sweater weather

Sweater weather took us by surprise here in Georgia. I dragged this brutally overdyed cotton sweater out of the bottom of the closet to use as a guinea pig to see if and how much it would discharge with softscrub.  

See my little favorite bugflower resisted in the middle?  I hope it works as well on the black one, my favorite, when I can find it.

Just Maybe you know them...

Jeez, it would drive me around the bend to spend a day at a fiber show buying treasures with my hard earned cash only to absent mindedly leave it at a booth where I was momentarily captivated by something else shiny and new...it's happened to me for real.

I know I have a few readers in the UK so they just might know who it is...see

this post at Purple Missus

passing things on

Back in March I donated two unfinished tops to Quilts for Quake Survivors. It was very gratifying seeing what has become of one of them so far. Thanks to all the volunteers who picked up where I left off.  Thanks so much for posting this, Susan & Daniela.

  

shop update

 
Mission (part one anyway) accomplished.


I updated the store this morning with SEVEN new magic cloth burritos from the fall equinox dyefest.

I'll be making more over the next few days and taking out things that I can't bear to part with to keep for my own stash. Before I do this I always make a point of watching an episode or  two of "Hoarders" just to maintain a sane perspective.

It's a good thing that studio assistants work cheap but I did remove Sweetie from the scene after this one glam  shot turned into a wrestling match over the fabric when I tried to rearrange things.

MCD update

 I'm a little sad this morning now that the Atlanta Braves have gone down in flames and our baseball season is over.

I had agita for thirteen innings last night and losing the pennant bid that way was a bitter pill. I will miss baseball.



This is a little element that will go in the center back of my MCD shirt. Zoom in on the picture so you can examine this freaky little drink server closely. It was stitched onto a tiny little rectangular cocktail napkin. Each of the six of them wound up a different color.

I kept a feather for myself.

fall equinox cloth

Just some of the finished pieces from the fall equinox dyefest. No ironing this group...there's just too much wonderful texture to appreciate.

I'll be making a few of these available in the store over the next few days.

Madam enjoys her cream

 
Karma turned sixteen this past spring and for a while this summer I feared she wouldn't see another birthday.  Sometimes I wonder if she wasn't just working us, her fans and supporters, with her drama.

Here she is enjoying her morning bowl of half and half out on the dye deck working hard to maintain her svelte 7.5 pounds.  Her coat seems to be coming back in now despite a tail full of nasty jujus that she won't let me groom. How sensible it was to shed 75% of one's fur during the hot summer months. If I had taken her cue, I would have shaved my head.

Over the past few days I have begun to suspect that she may be deaf and blind on her left side.
Still, she does exactly what she wants, whenever she wants to - or you hear about it. We should all be so fortunate.


Here are the mystery mobys turned out of their jars onto the table to drain a bit. Once the sun comes out, I'll hand wash them and see just how much dye will stay. I suspect a lot will flee.

warning - wet spoils

but not spoiled at all. Much more like b00ty but using that in a post will get all kinds of unwanted attention these days.
Rather than waste time and water rinsing these by hand, I decided to just turn them out of the containers this morning right onto the work table like so much dough. NEXT time I use something 100% natural for a table cloth and make sure its ready with soda ash before I get crazy like this again..
The clear glue did not resist the discharge.


A very clear call came this morning regarding the use of these fabrics. I'll be taking a break any further raw material making to see if I can bring the vision around to reality.




and the Moby cloth + vinegar test is finally underway.

crystal clear

how did I miss this amazing post.?

just a fraction

This is all I have time for this morning. A few were rinsed and little dye was lost...a good sign. Then I realized.why bother? Just lay them out on the work table and let them dry there. Some of these have been treated with clear school glue as a resist in preparation for other processes later on.

I'm letting these have their way with the white sheet that's covering the work surface. I have a stack of them - a cotton poly blend so not much of this excitement will stay when I wash it out.

If I wash it out.

these were suspect in that I was not able to determine if they were going to take the dye or leave it. the white markings are from discharge gel.

I forgot to take off the Grace note but I remember it said "what were they thinking?"


I can't imagine what those three badly stitched XXs were all about...

fall dye fest...day one

Some of you must be bored with these types of pictures but I never tire of seeing my Mason jars lined up filled with sparkling colors. That whole front row looks like a salute to Sangria. There are another half dozen, three-high stacks of stainless steel containers out of the frame all heating up in the sun this afternoon.

I didn't realize I had so much cloth ready to go. Wash out and further manipulations of color are going to take all week in small doses - I have a crazed work schedule with a lot of early starts coming up. This will be a first for applying the textured colors after the base color  - I normally do it the other way around. We'll see if there's any real difference.