Amazing Technology

It has been a while since I posted, life has been even more out of control than normal. However, I just have to share. The more technical amongst you will laugh at me, but I have just worked out how to allow regular payments for clubs and subs ect from Paypal.  Now don’t be rude.  This actually involved several levels of revelation.  First that I could do such things, second the creation of the button in Paypal and third and most importantly how to add the script (is that what we call computer gobble de goop) to my website.  Anyway, hopefully someone will test it for me soon so I can see whether all this excitement and self congratulation is premature.

Finished items from Friday and Saturday

We have had a relatively relaxed day. Very rare for the weekends. Both boys had activities but no sport.  Andrew went to a friends house to make jam – go figure - and Stephen had a choral presentation.  Interesting given that he has been sick all week and his voice is at best rusty.  I dyed some velvets, Glenn and I packed some dyes for the Canberra show and did the fruit and veg shopping at Belconnen markets.  I also made a huge pot of pumpkin soup for lunches this week. We currently have a roast pork crackling in the oven.  Sounds like a lot , but it really was a slow Sunday by my standards.  I also focused on getting projects I have started dry and finished.  I can now report in on some of the items from the past few days.

My wool wrap  – the Shiva  dried beautifully and it is now pressed and ready to wear.  I may wear it tomorrow or the next day.   Here it is.  The second photo shows a bit more of the detail. 

Some more detail

Finished ready to wear

 

 

 

 

 

The second finished item is the felted scarf.  I used two pre felts – a black one as the base and a red one for the triangle detail.  I also used a bag of my hand dyed wool top in the Cherry colourway.  Again, photos showing the finished item and some detail.

my felted scarf

Detail of the felting

 

 

 

 

 

My silk paper from the silk batt is dry, but I have not done anything with it yet.  I am currently drawing out some ideas.  I am not great at the planning stage, but I want to use the silk paper on a piece of fabric I  hand painted with Procion dyes and I want it to work so am drafting out a design.  Silk and hand painted fabric are shown in this photo. 

Silk paper and hand painted cottons - a WIP

Finally, tonight I am finishing the machine stitching of the 12 blocks of velvet applique I started.  I have 8 done and 4 more to go.  I would like to get the blocks into a top tonight, but that might be too much.  Here is a sneak peak at one of the blocks waiting to be stitched (and the wonkey bit adjusted!).

block 1 of 12

A very creative and productive day

All week this week, I have had children at home with the Flu.  My older son, Stephen’s whole year 12 cohort was excluded for a week when less than 50 of the 175 Yr 12s showed up for school on Monday – the rest of the students off sick.  I have learnt all sorts of interesting facts about the flu vrs Swine flu this week, particularly that in most cases the doctors are not even testing for swine flu unless you are REALLY sick and that the presence of pneumonia with the flu is one of the potential warning indicators of the potential for rapid deterioration.  Fortunately for us, no pneumonia, slow but steady improvement and both boys should be back at school on Monday.  I am well and truely over this winter and all the lurgies.

However, today I decided I was going to create some samples and worksheets.  I have made silk paper from a silk batt; felted a long scarf using prefelts and hand dyed wool top, decorated a wool and silk blend wrap with Shiva stiks and started some velvet applique.  I will load pictures of everything as it dries or is ready to show. 

I am still waiting for the Shiva to dry on my wrap, but here is a picture of the work in progress.  This is a really light weight, but really warm wool/silk blend that I hand dyed (imagine it being red!).  I have been wearing it all winter as is and am pleased I have finally found the time to embellish it as planned.  I used one of the fabulous Laura Murray Stencils and a gold iridescent Shiva Stik.  I will soon have all of Laura’s stencils on the website for purchase.  They are gorgeous. 

I used this process to take some photos and build a one page worksheet/tutorial on using stencils and Shiva stiks.  This is now loaded on the Free Stuff page of this blog for you to use and share.  It is pretty simple and straight forward, but so are these products.

I am very happy with the felting I did today, but it is currently hanging out to dry so photos tomorrow.

The Melbourne Show

we had a very busy week last week at the Melbourne Show. It is always fantastic to catch up with regular customers and meet new people. We had a lot of fun with the classes and a fantastic show. Here is the stand

The stand in Melbourne - loads of colour!

so behind – trip to Bendigo

I meant to make this post before I went to the Melbourne Craft Show, but ran out of time. However I am determined to load it up so there may be a couple of posts over the next few days that are retrospective.

Last weekend Glenn and I went to the Bendigo Wool Show.  It is at events like this that I remember that I am from the bush, not the country.  In some parts of Australia, there is a big difference.  It was a 15 hour round trip and we spent 3 hours there, but it was worth every second.  I finally sourced a couple of products that I have been trying to lock down for a long time.  I was excited.  And then I came across something that really blew my mind with possibilities.  I just need to put a couple of things in place before I purchase “the machine” then watch out for some truely spectacular new products.

I asked the boys, particularly the “little one”, if they would come to the show with us to see the sheep.  They thought I had gone quite mad and declined to accompany me despite the valuable family time we could have had.  The “little one” – Andrew – is my nearly 6 foot 15 year old who believes he is past patting sheep so I took some photos to show him what he is missing.  The first photo shows a ute cover that I could not walk past.  What fabulous marketing.  It was not until I looked at the photo that I even knew what was being advertised.

Cool Ute Cover

 

Just for Andrew, here are the sheep and alpacas.

"Coloured Sheep"

Judging the Sheep

The cutest alpacas - I think

Corriedales - I think!

While we were there, we met up with Mandie Chandler from Ewe Give Me the Knits.  Mandie does some of the most amazing hand dyed fibres.  Check out her website if you have some time.  Mandie and I have been communicating via email for some time, but finally put faces to names. 

Mandie busy selling stuff

having a sale

I am home sick, feeling miserable so have decided to have a sale on the website.  Five days only from today until Tuesday.  Go to www.uniquestitching.com.au if you want to have a look. 

In the meantime, we are fairly organised for the Melbourne show next week.  The beauty of school holidays is that I can use the boys to pack things.  They are very good at that and almost don’t complain.

Works in progress

Today was beautiful here, a perfect winter day.  The forecast was for showers, but fortunately, for me anyway, they stayed away.  A mild day with a gentle breeze – PERFECT for drying! 

Here is the silk batt that was in the dye pot yesterday.  It is a new colour for my silks.  So far I have dyed batts, caps, mulberry and tussah silk top in this colour way.

 

I have been knitting lately, much to the shock of everyone who knows me.  This is largely due to access to some stunning wools from Carol at  Rainbow Wools.  Some of the pieces I have been knitting have been made so that I can felt them.  Checkout the before and after felting pictures below.  What will I do with these next?  Watch this space.

 

Low water immersion dyeing

I get asked a lot about how I dye my fabrics and silks.  I do these one of two ways; a space dyed or variegated finish and a low water immersion technique.

The low water immersion technique is fast, easy and very effective.  I soak my fabric in the “mordant” or the reacting agent and wring it out.  I then place the fabric or fibre in a large container, slightly larger than the total amount of the fibre being dyed.  I then randomly pour the first colour over the fibre and mix it in.

I then add the second and third colour.  I usually put three colours in all my hand dyes.  Sometimes they are blended such as three blues, sometimes they are contrasting, like this example.

 

 

 

 

Then I massage the colours together, blending them and ensuring that the colour is all the way through the fabric and fibre. 

Tomorrow I will load a picture of the finished and dry silk batt.

Dyeing, dyeing and more dyeing

First post of the week. Goodness it has been hectic. I have spent most of the weekend “space dyeing” wool and silk. Space dyeing is how you get the variegated effect on the fibre. I have about 30 colour ways in the space dyed and about the same in the submerged dyed fibre. 1 kilo (at least) of fibre by up to 60 colour ways certainly is full on and takes several weeks to process. Now, to get it all dry so that I can do the next lot.  Four that are dry are shown below.  Hard to believe they all start out the same colour isn’t it?

June Art Quilt Collection in the post.

This months Art Quilt Collection is now in the post.  This is such a huge job every month.  A classic example of being careful what you wish for!  I took a picture of my “big group” after I had packed the kits but before they went into the envelopes.  This is a task that involves the whole family for a couple of days each month.

While all this is going on, Glenn is in the kitchen.  When asked recently who cooks at home (a particularly offence question in  the context it was asked I might add) Glenn responded he did the quantity and I did the quality.  Well, I am not sure about that.  Glenn’s cooking is certainly quantity, but no one complains about the quality either.