Fabric round-up

I know there are quilters who tame their fabric, either restraining it in see-through bins blocks or else displaying it on shelves, all beautifully pressed and sorted into colours.

I am not one of those.

My fabric is allowed to roam free and unfettered, although I do make a token effort to provide it with nesting places in plastic bins. Cameras are certainly not allowed in the vicinity. So when I'm having a sale (like now), I have to muster it up and flatten it into submission in order to send it to its new home. This is what I've been doing this morning to my hand-dyed fabric.

The commercial fabric, to which I do not have the same attachment, is rudely pulled out of its hiding places and stuffed into grab bags. Here are some sitting quietly on the rug.
No danger of extinction here - there is still plenty more upstairs.

And here is the earlier 5 colour piece. Now this, I hasten to assure you, was not done to be used in the piece. Indeed, it's quite ugly when you see it this way. However, it will look a lot better when I've dissected it and stitched it up again.

Watch this space. (If I say that, it will force me to actually DO something with the fabric).

Thoughts on a Sunday morning

What does a woman think about at 6am on a Sunday morning? Why, 5 colour dyeing, of course. Here's 2 metres of fabric, soaked in soda ash and laid out across 5 trays.
Turkey red, marine violet, brilliant blue, emerald green and mustard.
The green and blue end....
..yellow in the middle, then red and purple.

Youll have to wait till later today for the washed, dried and ironed piece.

Waiting for my plans to hatch

"The paparazzi are such a bore" says Frodo. Cressy pays no attention.
It's atumn, and the garden has flush of flowers before the cold weather sets in.
The roses are looking good. So are the weeds, but I carefully didn't photograph them.

As for the plans.....they are progressing nicely. I have a housesitter lined up, the travel agent has mapped out my flights and train travel. It looks like May in the UK, June in France and July in Italy.

I am SO excited! Much of the time I will be staying with host families from Help Exchange but I would love to stay with some quilters and blog friends if any of you would like to have me for a day or so. In exchange, I am happy to gift fabric, talk to your quilt group (with advance notice!), or teach something.

Transformation

Yesterday I bought this hand spun mix of suri alpaca (the rare kind), tencel and merino with a nylon binder. These were quite pricey, considering there are only 4 skeins of 50 grams each. I wanted to make something special with it, so settled on a cowl.
As half the skeins have the red and half don't, I alternated rows with one skein if each. This is the cowl at the ned of 2 skeins - the yarn has gone further than I thought. This is done in garter stitch (1 row plain, 1 row purl)and the cowl is currently 16cm wide (just over 6 inches).

As often happens, you lose some of the beauty of the skeins' colour when the yarn is knitted. However, I think it looks good. Now I'm going to knit a hat with the other 2 skeins and use any leftover yarn to finish the cowl.

Running away from home

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! The critters chez Shirley don't know it yet, but I'm planning to run away. For a while, anyway. Seven won't mind too much - she's an odd cat....
...but the twins will, so I'm trying to find them a congenial housesitter. Plans are afoot...
Meanwhile, here's an early autumn sunrise that started some dodgy weather.

More on the plans soon.