Oh - such fun

Hello all.

I hope you've had as nice a weekend as I've had.

Thought I'd share some photos of what I've been up to.

So this pile of fabric was added to the old saucepan containing Potassium Permanganate and hot water and stirred. 

 They are then rinsed in cold water until the water is clear

 And then you hang them out to dry

And this is what you end up with. Lovely brown fabric. 

 Oh - such a pile of lovely fabrics.  As usual not too sure what I will do with them, watch this space

And here is progress with the incubator top I'm making. It's very bright - but that's the idea. 

I also made progress with my mystery quilt and made up a pieced back and started to hand quilt in black cotton perle with black running stitches.

Hope you all had fun and I'll let you know how I'm getting on

Another walk

 Hello all.

Thought you might like to see where I went for a walk with DH on Sunday. Very nice. 

Although it was overcast the whole time I still managed to end up rather pink, well red to be honest. Will I never learn.

And here is some lace and thread that I've tea dyed.  I'll show you what I do with it later.

I've also made really good progress with my altered book project. I can't wait to show you all - but it's hush hush until the end of the project.

Take care all and hope to hear from you soon.

Dyeing Day

Hello all,

I've had great fun this morning. Been dyeing and am very pleased with how it's gone so far.

So here is my attempt at graduated dying from Magenta to Ultramarine.

And this set runs from Bright Turquoise to Golden Yellow.

 And I've been very good at making sure I keep a record too. So I've noted the colours and how they've been mixed. I also brushed the colour against the notes and I've added a square of fabric to ensure I have a record of the colour achieved. 

As i had some of the dye mix left I made another plastic cup up and added some threads that have been wound onto plastic cotton reels. I also added some manufactured printed fabric too to see how they turn out.

So - next time I'm sure I'll be able to show you the results. 

Hope to hear from you all soon.

Dyed fabrics

Hello all.

 I thought you might like to see the fabrics I've dyed before I screen print them on Saturday at my class with Bren. You'll have to wait and see what they look like then.

I've been busy - honest.

So - just to prove I do sew, here's the quilt I'm entering at Trentham - that's not at Trentham now. Unfortunately the snow fall earlier in the year resulted in the roof collapsing on the building used - so Margaret has been an absolute star and has managed to find a new location - very near to the original. Please look at her website for full details.

And here is my entry for Malvern - like the previous quilt I've got to sort out a sleeve and a label.

And to prove what a great day I had on Saturday at the Bramble Patch dyeing fabric with Bren - here's whet I ended up with. I'm rather pleased and have a cunning plan to do some more.

And I can't tell you how excited I've been with this edition of The Quilter ( you get this when you're a member of the Quilter Guild). It's got soooo many great artists in it and articles too. So we've got Edwina Mackinnon, Ineke Berlyn, Laura Kemshall and Sheena Norquay.

And I'm hoping this edition of Selvedge will be just as exciting.

May has arrived

I think we're all in shock - as the weather in the UK (for most of us) has been great over the last week and promises to be great for the next week. The photo above is one I took on a walk in our local park. I thought the framing made the view look very inviting.

And here are the results of my potassium permanganate dyeing - as you can see I over cooked this one a bit so it started to dissolve. But I rather like the result.

And here's a selection of the range of fabrics I dyed - silk dupion & noile, scrim, calico and cotton.

And my turquoise results from my Procion dyeing. I used the same fabrics as with the potassium permanganate.

I think they go rather well together.

And finally - here's a photo of our quilt that we're going to raffle at the Market Bosworth Festival, 21 & 22 June. The proceeds will be going to LOROS. I do hope some of you might be able to come along. There are loads of things going on - a really great day out.

Well - I'm off to watch Casino Royale now - you can never get enough Daniel Craig can you. LOL

Fun time dyeing

Well we had a great day at Bramble Patch dyeing and screen printing fabric. I've photographed the ones I did.

First is one of the pieces I dyed last moth - I screen printed over it a number of times with a mix of turquoise and gold paint - using a Thermofax stock screen.

This piece I screen printed with scarlet and a transparent yellow.





This one was screen printed with a crackle style screen - using cobalt blue and gold.

And finally used two screens on this one - and both red and yellow paints.

Here are my in progress photos of the large piece of calico I prepared for tray dyeing - here it is soaking away.

And here's a section of it rinsed, dried and ironed. I must say I'm rather pleased. It only sat in the tray of dye for just 4 hours.

We also had a baby shower as one of our class members had a baby girl - she came along with her husband and mother. They all looked very happy - and baby was very cute and well behaved.
I've actually started in my note book too. I watercoloured a load of pages and I'm just writing notes in it - but it looks very nice - much better than plain pages. I'll take some photos soon and let you see.

Hope you've all had a good weekend.

A mid week post

Yep - it's Wednesday and here I am posting...

As you saw on my last blog I was getting a piece of calico ready for my dyeing class - so I thought I'd show you what it looks like now I've pulled all the threads together.
Here's the back:


And here's the front:

I'm really looking forward to seeing how it dyes.

I also wanted to say what a great quilting meeting we had on Monday - it was an unplanned show and tell plus a chat about our marks at Trentham. One of our members has done a fantastic job of machine quilting our quilt to raffle at our festival. Our chosen charity this year is LOROS. It does look really great. He also had a large quilt it had taken him 7 months to hand quilt - it really looks fantastic. We had a glass of bubbly to celebrate one of our members getting second place in the bed quilt category. And our newest member had finished the small quilt she was working on. So all in all a celebratory evening.

I've also taken the brave step of using my sketchbook and using watercolour paints - a first for me. I promise to show you the results when I have a few more pages.

Getting ready to dye

For a change I'm getting ready for my next class at Bramble Patch - instead of my usual rush of just stuffing things in the car in the morning.
I don't think this photo is great but hopefully you can make out the circle I've drawn and then stitched on the calico.



I'm then going to pull the threads to manipulate the fabric and then we'll see how it tray dyes.

The aim is to use the fabric on the back of this quilt - here's a sneaky peak....

Yes it's very pink...

And I just had to include this photo of Flo - who was very cute and wrapped herself up in her quilt. That's a paw poking out of the front and her bum sticking out of the back.

I've also been thinking of ways to try to crack on with sketchbooks. I know it;'s not unusual to have a bit of a inferiority complex - especially when you look at some. But I'm determined to get over it. One thing I've realised is that I don't have a clue how to use a number of very basic artists materials - such as watercolour paints and I have no idea about mixing colours. So that's what I think I need to start with. The book I bought from Trentham by Gwen Diehn suggests you concentrate on one type of material and master it rather than using lots of different materials and really not mastering any. So tomorrow I'm going to give it a go. Wish me luck...

Oh I almost forgot that the latest Quilting Arts magazine arrived this week - it's great.

Dyeing results...

As promised here are the results of my dyeing class at the Bramble Patch. I felt very unprepared for the class - entirely my own fault as I'd been away with work quite frequently between classes. However - considering how unprepared I was I'm really pleased with the results. I', also looking forward to over dyeing them in the next class and screen printing too (you know how I love screen printing).

I've also had my letter from Malvern to confirm 'The Water Tower' is entered for the exhibition. I've no idea how it will compare with other entries - so we'll just have to wait and see in May.

So here are my results... (lots of photos)

Microwave dyed - calico. Just placed in the bag.

Microwave dyed calico - folded and placed in the bag.

Microwave dyed manufactured white cotton - and no it's not a dish cloth...

Microwave dyed manufactured white cotton - folded.

Tray dyed - scrunched cotton.

Tray dyed - silk noile.

Microwave dyed - silk dupion.

Microwave dyed - silk noile. This was folded and placed in the bag.

Tray dyed calico- the Chelsea bun style of dying.

Tray dyed calico- folded in the tray.

Poly bag dyed - pinched in the centre and placed in the bag - a more subtle result than the other methods.

Poly bag dyed - white manufactured cotton - close up below.

Poly bag dyed - calico folded into strips and then rolled.

My conclusions about the different methods and fabrics are:

• Silk fabrics take the dyes really well.
• Calico (a good quality) works well.
• Poly bag dying produces subtle results.
• Microwave dyeing is quick and produces intense colours
• Tray dyeing allows you to control the dye placement and allows you to dye larger pieces of fabric.

I'd love to hear if any of you have tried dyeing fabrics and if you feel my conclusion are the same as yours.

Hope you've all had a great Easter.