DH is in the bath

Oops! I didn't expect to get on here so quickly but DH has helped me get my pics onto his computer and he's now snoring in the bath so I grabbed my chance!

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This is the very sweet toy chair that I won in Trashalou's raffle. The artwork is Moogsmum's.
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And below is the back of the chair.

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Isn't it lovely? The chair is about 10" tall.

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Underneath the chair was a parcel wrapped in the loveliest tissue paper and look what the very naughty Lesley aka Moogsmum has sent me! All the loveliness above. The gorgeous fabric with the fish has come from Hong Kong and I will have to use it for something special. The butterflies are fusible and there are various crochet and cotton doillies and traycloths and a packet of mixed organza. Add to all this a great wodge of tissue paper that the chair was wrapped in, some venetian blind fabric which has intriguing possibilities, and I have a bumper bundle.

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A certain person in the house has already collared the chair for her own use and is now surveying the room along with my favourite pieces and pebbles.

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Thank you, Lesley, so much, for your generosity. :o)) It arrived just at the right time as I had my gastroscopy yesterday and was feeling under the weather this morning. I had sedation for the test and I felt as if I was moving through treacle this morning. My throat is pretty sore too but that should wear off in a day or two. I've been told I've got a hiatus hernia so that probably explains the symptoms I've been getting. Keep taking the tablets!

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Anyway, enough of that. Thank you Lesley. You have a heart of gold.

And finally for today

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Just to show I wasn't completely idle last week, I made another doll to send to Australia. She's on her way as we speak. I've been working on my February Journal Quilt and a secret project that I can't show yet so I haven't been a total slouch. I took my JQ into the hospital yesterday to do some hand stitching and it was a great help in keeping me calm and passing the time.

Forced Intermission

Grrrr! I am going to be missing a bit longer, unless I can unglue my DH from the main computer, my laptop has died! Arrrrg! Disaster! How will I cope? It has been running a bit slow for a while and I thought it just needed some extra memory. This morning I switched it on and after only a little use the screen went blank and it won't now switch on! So, it's off to the computer doctor asap. Just when I had so much to show you too, not least a wonderful parcel that came from Moogsmum this morning, my prize in Trashalou's Bushfire raffle. Hopefully I may be able to upload the photo's to my DH's computer and show you tomorrow. Watch this space! At least I'll get some sewing done without a laptop to distract me. lol

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I've borrowed a few of my DH's photos to keepyou going.

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This one's for Becky!

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The snowy greeting at our holiday destination last week

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And the lovely sunshine at the end of the holiday.

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Ooh! Quilting Arts (Feb/March a bit late) has just dropped through the door! Guess what I'll be doing this evening?

Book Pages Swap

A couple of weeks ago I posted some photos of the flower themed book pages that I had made for a swap on the MixedMedia Atc Yahoo group that I belong to. Along with Dilly's parcel today I received my two pages in this swap.

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This first beautiful page is from Pat. It is wonderfully neat and I am so pleased to have it as I love to see fields of vibrant red poppies in the summer. The poppy flower is padded and has tiny blak beads on the stamens.

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This equally beautiful embroidered page is from Amanda S. She has applied trims and used variegated threads to machine embroider her design. It's really lovely. I've just noticed that the line of stitching under the blue flower is holding down a ribbon.

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We will continue to exchange pages throughout the year until we have a selection to make into a book. The pages have been left so that the edges can be finished by the person putting the book together.

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You will notice a little inactivity on my blog for a while. I'll be back soon!

Busy Dilly

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My dear friend Dilly has been busy again and she and her mummy, Helena, have sent me a gorgeous parcel which arrived here today on a lovely sunny Lincolnshire day. You can do no better than to read Dilly's own explanation by enlarging the photo above. Dilly has such a wonderful way with words. Fnarr!

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I am absolutely delighted with the wonderful concertina book which Helena has made and in which she has included some of the papers I sent her. It is really lovely to see some of the papers I made embellished and incorporated into Helena's work.

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What you may not be able to see from the photos is the lovely textures of the papers.

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The other book in the parcel is a notebook which I will enjoy using which Helena has covered with some paper that I made a while ago. I was supposed to make the paper into a pendant but I never took it that far (sorry to my Fiber Art Trader friends!).

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Thank you Helena and Pwincess Dilly for my beautiful parcel. I will have a lovely time using the notebook for all my art ideas and I will be able to think of Dilly every time I use it. :o) The concertina book is going to sit on my cabinet for a while so that I can enjoy it. It's too lovely to put in a drawer!

Pop across for a giveaway

Elizabeth Creates is having a blog giveaway in honour of her 250th post. Pop across here and leave a comment before the 15th February to be entered in her draw. The only request is that you link to Elizabeth on your blog.

Look Who Showed up Today

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My plans to make a cloth doll to send to Australia have resulted in this little lady. I had been busy sewing all the relevant parts together and turned her right sides out and there she was! She has been made with lots of love and I hope she will comfort a small person in Australia. I didn't know I had it in me to make such a pretty little girl! If you would like the pattern you can download it here.

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Mungo, who you may remember from here, wanted to help too so there will be a little group of three cuddling up in a parcel tomorrow. Mungo is an experienced parcel traveller so she will look after teddy and the cloth doll.

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I am going to send these intrepid travellers to The Toy Society and I'd like to thank Moogsmum for sending me their address details which are:

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The Toy Society

BUSHFIRE TOYS

PO BOX 1046

Balgowlah NSW

Australia 2094

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OR BUSHFIRE APPEAL -

Toy Society Toys

c/o Meet Me at Mikes

63 Brunswick Street

Fitzroy

VICAustralia

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The advice is not to wrap toys as they will need to see what age group they are best for. You can attach a note to the toy if you want to. Please email the Toy Society at mailto:thetoysociety@gmail.com before you send your contribution.

Help for Australia

Probably like everyone else over here I have been feeling appalled and helpless in the face of the images coming out of Australia. There are no words to express the sorrow and shock at the loss of life and homes and I can only send my best thoughts to everyone in Victoria and hope that they will stay safe and this nightmare will soon end.

In the face of feeling so helpless I have started making a couple of comfort dolls but I have also found a site in Australia that is offering other ways to support the relief effort. This link will take you to a site co-ordinating fundraising among the internet community. You can also go to the Australian Red Cross site for other ways of helping. You may have to wait a short while for the site to load as there is a high traffic level as you might expect. You can also make Rainbow comfort packs for the children, details here. I think even I could manage to make some of these bags and they would be light to send.

Snow Dyeing Final Day

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If you've had enough of my snow dyeing you'll be pleased to hear this is the last lot! Unless we get some really fresh snow of course! So, yesterday I had another go with the fresh snow that had fallen overnight, although I suspect there was also a little compacted snow in the mix. I used the magenta, lemon yellow (it never was golden yellow!) and a vibrant orange and I love the resulting colours. I've had to do a fair bit of tweaking with the computer but I think these colours are fairly accurate.

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The photos above and below are different areas of the same fabric.

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And below is the tray dyed.

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Final Day 2

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Above is tray dyed linen and below (with slightly less than realistic colour) is some of the vintage lace that I threw in the dye bath. It is actually richer in colour than it shows here.

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The fabric above had been tray dyed the day before and then left in the dye bath overnight (mostly because I forgot about it!)

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And lastly, all the fabric I've dyed this week. I hope your monitors are showing you the lovely rich colours. I am delighted with my week's play and would probably do it again if we ever get such a good fall of snow. I have got some lovely colours of scrim and muslin too and I actually remembered to dye some threads yesterday so at least I have some oranges to match.

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I am very grateful to Annabel for telling me about Metapex/Synthrapol which takes the hard work out of rinsing. Not only am I too impatient to spend hours rinsing but it hurts my hands to keep wringing the fabric out so the Metapex is a miracle worker. Also, in this weather , it's saved me getting frostbite from the cold water. Brrrrrrr!

Snow dyeing - Day 2

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The results from yesterday's snow dyeing are less dramatic than Tuesday's but I am really happy with the colour combinations. The fabric above is a sort of linen with appliques which I think is probably designed for curtaining. The colours have come out beautifully, especially on the machined embroidery which shines.

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Above is the damask tablecloth again and below is another linen type fabric with decorative cord. I love the marks in the piece above which gives the feeling of the colour moving through the fabric.

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This piece below is one of the 2 pieces I tray dyed with the excess dye. Lovely!

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There are a couple of other pieces but I won't bore you with them all. I think the results today are more subtle because the snow I used to dye them had been frozen overnight and so was more compacted than the snow on Tuesday. This would mean that the snow crystals would not be so defined and I think this has influenced the patterns produced.

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We woke up to yet more snow today so, yes, you've guessed it, I've been dyeing again. So there will be one last reveal tomorrow. The snow wasn't perfect today either so I'll be interested to see the results later this evening. I think this will be the last batch as it's wearing me out. You wouldn't think having fun would be so tiring would you?

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I'm sure the rest of the world must be laughing at all the fuss we are making over this bit of snow. Our little street was in absolute chaos this morning with cars slipping and sliding all over the place. Car wheels were facing one way and the cars were gliding off in the opposite direction! At peak travel time the road was full of cars, some trying to turn round and go back home, some being towed back home by a kindly 4 x 4 owner (with his vehicle not just himself!), some being pushed back uphill, and some waiting patiently for the chaos to clear so they could have a go! Needless to say, I have stayed close to home and only ventured as far as the back garden and my shed. My DH managed to get his car off the drive and down the road before the surface got too slippery. If you're having to be out in these poor conditions, keep safe!

Snow Dyeing Beauty

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Wow! What do you think?

I couldn't wait to rinse the fabrics out so they were rinsed and washed last night and I've ironed them this morning. Some of the colours are subtler than I expected but I am absolutely thrilled with the serendipity of the marks. The fabrics were all cottons in various guises including a piece of scrim which has come out a dull muddy pink but is nonetheless useable.

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I don't know if there's any other way to achieve these marks but I love them. The more you examine the fabric the more you see.

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Snow Dyeing Beauty 2

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This gorgeous fabric is from an old damask table cloth of my Mum's (ssh! don't tell her). It has a lovely shamrock pattern on it which I can see here and there through the dyeing. The camera and my computer don't do the colour justice as it's a beautiful greeny turquoise.

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The piece above was tray dyed from the excess dye and is very gently coloured as is the piece below which was dyed in the tub. I'm not sure about this colour so I may eventually overdye it as I'm not sure where I would use it but as usual I like the effects of scrunching and tray dyeing.

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Oh look! How did that happen? I've started again! lol I am so excited by the results of my snow dyeing that I just had to have another go today before the snow all melts. It is more like ice dyeing today as the snow has melted and frozen overnight so the results will probably be slightly different today. The snow certainly started to melt quicker when I poured the dye on, or maybe that's because my dye water was a little warm? Oops!

To be continued.....................

Snow Dyeing

While I was blog-surfing last night something rang a bell and reminded me that some people have been known to use the snow to dye with. As we have an abundance of the white stuff at the moment I thought I would have a play today. I was a bit worried that the snow wasn't gpoing to last as it was thawing last night but there was still plenty about this morning.

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The first step was to wet several pieces of fabric, soak them in a solution of bleachfree washing soda and wring them out. I then lay them in a plastic box on top of some supports so that they wouldn't rest in the pooled dye water as the snow melted.

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Once I had mixed the dyes I wanted (Procion MX dyes in turquoise, magenta and golden yellow) I took the box out into the garden and loaded it with snow.

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The next step was to trickle the dye alternately over the surface of the snow.

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