January weather was amazing & we spent time most of our days just hanging out & going to the beach to swim which was superb & is really all I ever want to do in summer anyway.

By the time February arrived I was well rested & ready to do some explorations into using NZ native plants for dyeing fabric & fibre.

The harakeke seed pods were at their best for harvesting for making a dye bath too & I was lucky enough to have my friend, Isla, walk me thru the process, which is very easy but it is a process which takes a few days.
Here's a link to a post on Isla's website which outlines the process we used; natural-dyeing-with-harakeke-seed-pods

In the dye bath I made from the pods I had harvested I dyed a few lengths of muka, 3xDMC cotton embroidery threads of various thickness, a 60cm square of calico, a 30cm square of cotton drill & various sized rectangles of cotton drill fabric I had cut out with a view to sewing a purl soho boxy tee.

It seems the harakeke pods are high in tannins so no surprise with the colours the cottons & cotton fabrics came out but it was lovely to see the variation in the colours of the muka fibres.

Rather than dyeing a single large piece of fabric which would have been awkward to fit in my dye pot, I pre-cut the pieces of fabric for my sewing.

What I hadn't considered was the extra shrinkage of the fabric courtesy of simmering for an hour in hot water.
I had already washed & dried the fabric BUT I do cold washes & line dry ! What a bastard trap for rookies !

I sewed up my top anyway & fortunately the pattern makes a generous size garment so the only problem area is the armhole depth which is a little too tight to be comfortable.
But I have a plan !
I think I'll open that seam, on each side, & insert a gusset just to give me a bit more space.

And now, finally, we get to the point of why I wanted to sew this particular top.
It's all about the bottom panel. Which is a separate piece.
A beautifully proportioned rectangle of fabric which lends itself to embellishment.
I was watching Sashiko Stitching taught by Lisa Solomon on Creativebug & in one part of the class she is wearing a top she has made with a sashiko embroidered bottom.

I had the fabric : I had the threads : I had the pattern I wanted to embroider & now I have a top which is the memory piece of my very 1st foray into dyeing with harakeke seed pods.

This was possibly the scariest thing I've done in a while !
It's not every day you take to your own embroidery with a staple gun, risking wonkiness & ruin !!*
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. . . but then it's not every day you really need to know whether or not what you've decide to do will work.
& even tho the 1st one worked I still procrastinated about doing the 2nd one simply because I was worried that the 1st one had somehow only worked by sheer good luck . . . 
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. . . turns out the 2nd one worked too.

There were 3 things I was evaluating.
Would I be able to evenly tension the fabric to get the lines lying taut, could i get 'nice' corners & which thickness frame would I prefer for this series

I am happy to report that the answer to the 2 technical questions is yes & yes
. . . I am undecided about which thickness I prefer.

Light Lines is an exploration of the play of light on single lines of colourful thread which have been stitched in a radial pattern to create different shapes.

It seems that the shape doesn't actually affect the play of light on these beautiful coloured threads.

I found some shapes easier to draw & some easier to stitch than others, which is particularly important in maintaining even tension to ensure the lines remain taut. 
I prefer the look of some of the shapes & colours but I think that's just personal preference. 

I've chosen the red circle, orange hexagon & purple/blue pentagon to frame & will post photos on my IG account & here on the blog when they're done.