more on dyeing (that's with an 'e')

I signed up for a tea dyeing class through Quilt University, and it's been very interesting. The teas I have tried so far have been :
Twinings Earl Grey - nice pale tan
Dilmah extra strength - very strong tan, nice
Twinings Blackcurrant - light tan, later read that it's only blackcurrant 'flavoured'
Lipton Orange - lovely pale pink
Twinings Raspberry and Peach - deeper pink
Twinings Pure Peppermint - pale cream
Twinings Lemon and Ginger - not much change
Lipton Cinnamon and Apple - pale tan

I used white homespun fabric. When I rinsed them in water and vinegar, a lot of the colour disappeared, but they are still quite use-able (is that a word?).



They were only smallish pieces, so I rummaged around in my plastic tubs of dyed fabrics and found these. They have all been hanging around for a few years waiting to be used, so now's the time!



The biggest square I could get out of the tea dyed pieces was 8" so I cut *8 squares out of all of them and just made some half square triangle blocks. I had originally planned to do something a bit more involved, but got a bit discouraged after rinsing out most of the colour.


They turned out to be very 'spring' looking - quite pretty. Maybe I'll add some flowers or something to play up the light spring feel a bit. Haven't got that far yet.

well that didn't work...

I have been doing some tea dyeing with all kinds of ordinary tea and fruit tea. I kept all the foil sochets that the fruit teas come in coz they are really bright beautiful colours. I thought being foil I would be able to stitch them in with fabric. They stitched very well BUT when I pressed the first one, it shrivelled up. Damn. Who knew they had a lining of plastic inside the foil? It looked just like thick foil. I only tried with the lovely green ones that the peppermint teabags came in. So I ironed all the remaining green sachets to shrivel them too. Don't know what I'll do with them yet. Maybe when I find them again in a couple of years I'll just throw them out LOL.

Learning to use the close-up facility on my camera

Last weekend I had a bit of a wander around the garden with my camera. It has a macro facility for taking closeups but I hadn't really used it before. Here's some of the results. The first photo is my favourite. It looks like an insect with its wings folded but it's actually new leaves. I don't know what the tree is - I've never seen one like it before.

first quilt for someone else! (and saturday skies)

My friend Prue asked me to quilt a top she'd made out of fabrics she bought in New Zealand. I've been looking at it for a while and no brilliant ideas came. Hmm... I read somewhere that if you keep an art journal you should just write something (anything) on the first page because a blank white page can be so intimidating that some people are scared to start. I decided to translate that idea to quilting. I loaded the quilt and just did a bit of a squiggly line in the small inner border, then I got another idea then another one, and ended up finishing the quilt in 2 days. Good grief...it worked! It turned out okay, but of course I thought of some different ideas after I finished that I didn't think of before I started.

Here's a couple of photos.

The sky on Saturday was grey all day. A couple of showers but not much. Murray was playing bowls and they were able to finish the game. Some friends of ours came over for a couple of hours after tea and we played cards. Murray and I normally play crib but they wanted to play 500's, which I have never played in my life. It was a bit of fun though.

another scrap quilt!

The main part of this quilt top was made quite a few years ago, using scraps saved since I started quilting in 1983. Murray issued a challenge for me to pick something out of the ufo box and finish it all the way to the binding, so this is what I chose to finish. I put the borders on last weekend and quilted it during the week. The binding has been machine stitched on, so now all that is left is to hand stitch it down on the back. It may even get a label! The quilting is a pantograph called 'Fay Feathers' which I really like. My panto'ing is still wobbly but I think this is as good as it's going to get. I think the tremor in my left arm is permanent and my right arm spasms, causing the first 2 fingers to twitch. (This is most annoying when mucking about on the computer coz I keep right-clicking on the mouse when I don't want to...grrr.) Anyway, here's some photos.

healing hearts (and flowers)

All the hearts and flowers are beautiful, but I couldn't post photos of all of them.

healing hearts

A wonderful tradition has developed among quilters in recent years - if someone is going through a bad time in their lives, other quilters make a 'healing heart' block and send it to them. Last year at the state guild's annual retreat I was unwell. I'd just had a bit of a flare up of my MS which resulted in a 3-day course of intravenous steroids at the local hospital. On the Saturday afternoon I went back to my room for a few hours sleep. During that time the other retreatees (is that a word?) appliqued a heart block each, put borders on each block and stitched them together into a quilt top! Aren't quilters lovely people?!!

My quilt group back home wanted to contribute as well, so they made flower blocks for the border. All I had to do was quilt it. This quilt is a very special one. Here are some photos so you can share it with me. I'll put some more photos in a separate post.