Nerada Teabags and recycling......

 For many years now I have been using Nerada leaf tea because it is grown in Australia and I love the taste. I make a large pot of tea first thing in the morning and drink it out of my little Japanese mug which was made by a visiting Japanese potter in Victor Harbour back in the 1980ies. Very often the sun isn't even up so I see the morning light arrive in all its golden splendor while writing my journal....so this is a real ritual for me. During the day though, I use Nerada teabags and started drying them and emptying them to get the lovely fabric which results.

The photo above shows how I process them.
I especially like the Rooibos and Vanilla teabags as they finish up with a lovely antique look about them. The Camomile teabags don't dry so well and are inclined to clump, so they tear when you try to empty them.
I started experimenting with them and using them either bonded onto recycled cotton sheeting or bonding them onto interfacing which gives them more stability to use under a sewing machine or for hand embroidery.

The photo above shows the background of the teabags and I digitally printed it with a photo of a vine moth. As we live among vineyards in the Willunga area we get some interesting insects on our verandah. Not only insects but a variety of wild life like an echidna knocking on our glass door thinking no doubt it might like to come in and watch television with us.....
I did some machine stitching on this piece before a friend framed it for me to make it look like a museum display case.
Remember you can click on the photos to get a better look at the detail of the pieces.
The wall hanging on the left is 74cmx140cm and I did with climate change in mind calling it "Water". I did quite a bit of research for this to find out how much water animals drink to stay alive. The teabags were also drawn upon and named for the month of the year. The roundels are again digitally printed photos of our Magpies which love to congregate at the birdbath and generally muck around.

I used a verse from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward Fitzgerald about flinging your garment into the Fire of Spring.....
The photo on the right shows how the teabags lend themselves to kimono shapes. At the time I created this I was also trying my hand at Haikus, those delightfully short pieces in which you are meant to say something very profound .Those I actually made into a booklet but these on the right I had framed and called The Japanese Connection. So this photo is before framing.

The teabags also made wonderful tent shapes and it was interesting finding out about various early man made shelters and dwellings.
This booklet is on one of my earlier blogs should you be interested to see the whole thing.
The booklets are made up of three mini quilts and then bound with covers using my machine knitting pieces which are made with a mixture of fine yarns and different colours. The little base player sits there to hold the book cover open so as to take photos.

I have included a photo of the Kimonos and Haikus booklet as well. On the Kimonos I used both machine stitching but also hand stitching as I just love colonial knots..... they are a very satisfying stitch to do especially with a mix of embroidery floss or fine knitting yarns in the needle ......
I hope I have given you some ideas of how to use the teabags, the dried tea leaves are great to put on your pot plants.....
It is autumn here and we are longing for rain, the native trees too are looking stressed for lack of water....
Perhaps it will rain soon...............