Workshops at RMIT

As part of our fundraising for graduation, we are running some workshops in various textile techniques.  It goes for two days and we started today.
It was good for us to have to go back to some techniques we had learnt earlier in the course and remember how to do them.  Teaching someone else to do something always makes you have to be really clear about what you are doing and the correct sequence in which to do the various steps.
We started with the Dyeing and Shibori class.  First we dyed small pieces of cotton using two primary colours, graduating the colours from one to the other (eg, red for one piece, blue for another and then variations of blue and red in between).

The first lot of dyeing batching in the sun.

While the cotton batched, we did some silk scarf dyeing using shibori techniques, including clamping, pole wrapping, beans surrounded by elastic bands, etc.

Silk scarf using one colour only.

Two colours used.

Pole wrapped.

Elastic bands around beans.

Pole wrapped.

Also in the morning was the machine knitting workshop.  In this class, there was an equal number of students and teachers.  The students made a scarf.

We were able to use the knit room, an ideal space for the workshop.

The afternoon classes were Screen Print and Making Embellishments.

Screen Print

The screen printers made lovely designs on calico pieces, using paper resists.

The Making Embellishments class had three teachers and one student!  But we had fun.  Actually, the three teachers all learnt, or became a bit more proficient at, a different technique taught by each teacher.

Two of the teachers having fun.

Our one student doing some felting.