After a lovely trip back home home to see my family and friends, I dived straight into my big task at hand - dyeing a more substantial lot of wool - ready to be knitted into colourful design pieces! I knew repeating the colours of natural dyeing was never going to be easy, but I did not estimate the sheer variation of colours I would get from the same measurements!

So as much as I tried to be positive, I am now slightly worried about time/colouring issues - with two full 12 hour days giving me just enough time to mordant and dye about 20 yarn hanks of 50g!...however I tried my best and some of the colours are starting to grow on me - for some reason the madder colourings came out very orangey with the water I was using, almost turning coral in the lighter shades!

I was also experimenting with dip-dyeing pre-knitted pieces, this worked well with the madder and onion skin, however the woad was slightly more temperamental as it layers itself on the outside scales of the wool  - so penetration was not flawless, however the effect is quite nice and I may experiment more (time permitting!) - I also had problems with the woad oxidising very fast - which was probably my fault, and got some unusual lilac tones!

Overall although not a completely satisfying experience, it was definitely a learning curve, and the colours will now influence the way I will put my collection together...

After feeling quite sluggish having sat on the computer, answering emails, getting frustrated writing etc all morning, I decided to spend the afternoon having a mannequin session - experimenting with pinning some of the sample pieces I have already completed ready for dip dyeing - they turned out really well and have made me a bit more confident that this idea will come together and the ideas that were in my head are actually achievable!!



 

Today has been a very productive day - filling my time with extra curricular activities is always a sensible idea when I have so much uni work on heehee!

But, I like having time challenges so have dived in to the next set of activities full pelt!

This morning we met with Jack from the UAL Students Union to discuss how to spread the sustainability word to a whole new set of first years during freshers week, and how we can include lots of different types of people from all the different university campuses...challenging to say the least!!

Next up was a lovely lunch and catch up with Julia...then onto the next meeting!

The next meeting was also a chance to meet up with a few more amazing course friends who I haven't seen since the Sri Lanka trip so it was really nice to catch up with them!

The Meeting was to initiate plans for a few workshops also being held in Freshers week with the Centre for Sustainable Fashion - they sound exciting - and I can't wait to get stuck in!

So now its an evening of hard work and panic ahead of me...great...

So with a much needed couple of days to recuperate, sleep, unpack and wash all my dirty laundry, I feel refreshed and ready to dive back into work!!...easier said than done - as the amount I have still to so is a little overwhelming!

Buuuut...to kickstart me, I took a day to knit up some samples using my British wool dyed with purely British dyes!!...hopefully this will help me choose colour combinations and a colour pallet for my latest collection!

Here's a few pictures of them so far!

 
 *The last day! - this amazing trip has gone by so fast - we can't believe that a whole month has passed and the journey through Sri Lanka has nearly come to an end!

*More disconcerting is the sheer amount of gifts I have managed to acquire and had to try and fit in my small case!
After a lot of squeezing, rolling and pressing I managed shut my suitcase, fill an extra holdall, have a big carry on bag and a shopping bag all ready to test the airport scales (30kg limit might be stretching it a bit!)

*Kate and Saida headed back to Mount Lavinia for a last sun top up and swim, whilst Beth and I grabbed a tuc tuc and headed off to explore more inland - heading for Selyn handlooms other shop, It is bright and airy and has some lovely (if a little dusty!) gifts - which I didn't indulge in as there was no chance of me fitting it in anywhere else!

* A lovely walk in the sun back to Majestic City where we got some lunch, more wandering, gift wrap buying, and tea buying, before heading to an ice cream shop for an afternoon treat mmm!

*Meeting up with the other two in barefoot we each chose a photo album to fill, quickly headed back to the flat to change before going to meet Priyanka at the cricket club for our last meal!

*The taxi arrived at 10pm and we said a sad farewell to Kate (who was catching a later flight) - it would have been lovely if we could have all finished the journey together, but sadly we wern't able to get tickets on the same flight!

* Sri Lanka has an interesting security measure at the airport - resulting in you having to wait in the stuffy night air and then load all your cases through a huge security machine - not too easy to do when we had lots of bags to juggle between us!

*After the obligatory long wait to check in and pass through immigration we were off on our way!

* I can honestly say it has been one of the best trips of my life, the girls all made it amazing and the amount of places we visited and things we saw have not even begun to sink in yet - who knew we could fit so much into such a small amount of time!

* Reality here I come...

 *PRESENTATION DAY!!!!

*The morning was spent having a great tour around The Academy Of Design - a private college, with a brilliant reputation in Sri Lanka! All the students were lovely and engaging, and the projects set for them let them be both creative and commercial - setting them up for a great career anywhere across the world!

*The fashion students were having their toiles fitted and discussed today, and we were allowed to watch them - they were so organised and professional about it - making me feel slightly uneasy about the amount of work I have to do when I get back to England!

*We headed back to the flat for lunch and a read through of our presentations before heading to the Tourist Board to prepare for the first of two presentation!

*Gill from The British Council had to leave on business early so we gave her a sneak preview, it went well with no huge technical difficulties, and eased us nicely into the next bigger one! Gill gave us some positive feedback and it was nice to hear that we had covered things she hadn't even considered before!

*MAS, Hydramarni, RanMalu and many more companies sent representatives from the factories we had visited, it was great to see people that had helped us through our journey and to show them that they had been useful and very relevant to the research we had been conducting! No major slip ups and the questions at the end were very focused on organic cotton and sourcing which will be a positive step in the future for them!

*After some lovely refreshments (fish rolls and spicy tomato ketchup!) we were kindly invited to dinner with Dr Nirmali and Prof. Lakdas, we headed over to Cinnamon Grand to have a much needed cocktail, before going to Chutneys which has a great reputation for west Indian cuisine - with over 32 different types of Dosi on the menu!
 

*After a morning of writing reports, rehearsing presentations and writing speeches we were all in need of a break from work and the flat!

* We headed out to buy the last of our souvenirs and to get a cold drink to relax with, the weather was getting hotter again and we greatly enjoyed the heat of the sun - trying (and failing in my case!) to turn a little bit tanned!

 

*Whilst Kate and Saida decided to take the more relaxing route of Cinnamon Grands amazing swimming pool, me and Beth decided to head to Pettah market – the hustle and bustle of the market was overwhelming and we quickly got absorbed into the haggling techniques needed when you're bright blonde and white and definitely can't blend in!

*It was so nice to wander and buy the remaining gifts, birthday presents, christmas presents and family presents we had left on our lists (Beth having the biggest family I have ever heard of heehee!) 

*Getting into the spirit of haggling we got used to halving what they quoted us and working our way up from there!

*We went into an amazing sari shop and had so much fun trying on the saris and having them pleated on us - although they were so expensive I could never justify spending that much - not very practical to run for the bus in central London! The beading was beautiful and we were allowed to take pictures of each other dolled up!

* We then caught a tuc tuc back, had a quick lunch, and then made our way to meet the girls at the Cinnamon Grand (directed by my strange ability to memorise routes from shops we found it straight away - whoo!)

*Having desperately tried to find somewhere to upload our blogs and use the internet and failed, we headed to The Cricket club again to treat ourselves to an amazing chocolate pudding for all our hard work on our projects heehee!

*Saida's friend happened to be travelling through Columbo at the same time we were there so we went and met up with her for a drink at the Cinnamon Grand - an amazing hotel which I felt a little out of place in with my flip flops on, but had a great time in the warm night at the pool bar

*Tuc Tuc home and a lovely sleep was greatly needed!

 * Kate and I were picked up at half past nine and were taken to a small fishing village an an island north of Columbo airport which is connected by two small bridges, its one of the best fishing places for prawns - and smelt like it too heehee!

* Priyantha was so lovely at introducing us to the small community centre, where nearly 25 women come and knit during the week, it is light and airy and has a great atmosphere!

*The women there were amazing at knitting, literally being too fast to take a proper picture as their fingers moved so nimbley! The beautiful Skandinavian circular knitting patterns were so detailed and the final pieces so neatly done it was hard to believe it wasn't machine knitted!

* The women were able to stay in their own homes, earn an extra income whilst their husbands and family were away at sea fishing, meaning they didn't have to move away from their children and homes to find work in a factory - it is a great business and holding onto their highly skilled workers and good people centric business ideas, will continue to progress - I am looking forward to keeping in contact with them and seeing Priyanthas vision expand!