I decided to look at sustainability and recycling this year in textiles. I wanted to dye my own materials using natural dyes. I started off using tea, and when I was given a large quantity of tea bags I was very pleased. I got some material ready to dye and then opened the tea bag sachet. I was so surprised at how beautiful the actual tea bag was I took a photo of it! It wasn't made from paper but a material mesh and it was machine sewn round the edges to keep the tea in. Straight away I knew that once I had used the tea bags to dye, I couldn't just throw them away and tried to come up with an idea as to how I could use them. I decided to try and embroider them and the following are the first two that I made.
Since making these I have made a few more and feel my technique is improving, as shown in the next image. This is by far my favourite one to date due to the detail.
