Stashes Needlework and Printing

That was a busy weekend! Hope you had as much fun as I did. This is just one of the stashes I came away with from the Textile Museum's Yardage Sale. Some lovely linens, cottons, twill and unknowns. Not quite sure what I will do with it but I do have some ideas incubating.
As well I found this really cool old book (1947 1st edition) on needlework with SO much information!

These last images are how to do netting. But there's also lacework, tatting, rug making and weaving along with the standard knitting, crocheting, embroidery and applique.

In amongst that I was busy printing new place-mats and napkins. The piles are getting bigger and bigger as the shows come nearer and nearer.

The order of natural dye from Maiwa came yesterday. I'm thinking I might have a busy weekend in store. So much sewing and printing to do getting ready for up-coming shows.
As well, the Textile Museum has it's Yardage Sale today and I so want to go to that for a special project I have in mind.

Early Morning

There is a beautiful old abandoned building that I see every morning with the "girls". My friend, Leslie, has done some beautiful pastels of it. 

 Early morning shots of the park, abandoned field and the railway tracks just beyond. You have to imagine the birds that I hear: mocking birds, red wing black birds, song sparrows and the sea gulls. Every now and then the Canada Geese go honking by and one killdeer always lamenting that the girls will find her nest.

Ready to Go Home

This summer is turning out to be quite busy with already four shows lined up . I have been invited to do three of these shows, West Elm is the first one and will be in a couple of weeks so if you're in the neighbourhood, please drop by and say Hi.


My supplier of white linen, from which I make the tea towels, will not be receiving any more shipments. So I've had to source out another supplier. I tried a few shops along the "fashion district" and found some beautiful linen from Czechoslovakia. Most of my scrap material (after cutting) goes towards the natural dye work that I've been doing and I'm quite excited to see how this linen will turn out.

http://douceart.blogspot.com/2009/04/queen-victoria-of-united-kingdom-and.html

F i n a l l y 

it looks like it's going to be a gorgeous weekend and aren't we lucky here under some kind of British umbrella because it means a long weekend. Yeah!
i hope everyone has a wonderfully productive few days, i know i'm really busy but more about that later.
Bob Doucette is a very funny illustrator, check out his work here

You'd never know it was Spring if it weren't for all the blossoms out regardless of the cold and rain. Honestly, the furnace had to be turned on yesterday, we were all just freezing!

image from www.wingsinflight.com

 In the evening, these little birds were feeding in the apple blossoms. They are Nashville Warblers, a little bit smaller than a sparrow and noticeable if only because they move about so quickly.

lilacs in my backyard

 Art is working on a new porcelain piece. Every now and then he sees what he can come up with in an hour's time and this is the result:

Art Di Lella  www.sculpturemoulds.blogspot.com

You can see the progress of this piece at his site

white crowned sparrow from laruelapalooza

What a rainy weekend with no end in sight...stuck in the studio I worked on my inventory and did some drawings. Some photos from Laura inspired me to do some new drawings of sparrows. And just a few days later I started seeing white crowned sparrows for the first time.

 

Zippers and Glitches

Everybody's blogs are all delayed or messed up due to a glitch in Blogger's works. So I'm having to post all over again. Anyway, this picture is out my studio window just before heading off to the park with the girls at 5:30 a.m. I love the quiet blues and purples.

 I've been working on putting zipper inserts in some pillows. Yes, I know this isn't a zipper foot. The truth is I don't have one for this machine but I think a decent job can be done of it anyway.

 Here I'm in the process of removing the basting stitches. You can see the zipper starting to be revealed.

 And here is one of the designs. Apparently, there's a whale trend going on right now, so let's hope I can ride that wave too.

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend and that there are no more glitches at Blogger HQ.

 I thought I'd try the onion skin dye with one of my canvas totes even though I still wasn't sure I liked it. But now I think that if I use it in small amounts, it's not so overwhelming.

 The other day Sonee, my husky/sheppard, had quite the bloody accident in the park. It turned out to be not as bad as it looked, thank G.. But it meant carrying both dogs up and down the stairs: a total of 85 lbs. Today she's much better.

Not much work was done this day

onion skin dye bath, dye process, cutch dye bath

Wasn't that a lovely weekend! I worked on another session of dying. For the last several months I'd been saving onion skins and had more than enough to work with. I also did another cutch as some of the fabric from the previous time didn't take as strongly as I would have liked.

  A few years back when I had first played around with natural dye, I began with onion skins. I knew nothing about dying, let alone mordanting. So my first results were the soft reddish browns of the onion skin. You can well imagine my surprise at seeing these curry and pumpkin colours which had to be the result of the mordant.

Here they are next to the cutch.

Mistakes Happen

With all this "show and tell" I thought I'd show a bit of reality in that:

mistakes happen.

Usually when I lift the screen and see this, initially there's this sinking feeling but then I think: there must be something I can do .

The result from this mistake is this:

 The canvas has been cut up to be the backing of these new coasters. What do you think?

Hope everyone has a lovely warm weekend. I know I'll be spending my time doing some more dying. Here is my big pot of mordant. And I have a huge pot of onion skins brewing as we speak.

 

Perfect Solution

It's not easy getting a good picture of Roxy; she's either avoiding you or giving you such a pitiful look. She is walking a lot better than a few months ago for which I'm thankful.

I have been working on my large canvas totes and decided some time ago that the natural dye that I've been doing should be incorporated into the design. The brown trim across the top has the "look" of suede. I would love to include leather and suede into my work as the look of them is so appealing. But I just can't bring myself to do it. so when I saw that the experiments I've been doing give me that "look" well...it was the perfect solution.
These bags will be in the shop later this week.

It was a lovely weekend wasn't it? 

A lot of it was spent outside cleaning up winter's debris. Then sitting on the bench with Art and a glass of wine 

in the late afternoon sun.

For the last few days I've been working on canvas bags. I really like working in this material. It reminds me of the old army bag that I used when I was going to school. 
I was hoping I could adapt the pattern that I had shown a few posts back for this material and as you can see in the picture, it started off o.k. but the zipper closure just didn't quite work. So I'll have to take that apart and try again.