Happy Easter Hols!

I undid the erosion bundles yesterday.  I thought two months was long enough.  I did use damp fabric when I rolled them but it has been so dry I don't think any colour travelled as far as it could have had there been more rain. I only found one solitary spider so good on the creepy crawly front.

Anyway, here are the results.  The red is from the madder root chips and the blue from some random squirts I did with a little dye I had in a spray bottle.  There are some great browns from bracken, teabags, rust and walnut and I'm not sure where the greens came from, or the black but I like them. 

They are now all ironed and in the 'I don't know what to do with them yet' pile.


John and I are reveling in having the house to ourselves and quiet for a few days.  It's been quite an upheaval so far. There is now no upstairs bathroom so that means staggering downstairs a couple of times a night.  We leave a light on down in the big hall so we can see but the dogs have been moved into there too as their hall is out of action so they are disturbed as well.  All the furniture has had to come out of the main sitting room and shoved any which way into a spare room and we are living in the family room part.  All a bit upside down but my studio is untouched so I have peace in there!!!

The night of the high winds last week was very hairy.  The whole house shuddered as the cover over the scaffolding expanded and then deflated with a huge snaps and bangs.  The noise was phenomenal, I'm sure the neighbours love us. The sheet men have been around since and strapped it down tighter and, thankfully, the weather seems a little calmer.  At least it's dry up there as we have no roof but the security lights coming on at night make us stand out like a giant lightbulb!  They can probably see us from space.

I am going to an exhibition opening this afternoon of some of our Dorset Artist's Printmakers and Art Books at L'Artishe Gallery Swanage, which I am looking forward too.  Also last week saw the first in an online magazine featuring some of or Dorset Artists and that can be found HERE if you would like a look.  It was all compiled by a Weymouth photographer Sarah Broome who has never done anything like this before and has truly found a hidden talent!

I hope you have a wonderful long weekend doing whatever it is you do at this time of year.

Shades May Be Needed!

Yesterday I dyed some fabrics using the method shown by Laura on DesignMattersTV a few weeks ago.  Where she scrunched into flat trays, I only had empty laundry gel capsule tubs.  I scrunched in the same way like a concertina and then gently wound it around so it looked like a Danish pastry so it would fit in the bottom of the tubs.  I have a few whitish patches but then each of these pieces of fabric, apart from two almost all orange ones, are 1 metre by 1.5 metres so quite large.  I wanted vibrant, I think I managed vibrant!

I think next time I would use smaller pieces and perhaps sacrifice some of the crystalline effect for less white areas.  I mustn't forget also that the chances of me using this as a whole cloth are about 0 so they will be cut up  and the colours redistributed.  At least they will all have a united theme.  They are fascinatingly like a Rorschach test though, I could spend hours looking at them! 

And the single colour ones are textured too.

My sewing machine has been in for a service so I have been muddling along on my workshop one.  Still a great machine, but not my Bob.  Yesterday I phoned them as it had been three weeks and they said it would be 10 days max and I was told that yes it was done, had been sitting there for ages they just hadn't managed to ring me.  Great service, not.  If only the recognised Bernina dealers weren't so far apart!!

We have been to a couple of Christmas Craft fairs and, because we're doing a little of the Buy British and local thing this year we actually finished our shopping well before December.  Mind you I do tend to buy and make gifts through the year so there's not a loony rush at the end but now we have reached December I am a little more happy to start thinking about the whole thing, especially the cooking side of it!

And just because he simply is just so adorable....

I can't wait to give him a cuddle again this weekend!

Off to to some C&G now and wait the arrival of John and a sewing machine.

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