Last chapter - Bringing up to date

Have also been dyeing. I am taking part in a round robin on a yahoo group I belong to. The first two pictures are fabric that came to me space dyed. I struggled for weeks about what to do with it. I eventually decided - form expereince with my own pieces that a second space dye was in order to enrich the piece. The photos are not good - they just do NOT capture the colours etc. You just have to trust me that the results are gorgeous:) The fabric has been sent on it's way for the next layer.



The above lot are dyeing a rainbow - with my niece - don't they look gorgeous deep colours. They are wet in the pics above. However, I believe I may have got the short straw with the fabric - everything has come out relatively pale - and I believe the fabric may have been polycotton - but sold as pure cotton for dyeing. Got it mail order - lots of it!

Unfortunately I don't have time at the moment to try a test of dyeing a variety of other cottons I have and including this percale - to see what the result might be. I know of no other way to know whether the fabric has any polyester in it.

Disappointing to say the least. I do like pale colours - but for this exercise ie. dyeing metres and metres for a course I'm doing in October - this is far from a good result. Also a huge waste of dye - cos obviously it washed out!!!!!

Anyhow - most recently. Yesterday my sis and I visited the yummy yarn store 'Stash Yarns' in Upper Richmond Road - Putney. We went - cos I hadn't been yet - and also cos I will be an aunty again soon - 5 weeks time ish - and an aunt for the 4th time. My sis wanted some dk yarn for a friend to knit her some baby things. i don't have time at the moment - for anything other than a pair of booties or socks. i am behind with a few things including one very special project for someone else.

Anyhow sis bought some mission falls cotton - which is really nice - in pure white and also some rooster almerino in a lovely soft greenish blue. Also a mixed yarn hank to knit a scarf for herself in yummy shades of green.

Me - I got some sock yarn - a german one and a fleece artist one, a copy of interweave knits funky mag - knit scene, and one of those knitting row/stitch counters I keep meaning to buy... I tried to use an old one that fits on the end of the needle the other night - horrible nasty little thing...

Good to finally meet the two ladies in the shop and also to find an old friend sitting there - Jan and I met at Ally Pally last year. Good to catch up again.

We had a few bits to do in Putney - and as we were walking to the bus stop I asked if sis minded if we popped into the Sewing Room - a sewing shop in Lacy Road. I wanted to talk to the lady there about software for my new machine. I had understood correctly that the software is more or less compatible - the restriction is that it must be able to save designs in the file format that suits your machine. This is good - we had a long chat - she gave me some brochures - but it will have to wait a while - as it will be a bit costly - and as it doesn't work on Mac I will need a basic laptop for it.

Also they have some yarn in the shop - they have some adrafil and some gorgeous fine alpaca from garnstudio. Yes that's the other yarn in the pic that hasn't yet been explained. I spent ages last night on the net looking through the garnstudio website for the free patterns. You buy your yarn and all the patterns are free - downloadable from the website. What a great idea.


Clarence is the sleepy puss cat. It never fails to amaze me where cats will sleep:) She is my sister's family cat and now 16 years old - bless her.


Well that's enough to be getting on with - more or less up to date. Must go and iron and pack now - YUK!!!!! And TRY AGAIN - to get hold of someone at BA who can tell me if I can currently take my knitting on the plane...

Bringing up to date Chapter 2

Attended Festival of Quilts in mid August. Friends had entries - the only one of which I managed to get a decent picture of was Pam's wrap. Beautifully machine embroidered and beaded.

Leslie Morgan (picture) and Claire Benn of Committed to Cloth (where I attend a class one day a month) were there with the 'virtual studio' - which really is a fab idea. I also got to see one of the fused quilts made by Melody Johnson - whose blog Fibermania - is a must for me each day - I don't manage very well to keep up with all the blogs I'd like to keep up with. This quilt (pic is a closeup) is one of the Matchstick Moon quilts - I adore her sense and use of colour.

I stayed over at one of the hotels at NEC. Nice hotel - but prices for food were a disgrace! I travel a lot on business and have never experienced such high prices for room service meals. But at NEC you are more or less stuck with no options really. The alternative to travel back each day into Birmingham. Did that during the Sewing for Pleasure show back in April - but with the trains etc being almost every weekend 'up the creek' because of engineering works - that becomes almost impossible.

Aside from the food prices it was lovel to stay over and then be able to go along again the next day.

To bring things up to date

I'm off again this week for some intensive iron and steel business workshops for work - to China. I'm told that someone from our Australian office is also organising some touristy stuff fof the weekend that we're there - we might be off to the Great Wall of China. Also need to do more shopping:) I have requests for some pearls and knitting bags - and will be acquiring more of those cute little pin cushions with all the little people round the edge - I would like a couple more - for my different types of pins and one or two people I know would like one too.

I will be away for almost two weeks and want to have this more or less up to date
before then.



I have been to the British Museum - with my friend - who came to stay for a few days back in early August. We love the great Court - and also looked properly at the Parthenon exhibits - which are quite phenomenal.



love folds and pleats - like fortuny work - and have adored the pictures by Burne-Jones - whose pictures are often of garments with goreous folds etc. So I took some close up pics at the BM of the sculptures - as they might be useful for artwork development at some stage.

We also visited the Globe theatre in Southwark - and did the tour which was great.

Shopping Report

Further to the update re Shanghai etc. On my return and during my week off (we're back in July now...) the second nicest thing I did was buy a new Bernina:)

A 630 with an embroidery unit - and several different sorts of feet etc etc... as you do.

Also invested in a proper trolley suitcase for it. It cost heaps - but it's to protect my investment - and I do now have three machines (each one special in it's own way) and I have to say that I really wouldn't trust any of my machines to the vagaries of the other machine trolley I purchased a couple of years ago. It has not held up well - gone a bit wonky and rarely been used for a machine. But it is good for classes that I go to where only heaps of fabric etc is required - and no machine.

The nicest of all though was to stay for a few days with my mate Pam - up in Shropshire. Oh it was just what I needed. We gel so well together - can be in the same house, doing creative stuff - and not in each other's pockets - if you know what I mean.

Arrived on Thursday evening (the trains were kind for once). We had yummy fish and chips for supper and then sat and chatted, and looked through books, discussed projects, ideas etc...

On Friday we visited Castle Court Quilters in Whittington - a shop owned by a friend of Pams'.

They have a very nice selection of quilting cottons. Also a nice big workroom where Pam teaches from time to time - embroidery classes.

Basically - we both just chilled. Later when we got back home - sat about in the sunshine in the garden which is absolutely charming (all put together by Pam's hubby)and did ZILCH!!!! Neither of us could recall the last time we just were - without needing to rush and DO SOMETHING!



Saturday more sitting around sewing etc - and being served strawberries and ice cream whilst we sat in the garden - byt Pam's hubby. We had our strawberries and ice cream before dinner!!! Which included the yummy yummy broad beans home grown.

Sunday - home. A great few days. and ready for work again...

Been very naughty and not updated for a very very very long time – not since mid June.

Was away on business for the last part of June and early July. Bonus of this was I got to visit my favourite city - Istanbul. We stayed at the gorgeous Four Seasons - which to me is 'The' only hotel in the whole world. Sadly – only for one night. It's so gorgeous and right on the doorstep of Haghia Sophia. We had a very short time after business to do a visit to places so I took a couple of colleagues on a very superficial, fast whirlwind tour of the major sites of old Istanbul. They really enjoyed it.

Then a week in Shanghai for workshops and forums. Sounds fun you say... Actually it was - it's great to finally meet all the people on the phone list etc... Learnt a lot about where things are going with the company and found time for good food (I did not eat the jellyfish or the swordfin that was on offer) and good company.

Huge amounts of smog though. We visited a new container port – built on an island 35km off the mainland and joined to the mainland by a 35km long bridge and the smog went a fair way out to sea.






Did some shopping too. Got gorgeous pearls for embroidery and bags galore for my favourite bag ladies (sister, and nieces etc etc).

Here are a few pics of things bought.













On my return I had booked to have a week holiday. I did lots of things that had been outstanding for a while. Bought a new special mattress for my bed, new ironing board (one of those big brabantia ones – yes boring details – but with the ironing involved in all that fabric dyeing – it’s essential).

Stitching

Hot here in London. So only ventured out this weekend for shopping. Don'tlike hot weather - makes me irritable. Also commuting each day is even worse than usual - specially the getting home.

I'd planned to do a bit of journalling/altered books this weekend - thought it would be helpful to air some of life's horrible bits in this way. but couldn't face gluey mess etc.

Have been knitting a little on the gift I'm doing as part of the knitting exchange I take part in for the past few years. This year the theme is hearth and home. I'm making a cushion - but won't say more at the moment about that. Suffice to say it's going well.

But I have stitched this weekend - I mean embroidery. Just found that I wanted to pick out a piece of canvas and stitch. I like canvas stitching from time to time. Generally not formal stitching, ie. not strictly geometric - but more free.

I also have reaslied that I like simple things - that don't necessarily say anything - and I find myself taking lots of pictures of flowers and leaves in the parks - they are so beautiful and colourful.

But the stitching I really emjoyed. I used acrylic paint to sponge colour onto a piece of canvas. Then stitched it. But I also found a smaller piece of canvas that I'd started to stitch a heart onto yonks ago. It wasn't working and so was abandoned. But I unpicked the stitching and started again this morning - and have completed a small piece in a day... Quite a satisfying feeling.

Here are some pics for you to see - this weekends work.

Crafty and other doings in recent weeks

Hi all

life has got away from me in recent weeks, and no phone or internet for over two weeks, also been away on business and other work type things have kept me busy.

On to important things.

Did a Pru Mapstone course a couple of weeks back. It helped enormously to really see how freeform is done, unfortunately due to a business trip I had to cancel the second day. But the first did give me lots to be getting on with. Now all I need is time to do it - and all the other crafty things I want to do...

Here's a pic of my freeform pieces.

The real wow for me was being shown how to do the great bullion crochet stitch. I have tried to follow the instructions in the book - but couldn't get it. But a demo did the trick.







Other than that I had two blissful days at the Committed to Cloth studios - one my regular monthly day and the other a make up day - from beng off sick and missing the April day.

I have worked on some space dyeing on silk velvet and cotton












I've also spent two days of this bank hols weekend - dyeing, rinsing, washing and IRONING... 40 odd pieces of fabric for a class I am booked to take with the American Quilter Nancy Crow in late October. nancy subcribes to the theory that the more choice you have with your fabrics the more creative you can be. Hence dyeing a huge range of colours will be my aim for at least one weekend a month between now and October. More about that later. and pictures of velvet etc end results - if I can persuade the camera to give a good idea of the colour.

The last thing I did this weekend was a little free machine embroidery. I haven't stitched for months and seeing some of the beautiful work that others had brought to the make up day last week inspired me to at least get the machine out and begin to stitch. I think it will end up a bag - it's space dyed cotton sateen ( a divine fabric) but not a piece dyed by me - I bought it from Leslie Morgan my dyeing tutor and master dyer. I bought it when I was feeling very blue. I bought a few pieces from Leslie at the time - they were happy to me and I needed cheering up:)

A week since setting up the blog. Many many thanks to you all who wrote comments to me - and that I didn't have the energy to reply to individually. They certainly cheered me up.

Several more days coughing and spluttering and very tired. Now thankfully on the mend.

One thing I missed was - Monday 10th - my study day at Committed to Cloth in Surrey - where I go once a month to print and dye fabric to my hearts content. This made me rather cross - but having little energy - I couldn't let that go on for long.

But I will show you a couple of pics of things of things I did earlier in this course. The pink is screen printed chiffon pinned out ready for some scree printed poetry - no not mine - Tennysons's (from Morte D Arthur).

The blue is a sort of spiral that I drew/painted literally hundreds of - to get 'the right one' for making into a screen.

Couple of good things in the past week. My two new books by Jan Eaton - 200 Crochet Blocks and also 200 Ripple stitches arrived. Also my Susan Bates needles from the USA. Nice - but not as nice as the old ones. Now why did they change those lovely metallic button ends for plastic!!!

I also tried a crochet flower out of the new Knit Simple (by Vogue Knitting) Mag. Quite pleased with it - and I got to use some of my huge stash of embroidery thread.

Am also crocheting a bag. This is quite accidental. I made it into the loft yesterday morning to pull down some wool to try some things in the Jan Eaton books. However, got distracted by a crochet spiral in the Freeform Knitting Handbag book by Pru Mapstone - made one and then whilst making a second - it somehow became a bag.

Yes you will have to wait for the finished object for a picture. Should be later this weekend. Also via a message on UKHK I found that Pru is in the UK and have signed up for 2 one day workshops in mid May with her. Can do freeform - but it will be so much fun to learn and widen knowledge and get hints and tips from the expert.

I also learnt yesterday that my local department store Allders in Croydon is to get Rowan yarn. I popped in not expecting much - in my hunt for some nice (NOT ACRYLIC!!!!) 4 ply - and they had Jaeger Matchmaker 4 ply in a dozen colours and then round the corner they had some of the new Classic yarns - I asked and the assistant said they're to get the full range. I do hope so. Of course as a Liberty gal I can get lots there - but sometimes you need something urgently and don't want to trek into London. I did needless to say get some 4 ply and the news made my day - was still a bit up and down yesterday.

Went out properly today - down to Eastbourne - to get a nice long walk by the sea - to blow away the cobwebs - and get out of the flat. Also to visit a bead shop I knew of but had not visited. Didn't buy too many beads - but they do have a good selection - specially of delicas - my favourites.

I also popped into CH Fabrics - am collecting 4ply yarn for the crochet blocks - I do believe that although I like those thick chunky fluffy yarns - my hands and I prefer finer yarns. I bought a book - Colour in Spinning - by Deb Menz. I don't spin (at the moment) but I love colour and this book is superb. Lots of stuff on colour and dyeing too - which is of interest to me. I picked it up and flicked through and instantly knew it had to come home with me.

Also made it to Lakeland Plastics - where stocked up on some essentials - including Carrs breadmaking mix - recommended to me by Les of Silkwood. My first loaf is just out of the oven. One thing I cannot abide about my bread machine - it cannot do a lovely brown crust - so this one I just used the dough program and then put it in a tin in the oven. It looks and smells divine.

The other thing - that being off sick enabled me to do - was to make my niece her loopy scarf in a fancy blue fluffy stuff (which I have no label for) and that chunky velvet Wow stuff. Can't say it was huge fun - think I prefer knitting - but it was quick and I have promised to make one for Sarah (nephews girlfriend) - but more like niece's big sis.

Enough for now methinks - better get on with that bag.

New Adventure

Just felt I had to accomplish something useful today. Been off sick since mid last week and still feeling rotten - bad cold and cough.

Followed a few people's blogs for a while and see that people can have lots of fun with it and join in with different activities. So whilst waiting for my shopping I decided to set up this blog.

For a colourful start I'll show you the bit of freeform knitting I've picked up off and on over the last couple of days - when not sleeping:)

I also include a close up to show a kid-silk haze curly whirly in minature. One of my favourite all time yarns and I love ruffles and curly things too.