Right after the swatches experiments of the local leaves, my series of workshops in Shanghai Jinze Arts Centre started. One of the students made the outfit to go with my sample displays above. You'll see how they have fun days of eco prints.
來自不同省份的學生在金澤工藝社 第一天的植物移印染從簡易的實驗到豐富的薄纖羊毛氈製作, 學員大部份有時裝設計與紡織專業, 因此他們很有觸覺的以我提供的款式及製作技巧設計了自家喜愛的獨特飄逸成衣.
We walked around the arts centre to collect leaves
Summer time is full of color, the flowers of melon are eye catching. If the leaves give prints?
We got varieties of leaves of rose, mulberry, plum, pomegranate, maple, mandarin, a few unknown species...... plus some euc silver dollar from florist and onion shells from kitchen.......
They started swatch experiments with leaves collected.
They started swatch experiments with leaves collected.
Though I've already told them what I'd tested and what worked well, they liked to try different sorts. Good to let them explore all the possibilities themselves.
Technique of natural imprints with leaves is new to all my students. They're anxious to see the outcome after 2 hours boiling.
Green from leaves of melon and peach, red from euc silver dollar.
Each done a piece of swatch in the morning session with iron and alum mordant on fabric as well the leaves.
Dark shades from iron. Pastel soft from alum.
Orange / red of euc from alum while dark from iron mordant
Veins of melon leaf
Rose leaves and other kind of unknown wild plant are dark with iron mordant.
Time to show the first swatches and critics to share. Then decided what mordants and leaves they preferred to work for their bigger pieces to make it into their desired wearable with the reference of my basic sample designs.
Jack's piece with more euc silver dollar on both ends and in the centre with melon leaves.
Each have their own preference but still pastel soft tone
This one with the centre theme of rich prints.
Air drying overnight ....
The fabrics are going to be a big project......
The following day I taught the skills of nuno felt to make embellishments, textural surfaces, edges connection, fine tune the edges....... such skills to make a wearable art without template and sewing. The small sampling they made above.
All the colorful scraps used were the swatches done in the workshop. That's how to make their colorful day !
Almost all students are with fashion design or textile background. They concentrated in their own designs
Quite a big project to work on.......
Nice piece with sleeves and soft wool draping front.
Jack's piece with bright prints on both sleeves ends and soft at the back
It goes nice with my samples on the dummy, right?
A long airy one with pastel prints
Multi-styled outfit .
Tie a knot or waist tie around all goes well.
The back and the front
Dianea adores all the prints and does not want to cut away any piece.
A shawl or a wrap .... pastel soft one.
Edith showed us her expertise advice to fine tune the draping of this vest.
Girls tried the fitting.
The boy, a fashion design student made this one for her mum. Such a nice guy. 
This session students tended pastel soft prints rather than the dark iron mordant prints. The second day of nuno felt for wearable ended happily. The following day I taught the wool felt purse with textures and natural prints.
The adorable cats just to make sure settings are ready for the wool felt workshop next.
Stay tuned for the purses and textures making ......
