Luscious Layers with Leah

Last week I spent three days at Littleheath Barn doing a fabric dyeing workshop with Leah Higgins. My inspiration was labels - the negative and positive labels we put on ourselves.  Not an easy idea to portray in fabric.  I found the first day a bit difficult because I couldn't see my way with it.

 

 

We started with scraping colours over each other to see what would happen.  Above is black with acid lemon and below dark brown & acid lemon. 

I wasn't getting the colours I wanted.  That evening I realised that the reason I was unhappy about the colours was because I normally work with charcoal, rust brown and lemon yellow dyes not black, dark brown and acid lemon.

The next two days were spent adding various layers through different techniques onto pieces of fabric.

I'm still thinking about how I'm going to use them.  Hopefully inspiration will strike soon.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Out and About

On the Sunday of our long weekend away, the younger Hoppers went to The Hole in the Wall beach whilst Roger and I went round the Booderee Botanic Gardens.  It was a very hot day and the Botanic Gardens were much cooler, thankfully.

We all went to Cave Beach.

On Monday it rained!!!  We all mooched about doing whatever it was we were doing!

We packed up the house on Tuesday morning and Andy drove us into Huskisson where we visited the Maritime Museum.  The kids had a treasure hunt to do and I took photos of a decaying boat.  As you do!

After lunch we went whale waatching.  Fortuanetely the whales put on a show for us.  I didn't bother to try to get photos of them.

On the way home we stopped off at a bike park.

The last 3 days of the holiday were really hot.  We made one last visit to the Wollongong Botanic Garden on the Wednesday.  There was a beautiful Arts & Crafts style building at the top of the garden.

We went to watch the eldest grandchild play in a soccer match on Wednesday and I went to see our granddaughter's gymnastic session on Thursday.  Apart from that we spent the last three days resting and reading and generally sharing life together.

On Saturday we got the train to the airport and our flight home.

Armchair travelling is over for another year.  I hope you enjoyed the journey.  I took over 450 photographs during the 3 weeks - I've only shared a very few over the last few posts.

Back to textiles next time 

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice 

The reason we came

I loved the road trip but the real reason for travelling all the way to Australia is to spend time with the family.  Although we get sent messages, videos and have FaceTime calls it's always good to be in the same place together.  

We had a quiet day on Monday.  On Tuesday Roger and I took ourselves to the Wollongong Art Gallery. There was an exhibition of Aboriginal Bark Paintings.

 
We walked along the beach to a seafood restaurant we had eaten in last year.

On Wednesday the whole family went to the Illawarra Fly Treetop Walk.  We didn't do the zipline!  We climbed to the top of the tower - 105 steps each way.
 

The view from the top over Lake Illawarra

 

 

We went for a walk along part of the shore of Lake Illawarra and the kids rode their bikes.

 

 

On Thursday Andy took us to the Mount Keira Lookout which overlooks Wollongong.

The three of us went to have lunch at a Filipino restaurant at Towradgi Beach.

 

On Friday, Andy drove all of us south towards Jervis Bay.  We stoppped off to walk the Grotto Walk, North Nowra and to have a picnic lunch.

 

After lunch we continued south to Sanctuary Point and the holiday accommodation we had booked for a long weekend.  It was on the shore of St. George's Basin.  There was a path along the shoreline that the children could take their bikes along.

 

We spent the next day mostly lazing about.  I read two books and Roger went for two walks.  It's not often we just do nothing.

 

The clocks changed that night so we 'lost' an hour's sleep.

 

See you next time for the next part of our holiday.

 

Thanks for being here today
Bernice