Tag: leaves

Hello Snail.

13/10/13

Today I had rather a long wait for the bus home from work (and there aren’t any buses to my new house on a Sunday, which is going to be awkward), so I decided to play around with the camera again while I was waiting. Hello snail!

13/10/13

Expecting my camera to be all “no, I’m not focussing anywhere you want, hahaha”, I was pleasantly surprised when it decided to prove me wrong.

(Yes, I realise my camera is inanimate. I don’t think that prevents it from having moods, or trying to thwart me at every possible opportunity.)

13/10/13

This little bit of lichen is about a centimetre across. About the same size as the snail’s shell, in fact. And today, my camera had no problem at all taking this picture.

13/10/13

Or this one. In low light, and in the rain, no less.

13/10/13

Goodbye snail.

Fuzzy Feet

Dilemma of the day:

My feet have pins and needles and a burning sensation, which makes it quite difficult to walk without a walking stick.

My hands also have pins and needles and a burning sensation, which makes it quite difficult to hold a walking stick.

Tricky business.

My list of ridiculous and frustrating symptoms is getting longer and more annoying as the months go on. I do have an appointment with my doctor next week, but I don’t honestly expect anything to come of it. (Although I’m hoping for a referral to a rheumatologist, who can at least arrange for some tests I haven’t had already.)

Hey ho.

At least it’s a bit easier to put up with having very uncomfortable feet when you get to put them inside some lovely comfortable shoes. Fairysteps Holly, in case you were wondering. I wear mine with the ribbons around the ankle rather than across the instep.

Just as well I sold my entire shoe collection in order to buy these, really. I can’t imagine I’d have been able to wear a single pair of my old shoes right now!

Microscope photography

usb microscope

As I was catching up with all of your blogs (500+ unread posts, eek!), I came across Resurrection Fern’s fascinating iPhone microscope photos. Aren’t they beautiful? I was very disappointed when a quick search revealed that the microscope gadget doesn’t fit my poor “old” iPhone 3. A bit more searching ensued, and revealed a little usb microscope for attaching to your computer. Then a penny dropped – I’ve seen one of those at work! I unearthed it from the bottom of the Science Box yesterday, and brought it home for a quick play.

usb microscope

So far I can say that I’m really enjoying playing with the camera, but the software leaves an awful lot to be desired! First of all, this camera is too old to be properly Mac-compatible, which is very frustrating. Not to mention the ridiculous mini-cd that houses the software, which doesn’t fit into a single computer in this house. Thankfully the computers at work are old enough to have a proper cd tray, and I was able to copy the software to a usb stick. I installed the drivers on my netbook, which was easy enough, and the camera worked straight away.

usb microscope

Sadly, after I’d named and saved all 30 photos individually (no batch operations, how unhelpful!), half of them wouldn’t open. The jpegs turned out to be corrupted, so they obviously hadn’t saved properly. When I got the remaining photos onto a nice large screen, I could see that most of them were out of focus, which was disappointing. The focus wheel is pretty much the entire body of the camera, which means that as you’re trying to sharpen the image you’re also moving the lens. That’s never going to work, especially not at 200x magnification!

usb microscope

But, the microscope + netbook combination is easily portable, which means that I’ll be able to take the whole lot outside with me and see what I can find. And the newest version of the microscope looks to have much better software and higher magnification, even though it’s still only a 2mp camera.

I don’t think I’m quite ready to give Richard Weston a run for his money, but I do have some ideas for incorporating designs inspired by these images into some new textile work. The question is, will I ever have time to make it?!

Hapa-zome

Plaintain leaf
Ribwort plaintain leaf

Today I have been mostly hitting plants with a hammer.

As you do.

It’s a technique called “hapa-zome”, coined by India Flint, that literally means “leaf dye” in Japanese.

Using a few sheets of thin cardboard to cushion my work table, I laid out a small piece of silk paj, and placed the plantain leaf on top. The silk was folded in half, leaving the leaf sandwiched in between. I popped a plain sheet of paper over the top… and hit it with a hammer.

A rubber hammer is advised, but I don’t have one of those, so I used my leather jeweller’s hammer instead. The trick is in hitting the leaf hard enough that the colour transfers onto the fabric, but not so hard that it turns into mush and gets stuck to the silk.

Nasturtium petals
nasturtium petals

The plantain leaf took a fair bit of hammering before I had a nice even print. These nasturtium petals, on the other hand, I barely had to touch. Interestingly, when I peeled them off the fabric they were almost transparent, having been bright orange beforehand. The print they’ve left behind is very soft and faint, almost ghostly.

These prints won’t be light fast, but apparently they should last a good couple of years if they’re not washed too often. I can’t decide whether or not I like them… but I’m keen to bring home some more leaves and have another go.

Stef’s Silk Scarf

Stef's Silk Scarf

Okay, so I did manage to get a little something done in between my increased hours at work. This was an extra little birthday gift for my mother-in-law.

I dyed the silk with tea, which came out a little bit paler than my previous experiment, but still a lovely colour. Very interesting on the silk too, as the tone seems to change in different light.

Stef's Silk Scarf

I hemmed all four edges by hand, using teeny-tiny slip slitches. Each corner has an equally teeny-tiny briolette bead dangling from it. The gemstones are labradorite, and the facets catch the light beautifully.

Stef's Silk Scarf

Each end of the scarf is embellished with leaf rubbings. Done using Inktense pencils, they picked up the detail of the leaves beautifully. Appropriately for a silk scarf, the leaves came from the mulberry tree at the Museum of English Rural Life.

Stef's Silk Scarf

Because no scarf is complete without a scarf ring, I set a matching faceted labradorite cabochon into one of Kernowcraft’s new easy-to-set rings. Because the band is adjustable, it’s perfect to use as either a scarf ring or to wear on your finger.

Stef's Silk Scarf

And here it is!

I’ve also been working on a tie-dyed turmeric scarf for myself. I did wear it last week, but I haven’t hemmed the long edges yet, so it needs a little bit more work. I’m so pleased with how Stef’s scarf ring turned out, and how incredibly easy it was to make, that I’m thinking I might need a brass and labradorite one for myself…

Leaves in the snow.

I went for a walk in the snow this morning. I took a grand total of 99 pictures, then came back and edited them down to just 9. I went out rather early, so although there was a lot of light reflecting from the snow, it wasn’t really daylight yet. As a result a lot of the pictures were rather grainy. I also took a lens that I’m not really used to using (70mm macro), so it took me a while to get the hang of it.

I ended up concentrating mainly on single leaves. Some were still just about clinging on to the trees, others were lying in the snow. I’m honestly not sure what’s going on with this one! It’s clearly not attached to a tree, so it must be lying on the ground, but somehow it looks as though it’s floating.

I particularly like looking at the largest version of this one. It’s still rather grainy, but you can see an absolutely amazing amount of detail of the structure of the leaf.