Fascinating Fungi part 2

The weather was very changeable on Sunday so I set off for the Boundary Way (Allotments and Community Garden - phew! what a mouthful) with layers of clothes for every eventuality.   The first thing I saw when driving onto the site was all the amazing flowers everywhere. Now I don't know if they are to attract the insects, just happen to pop up or are grown specifically but they were on most plots. What a way to start the day - really lifted my soul.

 There were some little mushrooms sprung up inside the polytunnel - sadly as the day went on they wilted in the heat - they seem such transient things.


For this workshop we were looking at how to represent the gills of the mushroom by using fabric manipulation techniques.  These all originated in China as part of the art of Shibori (now associated with Japan)  After a quick look at some samples of fungi (straight from my fridge lol) we got straight into making suffolk puffs, by stitching round a circle of fabric and then pulling it tight.

 This is Sarah being super speedy. She churned out a whole ring of puffs in short order.

 Anne was a very neat and tidy stitcher and Moya took a considered approach. A small group gave us plenty of time to chat and to look at each section in detail.

After puffs we went on to ruffles using long strips of fabric.

Sarah made a whole mushroom out of a face wipe

More ruffles. (the biscuits went down well too)

A whole set of puffs and ruffles 

 It got quite warm by lunch time so we moved outside to carry on sewing in the fresh air.

Once we had finished all the manipulation we had lots of samples to work with. The next step was to prepare them for rusting - a natural decay process that seemed appropriate as fungi feed on decaying material.   All the samples were dipped in either tea or vinegar water and then placed in trays. We used found fencing, nails etc to provide the rust element.  The trays were wrapped in clingfilm and the rust marks will develop over the next few days. Part of the fun of this technique is you never know quite what you are going to get! 

The ladies were a joy to teach and it was a fabulous day of stitch explorations. I hope they send me pictures of the final results and I will upload them here.

Really looking forward to the final in the series - mark making into stitch, again inspired by fungi. Details on my events page and on the Boundary Way Project website.

Thanks for reading.