Natureʼs Palette

Crafting with Nature

My Roots Unveiled

For decades I have been designing and playing in all different forms of the art and craft worlds. From different types of embroidery, to knitting, crochet, painting, soft toy sculpture, felting, wood working, sculpting with clay, resin, and paper mache. This has also led to me diving into the wonders of the miniature world where I can combine everything in one giant work of art. Along the way I quite often felt frustrated with the colours of fibre that I was working with.

Living in Australia, I found dyed threads and wool didn’t always represent the environment of the world I live in. The greens weren’t quite the right greens for that eucalyptus tree I wanted to reproduce. Or I couldn’t quite get the right colours for that type of sandstone in that building. I started pulling out books that I had purchased over 20 years ago on natural dying to see how I could bring my environment, into my own art work. It was time to begin crafting with nature.

Thanks to the internet, there is now allot more information available than there was 20 years ago, when I first started reading about natural dyeing. There has also become a much greater need to look after the world we live in and reduce our use of chemicals and waste in our individual lives. It was time to start experimenting and playing in the world of natural dyes.

That’s what this website is all about. Sharing the ups and downs, the success and failures as I travel along this journey. It is by no means a set of rules that must be followed. It is more an invitation for you to find things in your own environments, so you too can experiment along with me. I hope you can find small nuggets of information, within my stumbling around, that can encourage you to take your own journey, where ever you may be, into natural dyes. Let’s make art that echoes the beauty of the outdoors!