New Colour Combinations

I have not long returned from a long weekend away at one of my favourite places, Main Creek, where I reacquainted myself with a foundation pieced quilt I started a couple of years ago.  Although I have more hand dyed fabric than you could shake a stick at (where does that saying come from?) There were a few shades missing from my colour wheel so this week being lovely and sunny and relatively warm for winter, I braved the chaos out the back and tracked down dyes, pots and all the necessaries to do some dyeing. I also found the two new dyes I had bought at the beginning of the year, still in their plastic wrappers, untouched!  It took me a while to find the fabric I knew I had bought as I was looking for white rolls, but they too were still wrapped in the black plastic they were shipped in.

So after washing the new fabric I decided to do a bit of folding and dye up some multicoloured pieces for another project I have in mind, which will no doubt, end up in a box for years to come.

 I got some lovely crisp even folds using my new iron, which handily turned itself off when I was distracted by other things.

Here they are looking quiet dark and mucky.

 Having lost my original dye spot and even my table I had to improvise with Steve's trestles and a smaller table. It took me a while to sort myself out as it has been a long time since I have had the dye pots out. It was later in the day than I had intended by the time I got started and Helen bought round some silk thread to dye which she wanted for a weaving project so some of the dyes pots sat overnight.

These are the purples and greens from the new red and blue, love them, and realised I dyed them at double the strength I usually do as didn't adjust my quantities for fat quarters. I think some of these will make their way into my foundation pieced quilt.

 

These two pieces came from the triangle folds, each done a slightly different way but giving very different results. I think I will keep them as whole pieces, they could make lovely table runners.

These are my missing colours (I hope) with a new blue and another folded piece.

And this is just a sample of a meter or more from my left overs, will make a great background for an applique I think.

It is an addictive thing this dyeing, the sun is shinning again today and I would love to keep playing with new colour combinations as the possibilities are just endless, but will resist the urge and get the machine out and do some sewing. Notice no mention of "The room" we will get back to that another time.

OK, so too many to shake a stick at, had to look it up, originally North American used in the 1800 but no reason as to why or what it meant. Another suggestion was how farmers used to count sheep or cattle pointing their walking stick or cane. Being an All Creatures Great and Small fan, I can relate to this and see how the saying could have come about. Please leave me a comment if you know how or why this came about.