The pretty, pretty colours of my natural dye project for the Society of Dyers and Colourists. The dyes are from fruit and leaves found in my garden, and onion skins from my kitchen.

Way back in February I received a bursary from the SDC to help me set up a dye kitchen to work in after graduating. I'm now in the process of doing that and having invested in some mordants and a very lovely set of scales, I have been busy over the past couple of days experimenting with natural dyes. The results were initially a little disappointing but then odd things started to happen, colours changed in ways that I really didn't expect; blackcurrant and chrome gave me silver grey, and just as I'd given up on copper it did wonderful things when combined with onion skins. I am now eagerly anticipating the elderberries, sloes and blackberries, and thinking about other readily available organic material to experiment with over the next few months. 

I think this might be a musk-beetle (please correct me if I'm wrong), it flies by day and sips nectar from flowers and it was the last thing we saw before getting in the car and driving home. Maybe not very wedding-y, but it's antennae are very dashing. 

Three days camping for my daughter's wedding. The weekend was perfect. Sunshine, butterflies, a little rain to keep things fresh and an abundance of joy. Jessamy and Joe's delight was infectious, spread by contact and droplets in the air I think. 
The setting was as good as it gets, the smallholding that Joe's mother and stepfather have been working for twenty years. So in the heart of the countryside of Norfolk, they set their course to run together. They were married in a traditional celtic hand-binding ceremony, in the orchard that they lived in when first they met, surrounded by dogs and children, and encircled by well-wishers. It really was the most beautiful, easy, sweet wedding I have ever been to. 
Then, there was feasting, music, a bouncy castle, and a campfire beneath a sky full of stars backed by the whirr of a small wind turbine. Pure bliss.