Week in pictures

I'm sharing my week in photos. Not many words though as I have got to be on a train in five hours to take me to York. 

More daffodil dyeing as I found a few left at the back of the cupboard (definitely none left now until next Spring).

After the blanket felting disaster I managed to dye these blankets with procion dye (lime and magenta)

For a Christmas project that needs me to cut out lots of circles. This will be used in York so I will show the completed thing next week.

More procion dyeing, this time on cotton.

Samples for the YQ Christmas day in York at the end of November.

Boxes from jeans and a dress, the instructions will be on an ebook that I am working on

I did teach several workshops and teach a Year 3 class but I can't find the lead to the Kodak camera at the moment. maybe I will share photos next week of these. And finally I got through a huge stack of paperwork this week.

Have a great weekend

Angela x

A Little Bit of Everything

Its been a long hard, difficult week with DS2 but this weekend he has been with the respite carer. We did have a house full of teenage boys yesterday as DS had some friends round but peace reigned over the house. This allowed me to finally get down to the dyeing required for my diploma quilt. I'm not sure what has happened to my camera, all the photos in this post are not great. I think I need to check all the settings again so apologies.

The turquoise blue is for the mid-day sky. You can't tell on the photo but it goes from a pale shade on the right through to a shade darker on the left. The texture on the fabric also isn't showing. The brown is being dye printed so I have more control over the final shades. The three pieces need to be just a shade darker than the one before each time.

I have been inspired by some bloggers trying to complete UFO's so this Halloween quilt has finally been quilted and completed. I like to think that it is 8 months early!!!! You just can't see but I free machined pumpkins all over it in a varigated orange and purple thread.

I decided a few weeks ago to cut out a "turning twenty" quilt. I have mamnaged to do the piecing much quicker than I had thought. I will have 16 blocks, here are some laid out on the floor to give you an idea of how it will look. Again not great photo which doesn't show up the feature monkey fabric in the centre of each block.

I wasn't sure whether or not to show this because of the photo, the colours are washed out. It's one of my mug rug swaps. The batiks are rich jewel like purples and a deep pink. I just have to bind the other one before they can be posted off to America and their new home.

I spent a peaceful four hours at a sports centre today whilst DS joined a power riser/jump stilts group. I concentrated on the sewing and not what was happening down below. If you have never heard of them just look at this clip. DS isn't at the point of doing stunts yet though.  

Delectable Dyeing Day

Yesterday I taught a dyeing workshop to a wonderful group of people at Unique Cottage Farm Studios in Spalding AND I remembered my camera.  The aim of the day was to print onto fabric, and dye a little thread to match using both procion dyes and fabric paints. They all certainly embraced their creative side and produced some fantastic results. I know its a good class when everyone has to be presuaded to leave the room for a coffee break.

This was the room at coffee break time -

We just used fabric paint in the morning to give the fabric time to dry out. It was great to see everyone so busy producing seriously gorgeous, individual and unique fabrics

Pat and Nigel totally absorbed in their printing

This is just some of the monoprinted fabric that was produced.

In the afternoon we moved onto using procion dye as a printing medium which had been thickened. We also dyed threads, doesn't this bundle of crochet cotton look fab.

At the end of the day when all was clean we had a mini show and tell with the fabric painted fabric. I hope that I will have some photos sent to me of the dyed fabrics. All the fabrics printed with dyes go home wrapped in plastic ready for rinsing after 24 hours.

As I was packing up, the sky caught my eye, the colours were so much sharper than the photo shows - I think I had it on the wrong setting.

I want to end by saying Julie hope your ankle is feeling much better, we missed you today.

By the way, is anyone else having problems with Blogger? It has taken me nearly 90 minutes to load these photos. Each time I want to put another on I have to log out and back in again so frustrating when time is limited.

Breakthrough

This is not the greatest photo I have ever taken, in fact I will use the words of DS2 and say it's totally crap BUT it represents a huge breakthrough in my City & Guilds final quilt progress. Without giving too much away, the design inspiration is the fields and fens hence dyeing brown. I have tried immersion techniques but never got a grade of tone that was acceptable for the diploma work. The answer was so simple yet it took me along time to think of it, print dye the fabric which has worked on a small sample. The red spots you can just see are because I didn't mix up the dye fully as I was in too much of a rush.

I had a conversation with Sweetypie about dyeing fabric the other day. When you see my larger pieces so much work has gone into the dyeing/printing of the fabric which is mainly unnoticed. the piecing and quilting is there on display but not the processes of soaking, drying, washing, dyeing often done more than once. So much time, effort and emotion goes into this. I once put on a label that 12 hours of dying time had gone into the fabric before I even applied a needle to it. I'm not moaning as I do love this stage but it can be very time consuming.

Changing the subject totally, yesterday I placed two large orders with well known companies. I needed products ordered for a workshop on the 6th November so you could say urgent. One, Kemtex was fantastic, the parcel arrived this morning so less than 24 hours. They sell dyes and dye chemicals, I use them alot and would really recommend them. If you are a novice there is a man called Stuart who really knows the products and will give out advise. The other company (I'm not going to name and shame although I might if it doesn't arrive before the 6th), took my order and then told me that they were having a stock take and the order wouldn't go out until next week. Not only that but the orders will be sent out in order, no they were unable to tell me how many before mine. It's a shame I like their products but with customer service like that they basically don't deserve the custom!!

Have you heard about improvisational piecing? I had an e-mail from QuiltArts which had me reaching for my stack of Halloween fabric that I have promised DS2 for about three years that would turn into a quilt. I was going to show you some photos but Blogger isn't playing tonight. I'll leave it a few days and then try again.

Happiness is parcels in the post

When I was sitting at home feeling sorry for myself lots of goodies arrives in the post. Can you guess what this is?

In a huge box from ASding came 30 yards of 80/20 wadding. I had got to the point of having none in the house and will be needing quite a lot for my C&G quilt. I got this with a couple of friends and I couldn't believe how much cheaper it was for us. If you have got friends to share costs with contact ASding. They were just so helpful, it came the day after I phoned them and no postage costs. You also get the bonus of lots of giggles when you open it out of the bag and it expands and the challenge of keeping count when you measure it out. Good job Sweetypie had a big room to do it in.

Another company equally worthy of a mention is Kemtex. They give out so much information over the phone and again the package arrived really swiftly. These jars contain Kemtex easidye acid dyes for wool. Lovely eye candy..

Andrea from Indigo Blue sent me an ATC in preparation for the ATC swap I have joined. She used gorgeous sheers, sequins and beads. I have this hanging in my sewing room.
Finally I had to order more of this -

So I could finish this.

It's not a great photo as DS was holding it up and trying not to giggle. I'll try and get a better one. I have built up a tradition of making my nephews and nieces a quilt for their first birthday so this is Sean's first quilt. We are all off to see him soon, I am sure he will have changed so much as as I haven't seen him since Christmas. This was originally a spilt nine patch design but then I realised that if I wanted to get all the stripes going the same way it was easier just to piece it. It did come together quickly though and for once I will not need to stay up all night finishing something. Even the label is done.

Sheep Day 2010

If you are near Lincolnshire on May 22nd 2010, Unique Cottage Farm Studios is holding a sheep day. This day will celebrate sheep, wool and there will be lots to see and do. The aim is to have several different breeds of sheep for people to look at, spinners, weavers, a group showing felting techniques and a textile artist demonstrating dyeing (me!). Other activities will include knitting and weaving stick activites for familes and you will be able to make your own stained glass sheep with resident glass artists Gillian and David Wing. The aim of the day is to see the process from fleece to needle so people can learn about the animal and rural crafts connnected to wool.

Cabbages and Sprouts

Well the new mobile phone has finally decided to communicate with me but let's say that I'm a girl who likes to press buttons!!!

On a creative front I have finished the embellished sample above. When I put a lot of hand stitch onto pieces it some how feels like going back to my routes as I did lots of embroidery first before becoming a quilter. I hand dyed buttons and the three large do-nut shapes came from a charity shop belt which I also hand dyed. There are beads from broken necklaces, washers of varying sizes and some green net from a shower wash thing. I also used a broken zip. Here is more detail -

I used a hand dyed cotton base which was crinkled first to create more texture. I'll put my hand up though and admit that the crinkle fabric was for an Expedition Quilt Art Challenge, all embellishments for my Diploma

Quilters Guild Day

Today I went to a Quilters Guild Region Ten area day. It was nearly a two hour drive through fog and icy roads and I had a back seat full of enthusiastic young quilters. I really enjoy these days as I see friends whom I have know for ten years but only see two or three times a year. Today was no exception and plans were also made to catch up with people at the Quilters Guild Conference next month where I will be teaching. I was determine however to take some stitching with me so I started machine quilting this last night and did manage to sew in some ends today.

The speaker today was Louise Presley from Hope and Elvis. She describes herself (quite rightly) as an artist and gave a really good talk which raised some interesting questions. One side of her business is connected with vintage textiles and things she makes from them, the other is more contemporary work much of which is Louise's response to things reported in the media. Perhaps the most important thing that I took away from her talk was that when I make my quilts I need to stay true to myself and let my creativity led me forwards and not other people's expectations.

My band of Younq Quilters had a great time as well, under the careful supervision of the YQ rep they made these chickens. Sue did not know when she planned this that all these YQ's own their very own chickens! This chick and rabbit were hand sewn by my son.

Dyeing day

I had a wonderful time today teaching dyeing. I love the graduation from the yellow to blue above. Once I have some photos of the washed fabrics I will post some on my web site.

I want to say thank you to everyone who has left a comment to win my fabric basket filled with goodies (see below). I am having a fantastic time discovering new blogs and some wonderful, creative people. I have entered lots of giveaways so I have fingers and toes crossed that I will win something as well.

I'd rather be stitching

Its been a busy 24 hours. Last night I went for a Chinese with an old friend. Fantastic company but not great food. The local Chinese we went to has changed so much, instead of table cloths, linen napkins and Chinese crockery we had blank tables, paper napkins and a buffet that only had two veggie things I could eat (except for rice and seaweed). There was not a chop stick in sight with only knives and forks in baskets. Today was very different with fantastic food and company due to the Expedition Quilt Art girls. Tonight, well I felt very old! My teaching assistant whom I worked with had a 30th birthday party. It was good to catch up with old friends but I found it hard to shout at everyone which you had to do above the noise (sorry music). I did feel old beyond my forty years as I would rather have been home doing this, and this,
and this,
I was home by 10pm which surprised DH. This mini quilt is for the Expedition Quilt Art challenge, lots of other wonderful people have completed their challenge - not me. Well it is finished and is sitting in the dye bath, just got to wash and dry before revealing photos hopefully tomorrow on their blog.

snow dyeing results

Here just for sweetiepie are the late photos of my snow dyeing. It seems to have taken me a week to get these on as life has a nasty habit of all too often getting in the way. I used procion cold water dyes, turquoise and magenta. The colours are not great, I had plans to photograph them outside but it has rained all day here.

I had some black and red left over and this was the result of that snow dyeing -

I have also been working on this, my miniature quilt made from tissue paper, lutradur and plastic (with a small amount of plastic)
It has a lot of hand stitching which doesn't show up on the photo. Just at the point of putting on the binding (plastic shower wash thing- do you know what I mean?) it had a major accident. I had green painted tissue paper under the white, all subtle when small child came and picked it up with wet hands. After consulting with my tutor I bravely put more water onto the tissue. This then meant the bottom plastic circle was not dominate enough, it receded too much. You can't see how much stitch went into this, the image below is slightly better. My aim for tonight is to get this plastic binding sewn on. If I manage this I will post photos tomorrow.

Snow dyeing - part 3

The title isn't very original but describes the latest snow dyeing.

I put a mesh shelf (from an old animal cage) over my sink in the utility room and put the soda soaked fabric on top (left image), I then piled fresh snow on top of that (right image) put the dye solutions over this snow and then left it to slowly melt.

After a few hours I had peeks of this -
I will have to wait overnight to see the final results.

Snow dyeing 2

Well the trays spent all night outside and were covered in fresh snow when I went out to them this morning. I figured that all the dye/water was frozen so I decided to pour warm salt/soda solution over the trays. There was very little difference between the fabrics in the two trays, one thing I wasn't expecting was that the dye must have frozen before it got down to the last fabrics in the scrunched cutlery tray. The last piece was very pale and had hardly any dye on it. I didn't want the black to be too domineering but I actually made the dye solution too weak as the fabric is mainly reds with some grey. I will try another type of snow dyeing tomorrow as I don't think this experiment really worked. The frozen dye didn't give me any significant marks. I was pleased with the results though and will be able to use the fabrics, perhaps in my January journal quilt.

We have snow forecast for both Saturday and Sunday so if possible I am going to put the snow on top of the fabric, dye over that and then leave it to melt in a warm place (ish). Snow dyeing is getting addictive! I was going to snow dye some shibori tied fabric which I was teaching at my LQG next week but this has been cancelled due to the weather.