Thursday 23 January 2014

Pink Bags

At this time of year one of my favourite stores has a massive sale and the goodies all come home in pink bags.

Armed with some money from my parents for Christmas to buy something for our new kitchen (sometime this year we hope) we had the opportunity to call in - and guess what? We came out with a large pink bag......



.......and in the bag.......


All washed and ready for action......

We also have a kitchen planner visiting on Tuesday - so that seems like a good first step, especially in view of the fact that my oven just died a little more today - right in the middle of baking biscuits and a cake for tomorrow's Redberry Quilter's  morning tea.....I'll be shopping in the morning....apologies ladies...

Sue xxxx

Sunday 19 January 2014

Lesson 1 - Grey scale

Or in my case, let's call it blue-grey scale.......

The dyeing session itself was both fun and informative, however the results were a little different to what was anticipated - my fabrics are much bluer than expected........the photos don't do the true colours justice - you may have to take my word on that.

 Next to a commercial grey fabric they definitely look bluer.......

However, next to a blue fabric they look greyer......


So follows a bit of analysis and the answer I think lies here......my PFD fabric (sheeting) is slightly more ivory / cream than white which I'm pretty sure has skewed the results a bit......(not that I'm complaining, I actually prefer creams to stark white and the colours I have are beautiful - and in fact very 'me'.....


Here they are in the photo edited into B&W.....


I can see a couple of issues with the gradation as well - there could be more differentiation between the various stages.

I also left them overnight with the soda ash solution on them so maybe that is something else to change.

I found some white cotton in my stash so I think the experiment bears repeating after I wash it in case it's not PFD.

Whatever the result I have some lovely additions to my stash of hand-dyed fabric and a bit more knowledge under my belt about the process of fabric dyeing and the relative relationships between colours. They should be fine for my 'homework' when I get to it - a few things to do before then,

Sue xxxx

Thursday 16 January 2014

New Year, New Creative Challenges.....

At last there has been time to dive into the new challenges that have been waiting patiently in the wings. Yesterday a little monoprinting (more on that another time) and today the first foray into the new dyeing (with an 'e') process as per our online class with Elizabeth Barton.

Lesson one involves dyeing a grey scale using various amounts of black dye....


Initial results in the sketch book look promising........


These little promises of beauty can slumber overnight and we'll see what comes out in the wash tomorrow....

Sue xxxx



Tuesday 14 January 2014

Good Ideas

Some ideas prove to be quite good, for example........


.......these seemed to hit the spot with a family lunch on Sunday.......

On the other hand, this might be debateable. Coming home from our fishing trip we passed trees on the roadside loaded (or should that be 'laden'?) with crabapples. As it's now 2 years since we (I) made crabapple jelly we thought it was time to make some more. (The first batch was eaten and gifted very quickly.....)

So, ten minutes later we had this......


I'm not quite sure what possessed us to pick two bags full - particularly as we said we wouldn't take many......was it because they were free or maybe a safety net in case the fruit was damaged or riddled with insects - but no, it was in excellent condition.....We weren't positive they were true crabapples - but they were certainly inedible raw....

Yesterday the process began with weighing and washing the fruit, .....

Cutting it up roughly - fairly quick as it was in good condition -

...and cooking it down. 


Then into a bag to drain overnight......


.....and today continued with adding the sugar (and sugar and sugar) to the juice and boiling it up til it jelled.



Til finally we (I) ended up with this........



Looks right, tastes right, but I still have one bag full of crabapples and several tubs of applesauce in the freezer....and I'm not sure I have the stamina to process anymore because when we arrived home I found these in the mail......




.......and lessons one and two for this class in my email inbox.......


So it's time to get out of the kitchen for a while because as I'm sure you can appreciate I'm very keen (dying even) to get back to dyeing (with an 'e', as always) and trying my hand at designing with the fabrics created......

Til next time,

Sue xxxx

Wednesday 1 January 2014

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to anyone who may be passing through here......that seemed to come around quickly.

2013 for us was a year of recovery, travel adventures where we marvelled at ancient glories and great beauty - both natural and mad-made - and followed our creative hearts and dreams.

I heard New Year's resolutions described as 'the plans you make for the first week in January' but I'm hoping I can stick to my plans a little longer than that.....

2014 is full of creative promise beginning with an online class on dyeing (with an 'e') and design as well as plans to develop skills and design ideas more fully through friendly challenges.

But first on the agenda for me is the annual trip to the Snowy Mountains for trout fishing.....which for me means walking, photography, reading and sewing, chatting with my friend and great food.....while those who fish brave the elements and generally wear themselves out. (And virtually no Internet so I'll be a bit quiet for a week or so..)

The family Christmas fairies were very kind to me and some of these will be joining me on the trip.....



May 2014 bring you health, happiness and many creative adventures,

Sue xxxx