Web as Weaving

 

There is no doubt that apart from Gellibrand being a beautiful nature region it is also the home of many many spiders. They weave their webs anywhere and everywhere.

When I set out on the road to creating and making a living from my creations I imagined myself having a studio- but instead I find myself in ever smaller spaces in which to create work- and in one word it is making me very depressed along with the many other things that have happened to family in the last 12 months. We have dealt with a governmental system that sees parents have no rights not even in the mental health care of a child whom the parents believe has problems- I have seen my middle daughter once in 10 months because she refuses to come home- not once has she given a reason apart from a blanket statement which is not borne out by the evidence and which everyone apart from her agrees is not borne out by the evidence, even the government department we are dealing with.It makes me incredibly sad and yes I am grieving. The thing that is hard to deal with everyone says it is for the best ( and I have to say many people ignore it completely- not one word of sympathy or care or even asking how the other children are faring)- and in some ways maybe that is true but another part of me keeps asking how did it go so wrong- and what do I do with this love that I have? I know it stays but sometimes it seems to be too much too bear.

So to ever decreasing space. My husband has all but taken over my shed ( true some of my things are still in there)it was going to be my wonderful studio- a space to work and teach- and now I am in a small space at the back of the house with lousy natural light, and nowhere near enough space to envision anything. I gave up my other workspace to my eldest daughter who really needed her own space- it was high time. But how can I work in this space???

Bring on the warm weather and sunshine- at least there is no shortage of outdoor space here- but it keeps on raining and it is cold ( August is usually the coldest month) so no hope of doing any work outside. What webs we weave in our lives. I had not imagined myself in this place, in this space,in this state of mind.

Hell Fire!

 

It is finished! My middle right hand finger is a bit red raw- I don't like wearing thimbles and in the end it took a lot of sewing but I do like how it turned out- the texture of the hand stitching really adds something to the whole. It measures 33cm ( 14 inches) by 53 cms (21 inches) It is forsale- for $300 US. If you ar einterested please contact me .

This piece is part of an ongoing series of Hellfire quilts. I have made 19 big ones and a some little ones- I just make one when one drops out of the sky. My husband said at one stage- you have probably made enough- but then one keeps turning up- sometimes 2 or 3 will come in a rush, but this time it's been 18 months waiting. I don't sit and work at them as a series as such, just make them when they call. I have sold all but one half of a diptych ( someone who lived on a houseboat bought the other part of the diptych) and one which is on display at La Bourboule. The title of the series came about by accident. I was invited in 1995 to be part of an exhibition with some wellknown Victorian quilt artists. At the time I was preganant and must admit vegetated a bit until the baby was nearly due ( the exhibition started 6 weeks after she was born). Anyway I dyed some fabric for a quilt, and when it was dry brought it inside and put it on the table. I had lit a small candle and forgotten that I had and the fabric I had brought in I put on the candle. Of course it started burning- and as I had just waddled off somewhere and was on my way back I came to the table with the fabric starting to burn. I yelled out " Hell Fire!" to get my husband to come and help and so was born the title for the series- beceause we did manage to stop the fabric burning- but I found it left interesting holes which I could immediately see as fire quilts.

Off to the School Formal

 

This is my eldest daughter Celeste just about to head out the door for her first formal with her boyfriend. And yes she is wearing converses, because we have had so much rain that her new shoes would have gotten muddy on the way to the car.She looks so happy- hard to believe she was once my baby girl who at the age of two and a half asked her daddy "What are you furbishing daddy?"- we have no idea how she found that word but it was so appropriate because at the time he was hammering away at something, and her first poem also at age two and a half;
poems poems, reading away, reading away
poems ,poems, reading away,reading away
reading, ready, reading

Sheperd's Warning Dawn

     

The dawn was very beautiful this morning- an intense pink red- it backlit the trees that looked black against the light.

I have included some pages from a pomegranate journal I made last year . I started working in it but then abandoned it- probably because I went away on a trip somewhere.I always travel very light ( apart from quilts) so I only ever take one journal. Depending how long the trip is, I start a new one or just keep going in an older one if it is a short trip. In the last couple of years I have started keeping and making thematic journals, because everything used to be all over the place. I am developing a couple of themes in my work so find it easier to keep all the bits and pieces and ideas in the same journal- easier to find things afterwards. I don't necessarily draw up any of my designs in this way, but I do play around with visual shapes and ideas- put any research I do in here- I like to find as much information as I can about subject matter. I am also working towards a solo exhibition in Munich next year anbd want the pieces to tie together in a coherent way-so that there is a progression . I like going back to places I have travelled. The first time is thrilling and exciting but I actually see more the second and third times and seem to be able to assimilate place, nuances of place and feelings better

Turkish Kofte Balls

 

I have been sewing a dress for my daughter for her school formal. It is an eon since I have sewn clothing, and then she is a bit fussy as well. I just about had to redo the whole pattern- but it's finished except for th ehem and we are all happy little vegemites. So have done very little otherwise ( building up the oomph to sit and sew a dress took quite some effort :-)

Tonight I made these Turkish kofte balls- they are great in summer and as a snack . They are vegetarian. I got the recipe many moons ago when I worked as a part-time tutor at the Migrant Women's Centre.One of the women there had made it- and we all loved it.

So here is the recipe:
1/2kg cracked wheat ( burghul)
1/2-1 cup of flour
2 tsps salt
3tbsps tomato paste
3 tbsps olive oil\parsley
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp chopped chilli
Lemon juice
You can also add some crumbled fetta cheese to the mixture

Soak the cracked wheat in hot water - drain if still veyr moist.
Put a pot of hot water on the boil.
Put the cracked wheat , flour and salt ( and crumbled fetta if using) into a bowl and mix by hand.
Roll into small balls ( about 2,5 cm or 1 inch)
Drop the balls into the boiling water ( in 3-4 batches) for 5-10 minutes.
Thke the balls out of the boiling water with a slotted spoon and cook the next batch.
Chop the garlic, and parslet finely.
Put the oil and tomato paste into a saucpan and heat,stirring
Add chilli, garlic and parsley.
Stir in the kofte balls and squeeze fresh lemon juice over them

Oh and wonderful news- I am going back to Syria next year with another exhibition. I have been invited to bring work to the al Ba'Ath Gallery in Damascus as part of Damascus' celebrations as cultural capital of the arab world. I am still to find out dates but I may also be doing an artist residency as well in a artist community they were renovating outside Seidanaya not far from Damascus- we will see.

Temple of Bel

       

My machine has had to go to the repair shop and won't be back for another 3 weeks- groan, just when I have had all this work percolating and I wanted to make a big fire quilt incorporating the ideas of the small prototype piece.

So what to do.... there is plenty of things to do, but mood and weather and inclination are another matter especially when I was planning on doing something else.So I trawled through some of the photos I took in Syria and in particular some of the motifs and patterns on marble that i found lying strewn around in the grounds of the Temple of Bel in Palmyra. I had tried painting them a couple of weeks ago- but I had left the papers in the shed, which will no longer be my studio, and condensation had dripped on the papers and made drip lines. I mucked around a little in photoshop and decided to print the motif which I had doctored a little on a sheet of paperbacked print ready silk I found the other day(it was somewhere in the place called my work room which is half in the shed and half all over the place). I was rather pleased with how the print turned out- quite desne and rich . So then I started layering ( Syria is so much about layers of history and script and impressions) and then stitching- using some cross stitch and straight stitch.It will all be hand stitched as I don't like free machining on my other machine. I want to do some more of these pieces incorporating other patterns I found there and maybe call them Picnic Blankets for Zenobia.As Zenobia was said to be learned and gifted in languages I thought I might make a Diary of Zenobia ( in book form ) to go with the Picnic Blankets- I can see her reclining on the blankets writing her history. When I was in Perth I purcahed Alisa Golden's Expressive Handmade Books book- plenty of ideas there for coming up with an original book.

Hnad Stitching

 

One of the things I love about quilting how things change once the stitching and texture go in. I have been hand stitching big roughish stitches and like the contrast of the stitches with the matches.This piece measuures 14 inches by 20 inches. I am tryig to finish it before tomorrow- but it stilol needs a lot of stitching.

My garden is a riot of yellow at the moment- all the daffodils are starting to open, the golden wattle are flowering, and the days are finally starting to get a bit longer. The broccoli has gone mad- just as well as vegetable sin teh shops are ridiculously expensive and likely to get more expensive.

Matchsticks

 

I have been attaching the match sticks to the little fire piece I am working on. I like the effect and think I will use it for the bigger quilt which I am planning- but perhaps I will use larger matches. The matches taper at the ends so that the stitching does hold them in place.

This morning I finally read the judges report for my coloured 72 ways quilt which I had entered in the new machine quilting ( domestic) section at Vic Quilters Showcase this year- I barely passed- got 54 out of a 100 possible points- artistic merit got a score of 5,thread colour choice got 5 and overall effect got 5- hmphh!!! And my All the Sweet Perfumes of Arabia quilt had the comment good overall design but that threads on the back needed trimming. As I have a designer II machine which clips threads I tend not to go back and reclip- because I feel the threads are more secure if I leave them unclipped. I wonder if the judges know that there are a number of machines that clip threads? I must admit I get a tad annoyed with the obsession with the backs of quilts- sometimes I will piece backs- applique words on the back, but the backs of my quilts are simply that, the backs of my quilts!

And on a good note I had a quilt accepted for the themed competition at Val d'Argent this year- so the quilt will be in the catlogue- yippee!It is always nice to be in a catalogue and Carrefour du Patchwork Europeen always produce a nice catalogue.

And today I have been in Australia for 42 years- my parents, my brother and I arrived on a cold blustery wet evening in Melbourne in 1965 aboard the Flavia and were bussed to Spencer Street Station before taking the night train to Albury/Wodonga and being bussed to Bonegilla where we were allocated two rooms in the army tin barracks used to house non-english speaking migrants.We did not see the new country we had chosen to live in until the following morning. I will never forget how cold it was that first morning and the sound of magpies warbling. I also remember the horrid food, and the high wire fence around the camp.

Little Fires

 

It is some time since I have made a fire quilt and today I felt the urge to start another one. I do intend to make a bigger quilt than the one pictured, but I did not have enough red/fire fabric on hand and it is now too late to dye some more- so the bigger piece will have to wait until tomorrow. But I did sew this smaller piece- I think I shall do some hand stitching in the darker spaces- and I also thought of attaching spent matches somehow. If I do start the bigger piece it will be the nineteenth in a series which I started in 1995. I have only one quilt left and it is being shown in France at the moment ( and I want to do some more work on that piece when I get it back). All the others have sold including all the little ones I have made as well. There is something that draws people about fire.

I shall be giving a talk about my work and inspiration and textile travels this Saturday in Melbourne at the Vic Quilters Gathering in Beaumauris.

I have decided I need a yurt/ger. After buying a shed about three years ago and waiting alkmost 18 months before it was put up I am despairing of ever moving into it- the slab still needs to be laid- and there seems to be an awful lot of stuff in there which is not mine- every time I go in there I get a bit down- it was supposed to be my studio- somewhere where I could teach from home , where I could display some of my work and work as well. I have decided I need the yurt for my sanity- I need a space in which to work and which isn't contested for use. So I am going to save like crazy- and hope to sell some work( so watch this space) and get a real Mongolian yurt. I have found an Australian company that imports them, and it will be wholy my space.I can see it in my back yard. So watch this space!

Back Again

 

 

I spent the last five days in Western Australia at a Craft and Stitch Show. The first photograph i sof some textures i encountered in the garden of the hotel where I stayed. I am always fascinated by foliage and bark. The second phtograph is of some wonderful wooden beads I purchased of Chunky Timbers Co. They look like little peeople so how could I leave them behind. I can also see them in a quilt in some form or another and perhaps as talismans for some more griot dolls I intend making.As Rosemary commented they seem to be better in numbers- I agree- at one point I was thinking about a 1000- but perhaps that is a tad excessive???

I have also been tagged for the seven random gardenening facts about myself by PurplePoddedPeas.
1.There is nothing like a home grown tomato picked out of our garden, ripened in the summer sun sliced thinly on toast with a dash of salt and freshly cracked pepper.
2. I am abosolutely useless at botanical names
3. As a child I was the "keeper" of the strawberries- this included chasing off tiger snakes as necessary- first you hosed the strawberries, made loud banging noises, shook the chicken wire then picked the strawberries and hoped.
4. French green beans out of the garden are the best!
5.I often plant vegetables in amongst the flowering plants- there is no reason why the whole garden should not be edible.
6. We have planted native corridors for wildlife- however the birds have become a bit pesky as a result, espeically the bower birds who consider our winter garden to be the fresh personalised dining service.
7.When my children were small they used to graze in the garden like small deer- I can still hear their laughter tinkling as they found a ripe peach or found a cucumber which was eaten without much ado.

I don't know that I know seven gardening blogs as such .... but here are a few:
Lucullian
Lisa Call
Heidi from Maasland Design
Shirley Goodwin
The Wittering Rainbow
South East Main
And last but not least Artmixter
Here are the rules:The rules:
Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to then report this on their own blog with their 7 random facts as well as these rules. They then need to tag 7 other garden blogs and list their names on their blog. They are also asked to leave a comment for each of the tagged, letting them know they have been tagged and to read the blog.

.

Taking Shape

 

Sometimes things take time to take shape. I spent all day doing what appears to be very little- and yet I am onto the next stage which is to pin the quilt top ready for some stitching. I am intending to do quite a lot of hand stitching on this one, and it is meant to be a companion for All the Sweet Perfumes of Arabia. The funny thing was ,I isolated one of the shapes in the silk brocade fabric I had ,with the intent of telescoping/enlarging- I was thinking silk road and Palmyra. The shape also reminded me of one of the shapes I photographed when in Palmyra- funny thing is whilst on the silk brocade it looked like a delicate flower once I enlarged it and fiddled a little it looks distinctly palm like- unintentional but yet so appropriate for what I was trying to express- the richness of the silk route- the colour and mystique of caravans.

The Monday After

 

 

I am sorry I have not posted for a week or so but I have been in Melbourne at the Melbourne Quilt and Craft Fair with the Across Australia quilts which were much appreciated. I took some more of my dolls to handstitch as the quilt I had intended to take to hand stitch did not eventuate. I did manage to transfer print some lutradur last Tuesday- but that was as far as I got. Anyway I stitched about another 6-7 dolls and even sold one- though I really don't know what to charge for these as they are rather time consuming with all the hand stitching and in the back of my mind I am thinking installation of some sort- to go with work inspired by Syria- they have a kind of middle eastern feel to them.I was surpised by how many people picked them up - and felt they had soem kind of story to tell- funny as that was how I was thinking of them - storytellers. ( and I will add another story I swapped for a doll in a day or so)

I will be away later this week at a Craft Quilt and Stitch Show in Perth, Western Australia-Across Australia will be shown there as well as some of my own work. So the work I had intended to put together to stitch for the last show will have to be put together for this week. I hate sitting and having nothing to do with my hands. So I have been auditioning the lutradur with some back ground fabrics- and then remembered I had been sent some 10 cm strips of traditional Damascene silk- which I had not quite worked out how to use- I think I can incorporate them into this piece - and perhaps add some foiling picking up on the silk accents and perhaps even some motif printing over the top- I am still thinking but do like the colour play.

Phew!

 

I have been sewing like the blazers trying to get a coloured version of Seventy Two Ways done for Vic Quilters Showcase next week. I had entered my black & white one, but after making the smaller coloured one for the book I decided I like the coloured one much better so decided to enter it instead. It is exactly the same size as the black and white one, and I must have added in another motif somewhere, because when I got to the last square I still had one square from the original which isn't in this one.Not sure how that happened.Then I discovered that the quilts were supposed to have been delivered by Sunday 22 July- I thought 22 July was Monday- so some quick phone calls- and phew it is ok( thank goodness otherwise all that sewing would have been a waste). I also had to unpick one of the motifs at the eleventh hour as it was upside down- and it stuck out like a sore thumb.

It has been a bit of a rocky couple weeks so I decided I needed to tell myself some things I love instead of pondering negativity so here are seven loves to fill the week:

I love summer ( bad luck it is winter here)- but I can look forward to summer!
I love pumpkin soup on a cold winters day made from our own pumpkins and sprinkled with fresh parsley and a swirl of sour cream.We have pumpkins in the shed so this one I can do tomorrow!
I love books in all shapes and sizes- novels, art books, textile books, cook books,journals, hand made books.
I love the colour orange and I need to remember that as I contemplate the making of some new work.
I love fires- unfortunately we don't have a woodfire in the house, but we often have a fire outside ( unfortunately at the moment it is too wet for outside fires)
I love the movie Blue with Juliette Bincohe - it is so inutterably sad and I cry rivers watching it and yet the ending is full of possibility and even joy.
I love my digital camera, it allows me to share my world, my passions, my work and allows me to revisit all the special places I have been.

From a Wintry Gellibrand

A collage of things in my garden at the moment. We planted proteas and banksias for winter colour and they have the added effect of attracting many birds. I came across a delightful google video on the Athananius Kircher Society website about a lyrebird- it is worth watching if you have some spare time as the lyrebird is a fascinating bird. They are seldom seen but often heard. Their tail is beautiful- lyre shaped. I love the sound of kookaburras and we have two resident ones here- who seem to spend a lot of time laughing- at us probably.Sometimes when people phone me up they will ask "what on earth the sound in the background is" often it is the kookaburras laughing.They are really noise but it is such a happy sound that I always smile inwardly when they start up. The heather has a little story attached to it. The native heather of Australia is actually quite scrubby and a lovely pink colour but this white heather , which we have quite a lot of in our village apparently was sewn by a homesick Scotsman around the turn of the century when this whole valley was logged and Gellibrand was a bustling saw milling town. In fact the towns' tavern stood on our block ( how appropriate I hear some of my friends say) and in our various gardening excavations we came across a whole cache of old bottles and ceramic remains- many were broken but a few were still intact, including one lovely long necked blue bottle( must find them and I can show you a photo).

Did a lot of sewing today- and had to give up as my back was getting sore.

And on another note- when I go to Carrefour Europeen du Patchwork it looks as if I shall be flying home via England. I want to spend a few days going to the Brit Musuem and the V&A but if anyone is interested in me teaching a workshop at all please let me know. We are tentatively planning having a workshop in a small village hall not too far from Cambridge- have to put my organising hat on.

Damascene tea Carrier

 

Thank you one and all for your thoughtful replies. As Kristin pointed out she did try to do the "forest" dyeing and it was difficult to replicate- from memory I did show people what I did in the class Kristin took- but a successful outcome is dependent on many factors and I don't get it right all the time either!

I also wish that you were the judges of my quilts LOL! The tree trunks weren't actually inspired by Durer- I have often in the past ,done tree trunks in this way- and I have a Demeter quilt in my lounge dating from 1995 where I did this type of thing- though I have gotten far more skillful over the last 12 years- and my machine is better as well.The kind of lines Durer does in his engravings is not possible with the machien- well it is it you want to go crazy cutting threads. I Have been working on a coloured ( another ) version of 72 Ways- because after I did the smaller coloured version for the book I decided it needed a full sized quilt as well.

I love this photos of a Damascene tea carrier- can you imagine that once upon a time there would have been many of these men floating around the city dispensing hot sweet minty tea for almost next to nothing? I wonder whether any young men will take on the job or these timeless treasures will disappear like so many other timeless treasures ?

View From My studio

It's finished! it took a lot of sewing and I think Imay still add some more to the top.

Beverley asked a question about the dyeing and I must admit she is not the first to have asked. However without seeming coy or indeed churlish to share ,the question does raise a real dilemna for me for a number of reasons.Firstly I sell the fabric I dye- and that is how I earn my living but that is not the most important reason for my dilemna.
There is actually a lot of emotion invested in that bit of dyeing- sounds silly- but for 10 years I have looked out my work room window at a certain view of trees ( it is on a recent blog entry) - it is where I dream, where I lose myself where I feel sad and lonely and even depressed and then up again- it is where I wait for the summer to come and cast its coppery light with the setting sun- it is where I sew it is where I create,its where I think about my children ,it is where I plan my travels-all of that emotion is in that dyeing because that was the feeling I was trying to capture- my mood determines the colours and my state of mind the tightness of the pleating.Ultimately it took me a long time to arrive at this point of dyeing- to get that feeling- which a number of people have also commented on. I kind of believe that the whole "feeling" is part of the my whole emotional involvement in the dyeing- the thinking. I rarely make bigger work just for the heck- there is always a reason- that is how I am.I don't have a problem writing artists statements because my work is always about something- though often the work stands alone without aything else. I believe some of this may come from the emotion I invest in the making of any work. And it is an investment- my whole life is based around my arts practice- i rarely take a holiday from it.

The sellling side does raise a dilemna too- a few years ago someone who had purchased my fabric won a first prize in a quilt show. It was a whole cloth quilt substantially as I make it and the fabric was unmistakable indeed it was a major part of the quilt ( or from what I could see on the internet)- nowhere was there any acknowledgement that I had dyed the fabric. I didn't worry too much at the time- though I did notice- I reasoned I had sold the fabric and whomever bought it could use it however. But the reason I noticed was - the person won a prize with it, yet I have never won a prize with pieces made from this fabric- it seemed a kind of hard irony at the time.Anyway that's life I guess.

More Forest views

 

About a month ago I showed some photos of green forest fabric I had dyed. Nothing much happened to them and I sold some as well. I put them aside and forgot about them untilt he other day. I am on a forest roll at the moment- and decided I may as well quilt this one, as I had nothing better to do and am still scrabbling around for ideas to develop.I can kind of feel it in my finger tips- but it hasn't quite come out yet- so I have found it's better to be doing something than to sit and wait. And as the last two days have been sunny, suddenly my mood is a bit lighter as well and I can actually think of doing something.

And I notice Susan Iacone left a mesage to my previous post- yes the beach is quite different to Castlemaine- but I remember years ago in a talk you gave - when I was still a novice you said "If in doubt quilt it to death!" I certainly took that lesson on board LOL! Actually I think that the difference between quilting and embroidery is decidedly starting to blur- which is for the better I think.

A Day of Drawing

 

 

I have been a bit down in the doldrums lately- I think part of the problem is sitting and sewing for long lengths of time- you mull over things and if you are not in a great state of mind to start with ,things can quickly slide into a murky pool. Plus I am not a winter person at the best of times- and the rain ,rain, and rain is starting to get to me. It is much needed, but the ground is too soggy to go walking at the moment, which is always something that blows the cobwebs out.

I purchased a book recently entitled Raphael, Durer, and Marcantonio Raimondi; Copying and the Italian Renaissance Print by Lisa Pon, ISBN 0-3000-09680-I, and have been enjoying the detailed descriptions of the process of engraving and copying, largely because I have really had to look and study the prints in the book to really see the differences. I must admit to being a lover of prints , after many years ago seeing a room full of William Blake prints in the Victorian National Gallery- not that William Blake is my favourite, but I was really amazed at the quantity and the quality of the work. I absolutely adore the work of Albrecht Durer so spent a little time today working out why he appeals to me so- I did a little drawn study inspired by a small detail from the background in the Betrayal of Christ from his Small Woodcut Passion series.The detail of his original print is simply amazing and my drawing can go nowhere near capture even an iota of his detail- however I was interested in the difference of the tree with the blank space as compared with the drawn in space- and much prefer the latter. The tree with the space filled in seems so much richer- I guess that is why I stitch so heavily.... sigh.....

Thread

 

When I was in Damascus I spent a lot of time in the thread souq- I puchased these skeins of rayon thread for hand quilting with big stitches. These skeins weigh 200 gms and the colours are luscious. I wished I could have brought home more, but my suitcase was seriously weight challenged as it was with workshop materials and quilts.I have a serious thread collection for both machine and hand stitching. These skeins of rayon are usually used for making tassels.

I also love kitchen gadgets- and the gadget placed on the thread is a falafel maker with a hole in the middle.

Winter's Walk

 

Thank you for alll the psoitive comments about my forest quilt- I really appreciate it.And Shirley- ik weet nog hoe je stond te kijken naar de stof- welke te kiezen??? I tried to do some sewing today, but had other things to catch up as well, so got very little done.

I have been incommunicado for a few days as I had to take my kids to Blairgowrie to keep my mother-in-law company for a few days. She has just been released from hospital after two months there, and my sister-in-law was busy with children school holiday activity.

I got very little sewing done-in fact none at all despite taking some dollies to sew.My eldest daughter and I went for a walk on the back beach on Monday afternoon- it was a beautiful clear winters day- the colours simply magic.And look at that lone surfer- we wathced him for awhile and he did put on a two wetsuits to keep out the cold. His faithful blue heeler dog sat bedside his bag whilst he went out to catch a wave.

And my blog counter with the flags seemed to come to a screaming halt at 120 countries- and nothing changed for 6 weeks- and then in a matter of a week 3 new countries! Wow!! And really really seriously- I would love to know how you got here- through textiles or other means? And then there are the faithful viewers- I don''t know who you are but I do know where you are from.

Nearly Finished

 

At the expense of you getting bored with photos of this quilt- I wanted to show how the stitching enriches the whole texture of the quilt- on the bottom left hand corner of the quilt is an unstitched part- compare that to the pebbles quilted to the right of that. I had intended to enter this quilt in the Garden Theme for Carrefour Europeen du Patchwork- but arggh it's too big. I usually make the forest quilts about 1 metre square but because I dyed an old damask table cloth for this one, it is about 120 cm square- and after all that stitching I am not chopping anything off!

It was freezing today and wet- we need the rain badly- but I had to dye some fabric as well- I managed to find an hour and a half when it wasn't raining. I dye outside- my hands were freezing. There was some discussion on one of the lists I belong to about mixing colours and what colours people bought. Here is what I use- and I dye everything you have ever seen on my blog from these colours ( and I prefer using the formulaic names because then I can work out whether the mix I make is going to tend to brown sludge)- colour descriptions are so subjective to each person that they are next to useless:


Yellow MX3RA ( golden/affron yellow- used three times as much as any other
dye at my house)
Yellow MX8G ( lemon yellow- great for birght greens)
Red Mx8 B ( poke in the eye fuschia- great for getting good bright purples
and good brilliant oranges and fire colours- you need to be a bit careful
using this one- it is so reactive that it always tends to grab the fabric
first)
Red MX5B ( still bright but better for getting nicer pinks, maroons, wine
red colours and soft peachey colours and duller purples)
Turquiose MX
Blue MXG- mid blue (- great for bright purples- mid greens)
Blue MX4GD ( an almost indigo blue with greenish tinge- I use this one
because I dye to sell and I use it as the overdye in some of my greens-
really gives nice deep hues to greens - is very nice over terracotta
coloured browns)
Brown Mx3RA- brown is the hardest colur to mix- so I buy the mix ready made-
on its own this is a bit of a nothing brown- so I always jazz it up with
Yellow MX3RA and red MX8B- the amounts depending if I want a yellowish brown
or a reddish brown- I then use black to overdye to get really dark browns
Black MXG ( It is also possible to get a black MX2R- which is a reddish
black and on its own gives a deep sort of aubergine colour)- the MXG has a
greenish tinge on its own- but gives a more blackish black over the browns-
if you get my drift.

These are the only colours I use to mix all the colours I make. I have
tried a few of the so-called other mixed colours- but find my own mixes are more
reliable and often more vibrant- unfortunately I haven't written down most of my recipes and judge by eye.I am afraid I subscribe to the serendipity method of dyeing .I have colour mood days as well- but orange always brightens me up, and a lot of orange gets dyed at this house ! You can see some of my recent dyeing on Annabel Rainbow's blog.



I always use salt- quite hot water and electric soda- I dye in cold weather
outside where in winter the ambient temperature is quite cold- and it still
works- though I do make sure I rinse my cloth in quite hot water before
dyeing- so that everything is at a similar temperature. I have found
turquoise to be a little unstable in cold weather- you can tell when its
going to misbehave because the dye in solution goes all kind of strange and
when it first hits the fabric it's very pale and slowly darkens up after
that. I don't batch for 24 hours- one hour is enough for the dye to take- I
am too impatient for batching.