So very hot!

The weather is lovely and it is a shame that I have to be at work this afternoon. It is so hot! Last night it was almost unbearably stuffy and I had difficulty getting to sleep! However not to complain as we don't often get days like this.

The class on colour went really well and a good time was had by all. However due to the pressure of time I didn't get a chance to photograph the range of greens I produced in the morning. I will get round to it eventually. Probably when it's cooler! Here are a couple of pictures of the colour wheel dyeing I did earlier.

Greens!

There are so many different greens. Thousands of them! I was dyeing a colour wheel last weekend for a class on colour I'm giving tonight and I was struck by the sublty of the greens. So much so that I thought I'd do a run of just greens. I did three colour wheels: lemon 8G, magenta and turquoise: buttercup, scarlet and royal: lemon 4G, intense red, navy. So there were a few interesting greens amongst that lot but the differences between them were quite large as I was only doing a twelve colour wheel. This morning I decided to work on the Ives colour wheel of twenty four steps and started off with lemon 8G and bright royal. A lovely lot of greens were the result but even so I reckon that I can make the range of greens even larger and closer in colour by extending the steps in dyeing. And when one thinks that this was just one colour combination the mind boggles at what one could achieve with several colour combinations. And then again one could add in a tad of black and achieve even more colourings. Water colours down to get paler versions! The list is endless. Have I got enough time left to achieve all these thousands of green? I'm typing this at work so I have no pictures but I will take some and add them in later.

And after greens I can graduate to purples and oranges!  Not to forget all the browns and neutrals! Oh what fun! The reason I started with green was because one uses so much green in quilting especially when doing applique work or landscapes. However with all that dyeing will I ever have time enough to sew!

The Day After!

I am delighted with the moves of yesterday. More space, stuff is easier to get at (if I remember where I put it) and everywhere is clean and tidy. Tonight I am going to titivate and finalise the putting of stuff in drawers. Graeme keeps telling me that this is the last time we move this wardrobe (or any other large pieces of furniture) so I must make sure that I've got it all just as I want it!

The next project must be some dyeing of fabric as I noticed when moving things that I have very little multi coloured half metre pieces. So I can feel some sunset and underwater pieces coming on for starters. And with the weather being quite good it might be a good time to get out the wax and cjanting tool and do some batiks.



This was a piece of silk that was batiked very simply and then embroidered and turned into a cushion cover.

 



Another piece in silk waiting to have something done with it. Below is a piece that has had applique, machine embroidery and cut outs added to it. Eventually I'll make it into a small book cover. The trouble is that there is just too much to do!

Close up

The Urge to Move!

At last I have finished one of the pieces of Crazy Patchwork. It is an over-the-arm of a chair work tidy. I started this more years than I care to remember ago! I have enjoyed finishing it. It  was great fun to do and will be our latest pattern offering. I have two more nearly finished so this might not be the final picture.

I have been feeling the urge to have a big clear out and move furniture around! I think this has been brought on by the fact that we have guests at the end of the month. Graeme's brother and family are coming to visit us from Egypt! So as well as giving the house a good and thorough clean, it also has meant making some more space. One of the joys of having guests is that one's house gets a real over- haul! Almost as good as moving!

And that is just what we did this morning. We moved furniture. I had the bright idea in the middle of the night...as one does! We were going to send our enormous Victorian wardrobe up to my son in Fife, as he is desperate for a wardrobe, on condition that he held it in trust for my daughter who I think would disown me if I got rid of it permanently. But I love this wardrobe and I really didn't want to let it go, plus the fact that is most unwieldy. But now I don't have to as he is going to have my double wardrobe instead which knocks down and puts up so easily. And it's solid wood too so he isn't being fobbed off with anything cheap! So now we have the large wardrobe in our bedroom; the spare room has the dressing table(we had two in our room!) and looks much better and Graeme can at last open the doors on his wardrobe as we've moved it to the other side of the bedroom. However this didn't happen just like that. To get the large wardrobe into our room we had to take the banisters off the landing and have the wardrobe suspended over the abyss of the stair well. But we made it without mishap and I left Graeme putting the banisters back while I went off to work. However when I get home tonight I have to sort, hang and otherwise put away the mountain of clothing and stuff that is on our bed or we won't be going to bed tonight! There was a stage when the wardrobe was stuck in the spare room door with me inside the room when I thought I might be marooned there for good! But we got there in the end and I can't wait to have it all organised and sorted. Almost as good as having a new room! Plus I'll be able to get rid of more stuff to the charity shop! Can't be bad! 

This picture above is the top of my Victorian wardrobe. Below is the inside with drawers stacked full of sewing stuff. The other side is for hanging clothes but is also stuffed full of sewing stuff as you can see in the picture at the bottom. What you can't see are the two very large drawers at the bottom of the wardrobe. It is a huge piece of furniture!

And believe it or not I actually found homes for all that stuff in the workroom. Well to be honest I did give some of it away! There is only so much one can use in a lifetime after all!