Some Assembly Required

It was beautiful in North Texas today… especially because I spent the entire day out in the ‘wet studio’ and in the backyard. I made a one gallon batch of (un-activated) dye paste. I played. I played some more. I raked dirt. We made hickory smoked hamburgers for dinner out on the patio with R’s parents. Yummy, all the way around.

Now, I haven’t touched dye since last July @ QBL with Jane Dunnwold. Thankfully I took plenty of notes. Some of it came to me pretty quickly. Some is just learning curves, a desire for instant gratification, and a simple desire to make a mess.

I’m officially in love with Procion’s Butterscotch, wet or dry. Lesson learned: Impatience. I washed it out too early.

I added about 3:1 Robins Egg Blue to some of the butterscotch, in the hope of finding a fun green. I loved it wet, but I think two things happened: washed out too early (see above inability to WAIT) and the blue just couldn’t compete with the yellow.

Washed and dried:

Those first 3 (above) were all on pre-washed natural muslin.

I had a snack and puttered around a little before going back to it– grabbed some more natural muslin only to remember it wasn’t washed. Luckily, I had some silks leftover from last summer- so I used up the last of my silk noil, silk broadcloth, and silk habotai.

I crumpled up a piece of silk, drizzled some dye on it (waited a tiny bit), and then smashed it under a clear screen. Pulling up the screen, it sticks in a lump, so it dried out on the patio sitting on the screen.

Tomorrow, I will see what the next step should be. I have a really nice red and blue one like this, too.

I’ll have to snap yard progress pics tomorrow. Carroll was a machine today, moving the last of the flagstone and dirt out of the driveway. It was a gorgeous night. Burgers out on the patio, cats whining at the door… all is right with (our small corner of) the world, I suppose.

Woke up feeling a smidge more human this morning— of course, we’ll see how early I crash tonight. We have a ton of things to do around the house.

Have I said how very, very, very grateful I am for my father-in-law?

By the time I’m well and it’s warm, I will sooooo be ready. I have some ideas for screens and some other resist plans that I want to work out in the meantime.

This morning it also dawned on me that I can actually make messes out there anyway- so I grabbed the china bowl that broke in half during the move, the box of Dremel goodies, and went about making some nice, polished chunks to use in some project that I’m certain will eventually occur to me.

And now, to tackle the kitchen disaster zone.

Last week I thought I had licked an ear infection. Then Rusty got a cold. This week I thought maybe I had that cold… but it turned ugly. I’ve been home for two days, miserable, hot/cold/hot/cold, hurts to swallow or speak- yup. All too familiar.

Luckily, the latest issue of Quilting Arts showed up at the doorstop (thank you Bobbie!) and it had a project in it that looked like it would be both a perfect stash buster and a good way to do something that didn’t have to end up being any good, seeing as how I’ve felt like death warmed over.

I started with the clean-up rag I used at QBL last summer – a mosh of magenta and lime/olive dyes from wiping out my screens. I added some fabric paint, wrote a few lines that I love from Albers’ classic, Interaction of Color, quilted the daylights out of it, and cut it into pieces.

I put it back together, decided I didn’t want to embellish too much more, lined it pillowcase style with a piece from a sari, and pinned it into a few test ‘vessel’ shapes.

Anyway… some stitching, folding, bending, un-stitching, and a great deal of playing later:

Overall, I’m pretty pleased actually. At least, I was until Stormy came along and sat on it.

(You can see all the pics here.)