DYE DAY - LEARNING TO MAKE MY OWN HAND DYED FABRICS

As all my local quilt shops have now closed the time has come to dye my own fabric.  I hate travelling far in the traffic now so driving across the city is not for me.  It just came down to 'needs must'. I had done a little dye work about eighteen months ago, luck more than expertise had resulted in a batch of useable fabrics.  Ordered some basic dyes recently and today was the day.  First mistake was forgetting to add the salt to the soda ash, I was consulting three different sets of instructions and the Procion one did not mention the salt,  I added it later to the bags.  Moroccan Red and Gold Yellow were applied, a one metre piece and two fat quarters.  First wash out of the combination of the two colours on a fat quarter was nice but not yellow enough for my needs for my next bird quilt, so back in the bag it went and a cup of soda ash and salt and 200 ml of dye.  All three packets of fabric out in the sun to help the colour take.  I await the results.  Patience.... patience........

BLOWN OFF COURSE

When I was about ten years old we lived in a small village, up on the New England Highlands, at Nowendoc.  My father managed the sawmill there, it was more a post office, a town hall  and the local shop with bread delivery once a week.  There was a storm one night and the next morning sitting in the middle of the mill yard was a seagull.  The bird must have been blown in by the storm from the coast, quite a distance, about 100 kilometres.  I never forgot the image and how magical it was to see this bird so far from its home.  I created this quilt recently from that memory.  The storm just finishing on dusk in the background, the stripped leaves from the gums which grew in profusion where I lived.  We all get blown off course at times in our lives,  find ourselves in strange lands and wonder how to navigate our way 'home'.