An Almost Finish and Blue Books

I haven't quite finished it - just the binding and label to do - but I wanted to show you the small quilt I made with the pieces of fabric I dyed in indigo at Fenland Textile Studio last weekend.  I don't like having piles of sample pieces around, I would rather make something with them and so I stitched them together and then hand quilted them.  Angela showed us a quilt she had made which was my inspiration, although hers was properly planned and executed and she used a stunning red fabric to contrast with the indigo.  I kept to the blues and used the lace I dyed, plus threads and buttons I dyed to add to the textures.

I'm nursing a sore throat this week but it's okay because I have a good book on the go and these arrived this morning so I won't be laid up with nothing to read. 

I'm currently reading "Footprints in the Snow" by Kenjiro Tokutomi and last night read this lovely paragraph that took me back to the teaching and ethos of life at the Best Exotic Indigo Hotel:

"Then there were the silkworms.  When I came to stay they had just finished with the summer batch.  The droppings had been collected for manure, the remains of the mulberry branches they had been feeding on swept up and tied into bundles for firewood, and the egg-cards for the second hatching hung from the ceiling in an airy room in the house; all day long you could hear the creaking of the reeling-machine in the newly built silkworm shed."

No silkworms here but I do have these wonderful pure white gladioli :-)

Wishing you a good weekend.  It's very autumnal here, it was a chilly 5C last night apparently, brr, time to get out the woolly socks I think.

From the Indigo Vat

Here are the pieces I dyed at Fenland Textile Studio yesterday.  As well as trying lace, thread and the buttons and shells in the synthetic indigo vat I wanted to do a selection of shibori patterns.  Some were more successful than others, I have rather more white in some than I hoped and rather less in others, but I was generally pleased.  It was interesting to learn what my fellow students thought of each piece too, our tastes and opinions varied considerably, it's such a personal thing isn't it and the excitement of unfolding a piece and of watching the indigo develop is magic every time.  Enjoy my indigo exhibition: