'If you make happiness your goal, then you're not going to get to it… The goal should be an interesting life."

Dorothy Rowe

Thursday 2 April 2009

At long last

I have managed to do some sewing. Quite a lot, actually.

This is another piece of improvisational patchwork, intended for a dyeing experiment. All my scraps of black, and black and white fabric, assembled and recut several times. It is quilted fairly untidily in a black and red variegated thread because I want to dye it red.

I have also quilted the salt pans. The piece is telling me that it doesn't want a conventional binding, but I am not sure what it needs instead. I bound the 'Brave New World' quilt with net, and that was quite effective - it is visually lighter than a conventional binding, which is what I think this one needs too.
The alternative, which I favour at the moment, is to whip stitch the edge with a thick cotton thread - a heavy perle or stranded cotton doubled. Which raises another question - what colour? I think black would be too boring, but I don't want to wait until after it is dyed to see what colour it is because I am worried about the unfinished edges getting damaged during the dyeing process. At the moment i am thinking of white, which should go a toning yellow when dyed, or a beige which is close to the colour of the discharged sections - assuming I have such a boring colour in the stash. If not it means a shopping trip.

I had hoped to get them all dyed this week but as it is 'Contemporary Textiles Workshop' tomorrow I don't think I'll manage it. Not sure what we are doing - we have to take those common embroiderers tools, a hammer, a 3" nail and a block of wood! I suspect, as we also have to take a graphite stick, we may be making rubbings - but what is the ink for? Tell you tomorrow.



Today's green image is a bit unseasonal - it is a photo i took of the first snowdrops and then played about with in PSP. I love this sort of pattern - probably one reason I have two sets of William Morris curtains! I was amused to see a small piece of fabric like the older set described as 'vintage' on a website. They are about 35 years old - and they, and the 20 year old set, are still in use, albeit relegated to spare bedrooms.

1 comment:

lisette said...

love your salt pans! and i agree that a conventional binding would be too heavy for it (although i think i have been vaccinated against binding - i really hate doing it) i usually quilt right to and sometimes over the edges and then melt the top layer which is organza or tulle. but then in my art quilts i don't use batting - usually felted wool that part of the design.

i don;'t know that i've been nay help at all - apart from agreeing wiht you of course :)