A Colourful Weekend.

We had a wonderful weekend up at Main Creek, although the weather continued to be a bit difficult as the wind blew all weekend, as you can see it kicked up another nice dust storm and drove us inside to dye.

With dust masks in place, everyone got their dye stocks mixed up ready to begin.

Then we had a break for morning tea. You will notice that I never get any pictures of the fabulous food Marion makes as I am too busy stuffing my face, next time I promise.  After indulging in scones,  vanilla slice and biscuits, all lovingly hand made, the dye pots come out and all that white fabric is transformed into a myriad of colour.

Here's the white fabric being ripped ready for the dye pots.

]

OK I did get a quick picture of the table set for lunch, but as soon as the food arrived, the camera was forgotten.

After lunch, the rinsing began, we found a relatively sheltered spot and set up the rinsing table. Even the buckets and gloves added to the brightness of the weekend.

And then the fabrics were hung to dry, which took all of about 4 minutes. Amazingly, none came loose to disappear over the paddock, although a few buckets and pots did make an escape and had to be run down.

A few found a nice sunny spot and enjoyed an afternoon champagne,

just to keep the energy levels up you understand.

Day two, and although the wind continued to blow, the dust had gone, leaving a beautiful sunny day.

On the second day, the stamps and shibori poles etc. come out and the fun continues making multi coloured fabrics and over dyeing some of the previous days. As you can see, you can never have enough pots and jugs and general paraphernalia when dyeing.

Here we are at the end of the weekend, very well fed, and with that weary but contented feeling that a lot has been achieved for all your hard work. You can see the piles of fabric stacked ready to take home for their final washing and then to be made into unique and treasured quilts, bags and goodness knows what else.

Getting Ready

I have been busily getting ready for a weekend of dyeing up at Main Creek. Here is a picture of 100 meters of crispy white cotton that will be transformed into a virtual rainbow over the weekend. Little did I know that the elements would be against me when I started washing all this in preparation, first rain, then gale force winds, I know what your thinking - winds good for drying right - but not 10 meter lengths that just get them selves into knots and wrap around anything slightly grubby, and to be honest I think I would have been hunting the neighbourhood for them. This was followed by a once in a life time dust storm, yes just what you want on pure white cotton, red dust! So my house has been drapped like a shroud all week trying to get it dry and folded, what a relief, it is finally done.

We were listening to the news this morning, wake up alarm :( about a terrible dust storm in Sydney and when I opened my eyes enough to have a squint at the window, this was the eerie sight that greeted us.

The rest of the day remained pretty much like this, which did very strange things to the street lights ect, making them look either green or blueish. This isn't uncommon in outback Australia, but apparently is a first for both Sydney and Newcastle. Made for a very strange day.

I will take plenty of photo's over the weekend and show you the results of a colour filled workshop. Lets hope the weather is kind to us.

Lots of Dyeing and Tyvek Beads

In my last post I mentioned those two big rolls of cotton fabric. Well I washed and measured and ripped and packed ready for the workshop this weekend, then couldn't resist dyeing some up. Below are my two colour way dyes in oranges, greens and purples, well these particular two primaries don't really produce true purples but a lovely array of brick reds, chestnut and wine colours. I used the photo stitch program on the first pic as I have a rotary clothes line.

Here are all those 1/2 meters washed and ironed, I even remembered to dye up numbered sample pieces so I have reference charts for future dyeing. 

I have recently been following a lovely blog Love Stitching Red in St Ives Cornwall, my former home land, Cornwall that is not St Ives, but only up the road from there. Carolyn posted a really good tutorial on making tyvek beads. I have meters of the not so nice tyvek that has small dots all over it and lots of acrylic paints and metallic threads so spent Sunday afternoon playing. Be warned if you haven't tried this before, you wont want to stop once you start!! Here are the beads I have made - so far, I still have lots of painted up tyvek just waiting to be made into these little delights.

This weekend I will be up at Main Creek with a wonderful group of Ladies, dyeing up a storm. I will post some pics next week, fingers crossed for good weather, dyeing is so much more fun when the sun shines.