Pot Luck

I've added a few more bits to Palace of the Soul, keeping it growing little by little.

And I overdyed some wet felted wool I had previously dyed with maple leaves, this time using resists and a eucalyptus bath.

And I did a few pieces of silk, too.

Last night after being occupied with the felted book, I suddenly was shocked to realize there is that rare thing here, now - snow - and I had not even thought to do some snow dyeing! So I was determined to make that happen today and good thing, as the temperature has risen, rain is falling and the snow is rapidly disappearing.

Stay tuned for results - I've got three or four different colours of dye in each bucket and all kinds of fabrics, trims and threads prepared in a variety of ways.

Highlights

I didn't like the orange red colour of this silk shirt of mine, so I decided to overdye it, and toss a few other scraps into the bath while I was at it. The flower worked out well until I washed it with the other dyed fabrics and it lost its highlights. And the shirt didn't absorb much of the darker colour and ended up a mottled orange red. Oops. But fabrics are settling onto shelves in the studio and the design walls are up and ready to be covered with felt.

Hearts Multiplying

I played a bit more with this, adding ragged edges, more silk fibres and introducing it to silk gauze and velvets: But then another heart insisted on nestling here:

And was joined by one more and a bit of silk organza ruffle on the edge. The silks are dry felted in, with a machine.

And here is the back of what has become a journal cover - my shibori rabbit moon.

Today I was finishing putting Easter decorations about and I saw this table runner I made two years ago but realized I had never quilted. So I echoed the flowers with pink and purple variegated thread and I like how the back, which is made from identical fabric, ended up with what remind me of stitched shadows, intersecting the flowers.

Overdyes

I managed to get in two quick experiments today, trying the Jacquard dye over some heavier slubbed silk I had previously dyed with oak leaves. The blue softened and lightened quite a bit after the silk was dry and I like the bit of brown that adds interest. And here I folded the fabric in a different way and used a pipette to drop dye onto the folds of the same kind of oak dyed silk as above - a rather mottled effect.

And I also overdyed a maple-leaf-dyed green rayon into some of the Colourhue dye - and that worked well.

Shades of Gray

For the upcoming Nancy Crow workshop, I am supposed to have six to nine shades of gray fabric, and I only have found three, so I decided to dye some. I aimed for a dark, medium and light gray, and that's what I got. Although I stirred them frequently, the medium gray has quite a bit of pattern, which I like, but all the rest of my fabrics for the class are flat colour. And - since I already had the dye baths going, I decided to pop in a few more fabrics, experimenting with using a birch bark star I was given, over dying another piece and doing some other shibori. I only used one black dye, yet look at the colour differences! I love the blue/green of the two pieces in the photos and it's actually a much subtler colour then what's shown and the patterning of the one piece reminds me of frost and vegetation and on the other , of starfish. I have my fabrics packed into two containers ready for the workshop.

Falling Into Place

I've made good progress today choosing, cutting and pinning fabrics. There's more refining to do and then stitching, but the basic ground of the top is designed. This quilt began with the turquoise velvet shibori I dyed earlier this year, which you can see in the photo.