Hapazome Flowers

So way back in, oh probably, April this year I caught an episode of Alys Fowler's 'The Edible Gardener'. I'm not sure why I only saw one of them as it was brilliant and hopefully a second series will come out and I will be able to watch them all. Anyway, the programme was about her garden, gardening, cooking things from her garden and then she demonstrated how to do Hapazome. It was so simple and effective I just knew I had to have a go - so here's my attempt!

First you need to pick some flowers and then lay them on some muslin, pressing them down slightly. I put the muslin on some card with a thick chopping board underneath. Then you cover the flowers with the other half of the muslin folded over. Then the fun bit begins - you hammer the flowers!! Yes I know it sounds wierd but it does seem to work. The pressure from the hammer forces the dye from the flowers onto the fabric, and you get something like this:

Each side of the fabric has a slightly different effect as the pressure from the hammer is different but it is quite lovely. I tried a few other different types of flowers and fabric. So above we have geraniums and petunia's on Muslin. I also did crocosmia on white cotton and sweat peas too!
So once the fabric is dry you need to iron the surface to lock the colour in and then all you need to do is make something with it!! I'm not sure how colour fast the dye will be so probably best to make something that won't get wet! Little lavender bags maybe?