Finally time to draw breath

Phew! It's been non-stop for what seems like weeks here but I think I may finally have the time to stop and draw breath and show you what the 'hens' produced weekend before last. I'd prepared three different samples of fabric flowers for them to choose from. There were lots of doubtful faces at the beginning of the session but I think they were all delighted with the results which were worn with best frocks on Saturday evening when we enjoyed canapes and champagne served by a butler in the buff!!!

Briefly back ....

Just a quick post to show you the main reason why I've been so quiet here lately. You may remember this previous post about Mum's hexagon quilt. Well, three kilometres (!) of thread and much swearing later I finally finished it on Christmas Eve. She was so pleased, it immediately went on the bed.

Off to Northumberland again for New Year - hope the weather isn't as bad as last year and we have another awful journey like this one. As soon as we get back, I have a crafting session to run for about 17 'hens' at my niece's hen weekend. Hopefully, I can then get back to some stitching for myself.

Happy New Year!

So little time ...

I'm afraid there won't be much blogging this side of Christmas - lots of sewing projects that are gifts to finish and already I feel like I'm running out of time! Normal service will be resumed in 2011.....

Alchemy indeed ....

I bought this book earlier in the year, fully intending to experiment in the summer when nature is at its most abundant, but, as always, life got in the way. I was talking about the book to my friend Helen last week ,who just happened (as you do!) to have a container of frozen elderberries in her freezer that she kindly donated to me. So today, rather than get on with the household chores, and having been reading India and Arlee's blogs, I decided to play.

The elderberries, contained in the foot of a popsock and still frozen, were immersed in water in my copper dyeing pot and, very slowly, heated on the stove until barely simmering. While this was going on, I pre-mordanted various different types of cotton fabric in diluted soy milk. In an ideal world, the fabric should have been pre-mordanted, drip dried and left to 'cure' before being dyed but the berries were already on the go before I read that page!

When the dye bath had a good bit of colour to it, I decanted some into an empty coffee jar, scrunched in a bit of the soy mordanted cotton and that is destined to sit on the kitchen windowsill to see what will happen to it in the next few weeks. (all the colours in the photos on this post are much brighter in real life - had to use the flash as it's so grey and gloomy today)

The rest of the cotton (bar one piece that wouldn't fit in but more of than later) was immersed in the dye pot:-

then heated back to almost simmering and left for an hour.

This is what I ended up with:-

The pieces seem to have taken the dye differently - the muslin is much darker than the recycled cotton sheet - and I think a bit of polycotton has inadvertently slipped in as one piece of fabric is very pale. Anyway, I'll leave it all in the dye pot for as long as possible to steep. It'll then be drip dried and left for a few days before rinsing and we'll see what I end up with.

So, that last bit of mordanted cotton - what to do with it? Common sense said to let it dry and cure so I'd have something all ready for dyeing in the future but I was on a roll and wanted colour on that cloth today! Outside I went and gathered some of the fallen leaves from the garden, spread them on the cloth and then rolled it up tightly and secured it with elastic bands. A bit of unmordanted, dampened cotton got the same treatment, as did a piece of habotai silk (but with more carefully placed leaves from the Acer palmatum atropurpureum in the garden). Break out the so-far-unused-but-now-dedicated-to-dyeing electric steamer!

After an hour's steaming, this is what I had:-

Just look at the colour and patterns from the Acer leaves on that silk!

Now I have to be patient and leave the bundles alone, still tightly wrapped, until I can't stand the suspense any longer!

Alchemy indeed......

Inspirational 'fodder'

Another thing Mum gave me was this - the book of the BBC TV series and it’s full of great photos. Visitors to this blog may have noticed my attraction to this type of photography (see links at the bottom of the page). I’ve used aerial pictures before to inspire a textile piece and this book has lots more ‘fodder’ for me to use at some point.

Appliglue

Another discovery amongst Mum’s ‘stash’ was this box of Appliglue. I remember Mum and I went to a Hobbycrafts exhibition at the NEC at least 20 years ago where she bought it so it’s really old but, having opened several of the bottles, it still seems quite usuable. No doubt I'll find an opportunity for testing it out at some point.

Make do and mend

In today's 'disposable' world, the idea of mending has long since disappeared from most people's minds but it's not so long ago that worn clothes would be patched, darned or otherwise mended rather than be thrown away. Unpacking the many boxes and bags that came home with me from Mum's, I found these cards of thread which were used for "reinforcing and mending".

And these which would have been used for mending stockings - can you imagine mending your tights today?

And this unopened pack of needles

Flora MacDonald was a trademark of Abel Morall Ltd (later to become Aero Needles) first registered in 1905. The picture is based on on portrait painted by Allan Ramsay.