was a sheep farm, we were dyeing using wool fabrics, they were quite thick upholstery fabric that they got in for us to use as they specialise in dyeing yarns.

First we dyed some fabric using Cherry Ballart or wild Cherry with some copper which gives a lovely Chartreuse colour and then we learnt about Indigo dyeing.

These are the fabrics that I did. I have ironed the fabrics but couldn't get the wrinkles out, so I won't be using upholstery fabric if I ever do it again.

 The Indigo vat seems like a lot of work, so I was glad to see it done but probably won't add it to my bag of tricks.

Our last technique was eco dyeing with leaves. I have done it before with iron water, so I took the opportunity to use copper instead to get an orange colour.

Here I am arranging my leaves onto the fabric.

This is a photo of all our fabrics on copper pipes after being steamed.

 Here is the big reveal when we unrolled them and took off the leaves.

We had a lovely lunch in the dining room of the old house.

We also had a walk around the farm even though it was a bit of a wet, cold day. They keep Polwarth sheep which have the brown faces. The sheep in the photo below had twins and you can see a white lamb with them. The white lamb kept following the other mother with the twins, probably wanted some playmates.

Polwarth Sheep

Despite the cold weather, it was an enjoyable day and lovely to get to know the other women who mostly came from interstate.

Bye for now,

Linda