Verona Strauss.comjust because life is fun! …

My Hapa Zome

I learned lots of new things last week! I went to a wild flower meadow and was lucky enough to see wild orchids and a rare dropwort flower.

I then had a go at the Japanese art of Hapa-Zome. It’s like superquick flower drying. Instead of drying flowers in a press and waiting for ages, you hammer them straight on to a natural material like cotton or muslin.

Hapa-zome means ‘leaf-dyeing’. You put a leaf or petal between two layers of fabric and hit with a hammer or mallet so the juice and colour from the plant material is transferred onto the fabric.

Then you let it dry, remove all the bits of plant and iron it to fix the dye.

You can use this technique to make tablecloths, handkerchief or napkins. Or you could cut a small piece of cloth and make a card from it.