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........
FABRIC COLLAGE AND SEWING ON ANTIQUE AND RETRO SEWING MACHINES IN TROPICAL QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA.
Friday, January 5, 2018
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
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'.
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