stitch this! Updated

These ten-yard skeins of 6-ply DMC cotton have a heather thing going on.

What you can't tell from this picture is that the opposite side of each of these is a different color, most of them a darker version of the one facing the camera. The color transitions are short and sharp which can be problematic.

What I do with these is split the six ply in half and reverse direction or just "color jog" half and then put them back together. Does anyone but me get that? I recently joined the Mildly Offensive Fiber Artists on FB...this stuffs looks right up their alley. Glorious, dirty string.



update - I ran to HoAnn's and scored those cardboard bobbins. You can see below the variations better now and the deeper you go into each bobbin, the less white there is.  Lessons learned. 
Still they are quite tasty. I'll be selling some of them in the shop soon.

Storm, still

 Another rinse. I left them to it.

In the semi-dry state, I could see that several of these pieces turned out to be a cotton blend that took the color in a strange, blurred fashion. This happened because I was too lazy to do a few burn tests. Lesson learned.
I won't be using any of it. Other pieces got muddied by my over anxious manipulation of the bundles. I foresee discharging and over-dyeing in their futures.

The threads turned out so tasty. Need to find a packet of these cardboard holders. Fresh out.

thunder, lightning and rock & roll!

I was in a mood. I wanted to flush the world away today.  Things got a little dark right from the start. Turquoise and Sunshine rode in to save the day from the darkness.

It got really hot and the pool behind me beckoned but I pushed on. Things got messy and out of hand quickly. Serendipity and Mayhem were having their way with this session.
Salt is in play. I haven't fooled with the crystals in years but the heat and humidity were perfect.

The sky went dark just as I was finishing and the thunder, lightning, and rain are putting the polish on this set of threads and cloth. Heavy blessings. It's all going to just be at the mercy of the elements for as long as that takes. Days maybe according to the weathermen. We hunker down.

my kind of Just Going

It's late. late for everything. Dyeing, swimming in the pool, staying out late to see the fireflies.

Better late than never.

The 2017 season at the Lawrenceville Frankenstein dye works commences.

the new week begins

Mondays with Charlie are getting more entertaining now that he has a fair grip on the language. I can no longer claim Nana dumbness.  I just have to listen to him with an open mind because he says exactly what he means without the qualifiers and filters that grownups have built into verbal communications. 

Miscoms still happen owing more to my deafness than his experimental approach to English. We pat each other on the head and try not to get exasperated. I said, "take my word for it, you do not want to watch that TV show." He focused on which word of mine he was supposed to take and where was I hiding it.

This scrap of cotton sateen has been rolling around the floor with the dust bunnies and this morning I washed and dried it and decided it was a message that I should take seriously, so I took it for a ride in the car. I know, you were hoping for something else - something stitchy or dyeish, but I'm working up to it.

The water and air temperatures finally conspired to get me into the pool...the latest date since we put it in back in '98. My friends and family in the Northeast have been sweltering with our summer. It may finally be here.

Because there was no killing freeze this winter the level of organic activity in the water was off the charts...I have a lot of scrubbing to do. This will be my outside office until it gets too cold to get in.
This year, maybe Thanksgiving.