More Forest Fabrics

Winter Forest #1 for sale $40US inclusive of postage
Winter Forest #2 For sale $40US inclusive of postage
I dyed some more forest fabrics today- these are very wintery with dark moody colour and are a bit greener than in the photos ( usually my camera takes reasonably accurate photos colour wise so don't know what happened there)

I also thought I would post a photo of my Banksia quilt which was in Across Australia and which travelled widely. I have decided to sell it if anyone is interested in an effort to raise some funds. I did have a $1500 US price tag on it but as the end of financial year is looming I will sell it for $1250 ( it measures about 1 metre by 120 cm long). The quilt is constucted with a hand painted background for the tree overlaid with lutradur, cut back and heavily stitched. The banksia pods were hand drawn and then made into a gocco screen ( similar to thermofax) and then printed onto fabric, and there is a tie dyed panel.

Jude from Spirit Cloth asked how I did the travellers blanket. It starts as a story- most of my quilts do.It is the story of a traveller on one of the caravans travelling the silk road. The traveller is male and is emulating the travels of Ibn Battutah but in a much more modest way( who travelled to the far east from Morocco starting in 1325). My traveller is a textile merchant and far from rich. He cannot write, so collects scraps of fabrics to help remember the journey but to also help remember the textile. As textile ,printings and dyeings were jealously guarded at that time my traveller has to be wily- he begs scraps from the various different textiles he encounters ( though of course being a merchant he also does purchase fabric to take back to his homeland) and shows how he sews them into a blanket to keep him warm and safe for his journey- his personal memory blanket. So I am using scraps of my own fabric utilising all sorts of different techniques and sewing them onto muslin that has been pre dyed into a grid pattern- to create another pattern of sorts. The scraps are then sewn down with whatever thread suits. The batting is actually curtain flannel ( name escapes me and which i bought in England) which has been hand dyed and the backing is also muslin- this makes the whole rather soft and very drapey- and the fabric has an interesting texture under your hand where it's been sewn. I am using very simple stitches- as my traveller is not an embroiderer.

I think my car was having a bad hair day ( perhaps bad wire??) yesterday- tried a number of things and nada, the engine wouldn't turn over. I thought I would give it another try this morning- and she sputtered into life- thank goodness. And finally the winter solstice has passed- now the inevitable wait for the days to get longer. I am not a good winter person.