A Pleasant Surprise...

when I decided to rake about in the book with the more complex dyed fabric....I found a piece that, whilst not perfect (what ever is?), works really well with the piece of fabric that has two goddesses printed on it...

It was originally stitched to another piece of fabric, but a bit of judicious unpicking, and I could tear it into strips.  It is, in itself, an interesting piece of cloth...it had been dyed twice, and then discharge dyed, which is particularly clear on the strip to the left hand side.  As you can probably tell, there is Just Enough, and no more.  I did consider narrower strips, but only after I'd cut them... the secret is to think it first...  I think there will be a poem for the central area, perhaps printed onto paper and cut into individual words, rather than a strip of fabric to divide them.  Yes, indeed, making a virtue of a necessity... And, rather than using the strips to their full width, I will use them as binding, which will be enough to showcase the goddesses, but not so much that they are overshadowed by the stronger colour.

The reason I went into the box in the first place, was to see if I could find some fabric to go with the other prints I've talked about recently...and I did...

The paler colour to the left of the upper selection aren't quite as pale as they appear.  I will add at least one more fabric to each of them, I suspect, and aim to make three pieces from each combination, six in all, of which two will combine fabrics from both selections.  That's the theory, anyway; things change as the work progresses.

So...a happy ending to a frustrating day, in the end. 

Growl.

Having a frustrating day (and it's not even 11 am).  Woke very early, around 5am, and couldn't get back to sleep, so read a bit, got up around 6.30am, which lots of people do routinely (like Robin, for example), but I'm so not a morning person...  Thought I would do a bit of stitch on the book from last time...here's the image of the reverse of  one of the first pages that I promised you...it works fairly well.

So, finished the second of the two leaves on that spread, which I had left half done, and started on the second spread.  I admit, my heart sank somewhat when I realised what I had to stitch.  One side is another one of these leaves...but the other...isn't...sigh...it's a good deal more fiddly...

So, I did one, and left the other two for another day, as my energy had dropped considerably after that.   Here's the reverse...

So...I thought I'd have a wee browse. I came across these fairly abstract goddesses while browsing through the box I showed you a few days ago...

They are rubbings of an original lino cut, using metallic Markal paint sticks, or Shiva sticks if you're in the US.  Not overly keen on the green one, but the other two seem to work quite nicely.  These were done a very long time ago, probably when I was demonstrating for Colourcraft; the fabric is a bit of my hand dye.  I was going to stitch them individually, or as they are in that pairing, ignoring the green one altogether (or cutting her up, perhaps)...but I did think, they would be more interesting 'framed' with a contrasting fabric.  Did I have a suitable fabric?  Of course I didn't.  Well, actually, I do have one that would work, but there's not enough of it.  Hey ho.  Frustrating?  Yes.  Do I really know what it is I want?  No, not really....sigh.  A batik, maybe. Do I have the energy to dye something suitable?  Oh, don't be silly...  So no, I won't be doing anything with them, anytime soon. 

So...I may not have achieved much, but I did achieve a bit.  I'm not going to consider why I'm not overly enthusiastic about the leaf book; that's altogether too big a topic for today.  Nothing seems to be working as planned at the moment. Dammit
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What Do You Do...?

...when you don't have the energy for machine stitch, but you want to do something constructive?  Well...I fished out the box with my 'special' hand dyes, the ones that have been printed, or screen printed, or dye painted.  The jury's out on some of them...I kept them because of the work involved in them, I suspect, rather than because I really want to work with them.  Or they would look good in a large scale project, for which I don't have the energy at present (though things are looking up on that front...but I digress...). 

Here's the box itself... not very big at all, as you can see; I have another one that size with plain hand dyes...not that I consider my hand dyes particularly plain, but that's an entirely different post. 

A variety of colours and textures.  The top one was an attempt at breakdown screen printing...here it is with another one, made far later in the process...

I'm going to make a journal from the top one, but I may cut up the lower one and reassemble it, with or without another cloth or two...actually, it would make a good basis for another series of haiku quilts (find out about them here ).  Might do the same with the top one, actually... it would fit into the ME series really well. 

And then there's this...

It's a lot more orange than this image, but I can't persuade it to behave itself, so you'll just have to make do.  A piece of low water immersion hand dye, which has been overprinted using fabric paints, using two different lino blocks.  Sadly, I don't think I have the leaf shaped lino block any more, and doubt I have the energy to cut another one...it was quite effective.  If there was more of this fabric it would make a good skirt, or some other piece of clothing...as it is, it might become a panel in a larger piece, but I'd need to have a good deal more energy to make that happen.  It'll go back into the box, and wait.  It would certainly make good cushions...but I don't have a room they would fit into... sigh.

There's a lot more cloth in there, but it'll have to wait, too.  Enough is enough.