On Sunday 17th September I took part in The Great British Beach Clean organised by The Marine Conservation Society. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was surprised at the amount of small rubbish particles we found, mostly of which was plastic bottle caps, cigarette butts and small pieces of foam. It is such a satisfying feeling knowing that you are helping the environment, even if it is just in a small amount, every little helps. I can't wait to do the next beach clean!
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I have recently begun my project on Knitted Oceans: Treasured Trash focusing on plastic waste in our oceans and have started by trying to make my samples highlight these issues by including plastics in my samples.
I decided I wanted to have mixed disciplines samples within this collection and felt that weave would work well in also trapping plastics as you can practically weave anything onto a warp so I began by setting up the loom and experimenting with different techniques to help me get to grips with it again (as I hadn't used the looms since first year) then went on to create more alluring samples which captured the essence of ocean waste and washed up rubbish. This summer I have decided that I will spend some of my spare time learning more and experimenting with natural dyeing.
I have experimented a great deal with dyeing, whilst being at university, however none of which was natural dyeing; I have used mostly Dylon dyes to dye hanks of yarn and pieces of woven and knitted fabrics using different types of Shibori techniques e.g. clamping and pole wrapping (examples below). I am keen to undertake my own mini project in natural dyeing as I am passionate about sustainability and by using natural materials, no/ less harmful substances will be washed away. Artists such as Alice Fox and Donna Kallner inspire me a great deal as they use a variety of techniques and materials to dye there fabrics and yarns. I'm going to start by using materials such as; rusty objects, onion skins (red and orange), nettles and berries. I am unsure whether the colours will be as strong as they were when I used Dylon dyes, but I am excited to see and compare the outcomes with the samples in the photographs below. I will post photographs as my journey progresses so watch this space! I've always wondered whether wool can be ethical as I use it a great deal when machine and hand knitting. Many articles on the internet from sources such as The Guardian, question whether we should boycott wool products or not. 'PETA' who are strong believers in animal rights have seen and talked about many cases of animal abuse, especially on farms. Mulesing sheep is an example of an extremely unethical process, where the sheeps rear end is chopped to prevent flies from laying there eggs which causes the sheep extreme pain. Many people believe that wool can never be ethical if mass produced and in some cases not at all. I want to look into this in more depth to find out whether it truly can be ethical and if not think about whether I really want to use this yarn fibre in my design work for my final year.
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