Lockdown Day 29

Today is the first 'bonus' day of lockdown. But it's a testament to NZ's commitment to the plan, and our good leaders making the right decisions, that we are only extending Level 4 lockdown for five days. Only three new cases of Covid-19 today. Sadly, another two deaths to add to our losses.

I've worked the last three days, doing 12 hour shifts. Today I had the day off, then I have another 12 hour shift tomorrow. So I felt pretty justified to start today off with a bit of a sleep-in! I went for a big walk, rinsed some of my dyed threads with rain water I've been catching, and then watched my buckets catch more rain. It feels like our drought is breaking, finally.

Lockdown Day 8

I posted a photo of my hand-dyed threads on my Facebook page today. I often dye these with left-over dye dribbles from dyeing my fabric, they don't take a lot.  And they always turn out pretty!

Fleur asked me if I use undyed thread or do I overdye already coloured thread? So I thought I'd do a little information post on dyeing embroidery thread.

First off I start with my big (8000+ metres!) cone of white cotton thread. It's DMC unstranded, like perle cotton. 

I wind off 25 metre hanks on my measured winder. But if you don’t have one you could measure a piece of stiff cardboard and wind round that.

As an aside, my good friends husband (hello Sue and Tony!) made this winder for Mieke Apps, who some of you might have heard of - she was a dyeing legend in NZ - but she sadly passed away a few years ago. My friend had moved back to the UK when the winder made it’s way to me from Mieke, so it’s quite a treasured item.

Then I tie the hanks in a couple of places to avoid tangles and soak them in a sofa ash and water solution, just like I would for cotton fabrics.

I squeeze them out then drop dye solution onto them and let them batch for at least four hours. To get nice colour graduations you need to not use too much dye and smoosh it thoroughly and into the next dye colour. Takeaway containers are good mini-trays to use for thread hanks. 

To wash them without getting tangled is a bit of a skill. I drape them in my gloved hand and let them rinse clear, doesn’t take long, then I soak them over a day, changing the water about five times until the last soak is clear. Then I wash them very gently with a bit of plain detergent. The trick is to never agitate, just squeeze them while keeping the hank shape.

Then dry, twist and admire!

Other tips: 

You can sometimes find stranded DMC embroidery cotton hanks at op shops. Buy the white ones and dye them.

Don’t tie your hanks tightly, it will act as a resist and you’ll get a little white stripe.

Soak them thoroughly in the sofa ash solution or you’ll get patchy colour.

You can prop your tray to keep a dark colour from running down your hank and staining the other end.

Mud vs. Rainbow - thread dyeing

I promised I’d let you know whether I got mud or pretty colours with my thread dyeing experiment yesterday.

Well, they’ve been soaked (several times), rinsed, washed, dried and wound into skeins, and voila....!

I was honestly surprised that they turned out as well as they did. There are a couple of places where they are a little ‘blotchy’. And on a couple the colour change from one to the next is sharper than I’d like, but then again, that might appeal to some people.

In the photo below you can see in the top skein and the third one down are a little patchy near the ends. But they are still lovely colours.

I’ve spent today back in the studio dyeing up another 25 skeins and another bunch of fat quarters and half metres. Now my feet hurt, and all the washing and rinsing is yet to come!

Oh, and here’s the white fat quarter the threads were sitting on. It’s not bad!

My dye table where all my dye bottles sit. I'm considering putting a piece of fabric down on the table next time, then I might get all that gorgeous patterning somewhere I can use it instead of just wiping it off.

A Dyeing Day

I worked a twelve hour night shift last night, and no matter my good intentions, it’s hard work getting motivated the day after an all-nighter.

I sleep till past lunch, but then I rub my eyes and yawn through the rest of the day.

So one of my strategies to still get stuff done is to pick something immersive but that doesn’t demand a whole lot of concentration. Something I can do while listening to 70’s music!

Today the dye studio won the lottery.

It was beautiful down there (my studio is a platform built under our house) with the sun shining through the ti kouka tree, and I got stuck in and dyed a whole stack of my variegated fat quarters. These will be for sale when I talk at Whangarei Quilters next Saturday.

I also tried a slightly different way of dyeing my embroidery threads. Usually I dye these in lots of two or three and carefully control the colour variegations. But today I put them on top of a white fat quarter to soak up excess and then just kinda went for it.

I’m looking forward to washing these out. They could be stunning...or they could be mud...

I’ll keep you posted!

Podcast - Spring Update on The Slightly Mad Quilt Lady

It's been a while folks, but here's a podcast for your listening pleasure.  I have a few interviews lined up for the months ahead, but today's episode it all about me.  I give you an update on living aboard - do you know it's been a year since we moved onto this boat?  Opua Arts Studio and Gallery gets a mention and I manage to fill in about 50 minutes of airwaves with general quilty goodness.

Here's one of the heron quilts I mention.  This one is an in-progress quilt hanging on my design wall. I'm falling more and more in love with using silk organza in my art quilts.

Instagram gets a mention.  I hang out there as madquiltlady and post frequently (I try and make it everyday) with the hashtag #dyealittleeveryday to show my dyeing projects.  Above is a linen wrap I just finished and hung on the wall in the gallery.  Linen is so lovely to work with.

My embroidery skills, or lack thereof, are discussed.  I've made a couple of little hanging pieces to show my hand dyed threads.  This is the bird silhouette I talk about, I'm not sure the variegation works with the filling in - or maybe I just need more practice with how to work it.

And last, but not least, here's a poster advertising the upcoming Auckland Festival of Quilts.  Can't wait!

Download this episode (right click and save)

Did you know you can dye quilt batting?

Sorry!  More hand dyes.  Are you getting sick of them yet?  But I wanted to show a few experimental bits and pieces that I threw dye on.

So, clockwise from front left: cotton stranded embroidery thread, really cheap and nasty wool batting, cotton batting, my usual high-thread count cotton sheeting, woollen blanket, silk, repurposed linen.

What I learnt:

1. Wool does take non-acid dyes, just not as strongly as cotton, although cerulean blue just seemed to wash straight out (i.e, that orange wool was a tangerine and blue mix to make turquoise).  More experimentation needed.
2. Cheap, nasty wool batting is still cheap and nasty.  It felted a bit, which helps it's structure but it's still too soft to use in a wool appliqué project.  Yummy colours though and I could used it for a little hand-stitching art project I have in mind though.
3. Cotton batting takes the dye really well, but I should try and find some without scrim because this shows through a little on one side.
4. I need to find a thinner, finer wool blanket than the one I had.  Two pieces were from a thinner one and the rest were a much courser weave - big difference in the hand of them.
5. Old linens take the dye beautifully.  Must keep my eye out at the op shop!
6. I love dyeing, I already knew that, but I just confirmed it again.

I know I'm never going to be the best photographer, but I'm trying to improve and practice my skills.  Here I was trying for bokeh, or blur, by increasing the distance between my foreground and my background.  I like the look, what do you think?

And I'm so pleased with my deep purple.  Been hanging out for my black dye, and it finally arrived.  It's makes the best greens too.  Those greens are all made with black and yellow.

Loving the dye on the cotton batting.  It looks like watercolour paintings.  Now I just need to make something with it.

Crafting While Camping

I like to have my hands busy.  Sitting still is hard for me and I get itchy if I haven't sewn something for a couple of days.  Anyone else like that?  So camping for three weeks without my sewing machine was going to mean a grumpy me if I didn't have a plan.

I saved up all my hand binding projects, I took some of my hand-dyed threads and an embroidery hoop, I planned to learn how to hand spin and knit and my mother in law took her spinning wheel.  I also planned to take my hand-cranked sewing machine.

Well, best laid plans and all...

Belinda, my hand-cranked machine, just WOULDN'T fit.  So I thought I'd come home again (we don't camp far away and I come home every now and then to do washing and check animals etc) and collect her once I'd finished all my other work, but I never got finished!

We couldn't get the spinning wheel going.  We think it's warped out of alignment as the wheel and the bobbin wouldn't line up and the cord that runs between them (I'm sure it has a name) kept jumping off.  So that wasn't happening either.

And the knitting didn't even get a look in......maybe next year.

But the embroidery got started and was fun.  I loved seeing the colours form up from my hand-dyed silk/cotton threads. It went slowly though because every time I started I had four little nieces wanting to stitch too.  I got them all going on their own little projects (they are all getting embroidery hoops next time I see them), but had to spend time re-threading needles, tying off, and just a bit of untangling!

The hand-binding projects kept me satisfyingly busy and I'll show pictures of them separately as they were mostly samples for my beginner quilt making classes.

And I found a photo my MIL took of me hand spinning with my spindle!  I think I've got the hang of it now.  My yarn is looking less like dreadlocks and more like yarn, but I'm far from finding it relaxing!  I aim to spend a few minutes spinning each day to try and build my skills....I'll let you know.

Thanks for all your comments on my hand-dyed thread giveaway.  It's neat to read what everybody plans and hopes for 2014.  Remember to leave a comment by this Saturday if you want to win some threads - as you can see above, they stitch up into loveliness!

100 followers must mean a giveaway!

So when I logged in today, Blogger told me I had 100 followers.  Wow.  It still blows me away that there are people out there interested in my quilts and what I get up to from day to day (I mean apart from my family who are kinda obligated to be interested!)

Just to celebrate the New Year and life and the fact that I'm apparently interesting, I thought I'd have a little giveaway.

I've become a little addicted to dyeing thread and I thought some of you out there might like some of my hand dyed, silk/cotton embroidery thread.  It's not quite the weight of perle cotton but makes a lovely embroidery stitch.  You could also use it for big stitch decorative quilting.  I've tried separated it into two strands for a finer stitch, it doesn't separate as easily as stranded embroidery thread, but it will.

And it's luscious!!  It's soft and strong and sews beautifully and, being silk, has a wonderful lustre to it.

Each bundle has 10 strands of thread in it.  Each thread is 1.3 metres long, so you get 13 metres in each bundle (I can't call it a skein because it's not continuous, but I'm not sure if there is a correct term. Anyone know?)

If you'd like some of these threads, here's what to do:  write me a comment telling me what you hope 2014 will bring for you, and what kind of colour bundles you'd like if you won.  You must be able to be contacted by email so make sure you add your email address into your comment or be a reply-enabled commenter.  I'm happy to post overseas.

On Saturday 25th January 12pm New Zealand time, I'll pick a random number for a winner.  Then I'll contact the winner by email and send that lucky person a parcel with five different bundles of thread in it, inside one of my hand printed zip pouches (I'll try and match the pouch to the thread colours).

And if you don't win but would like some of this unique thread, I'm going to be adding some bundles to my Etsy shop very soon.

Good luck!

Hand Dyed Thread Lusciousness

These are the hanks of thread I've been dyeing.  

I want to eat them!

(Maybe Suz was right when she left a comment saying they looked like shrivelled Asian delicacies)

They are a beautiful silk cotton blend thread, almost the weight of perle cotton. 

I received a huge hank because that's how they sell it and I started to wind off 10 metre lengths.  Well that lasted for about five minutes - I could see a huge tangle starting.

It turns out you need the proper skein winding tools for that job.  So (gasp in horror if you like) I cut the hank in half and then I can pull out 1.3 metre threads.  I take out 10 at a time and knot them into a bundle and dye them like that.

So, so beautiful.  I can't decide which is my favourite.