There is something quite blissful about doing some dyeing. Getting the colours out and deciding which to use. Cutting the fabric and arranging it in the buckets. Then waiting, and waiting, and waiting, until finally the fabric is rinsed and put in the washing machine and one does another load of waiting. The excitement of then ironing and finally seeing the finished colour is the cherry on the icing. Yesterday we dyed some browns and did a time delay on the immersion into the dye. The resulting colours were amazing. The darkest colours were to be expected and although lovely nothing new but the lightest colours were fantastic and surprising. Who would have expected to get green streaks in a brown dye! Some lovely pieces for landscapes! The two browns, chocolate which is a warm reddish brown, and dark brown which is a cool brown colour with blueish overtones, reacted completely differently to the experimentation. I am now anxious to try this experiment with other colours to see what results we will get.
Today in class we made advent calenders, which the students found fun, and I was able to utilise the numbers that I had cut out with the Slice machine. I am getting more adept at using this piece of equipment I am pleased to say though I still don't feel it is completely problem free! Now that the advent calendar is finished I can fill the pockets with gifts. I have bought some lovely chocolates to put in some of them and that is such a temptation as they are really yummy!
My next job is to think of Christmas and decide what if anything I am going to make as gifts. I have some picture cushions to do but apart from that I'll probably not make things this year due to a lack of time and the pressing need to get other things finished. I have the pictures printed onto fabric and ready to be incorporated into cushions. All I have to do is find the time! I have got to the stage where I have lists of lists!
We have bought a mobile home so that we can not only take stuff to shows but also have somewhere to rest our heads and save on hotel bills. I am quite excited and can't wait to take it on a trial run. Firstly though it will need equipping and that will be fun as well. So far we have booked to do six shows next year so it will get a fair amount of use! I shall be very sad to sell my Renault though as it has done me proud over the last ten or so years. However it has really come to the end of it's life being around 20 years old and having done 120,550 miles! It is becoming expensive to maintain! I shall use Graeme's little car for running around in....much cheaper on petrol too!
those are gorgeous! I do like the hand dyed yarns for same reasons - they are all very unique and there is something screechy about the fact that someone has "made" them go that colour!
ReplyDeletemy only experience - cough - in dyeing - blush - is in machine dye from a pot on some old towels.
all I remember is feeling slightly disappointed that my past their best towels went IN the machine faded and came out considerably BRIGHTER (if patchy) but still looking the SAME. somehow I expected the dye to rejuvinate the fluff. ok. I admit, I was hoping they'd come out with a price tag looking like new-from-shop. bah!
Sue x