After spending more hours than I care to count on Friday waiting for a court hearing that had been re-scheduled - with no notification to me-- I did get to do a little bit of playing at the sewing machine. I finished my August journal quilt- which means, of course, that I can't post pictures. I'm happy with how it came out, and can't wait for the day I can post all nine of them. I think I've done a much better job of creating a coherent series this year than last.
And, because creative inspiration has been so lacking lately, I decided to pull out my whole stash and change how I sort it. I've always kept my hand-dyes separate from the commercial fabric I buy, but decided that just sorting it by color might make life easier when I need to pull fabric. It also would give me a better idea of which colors I need to add to my stash, and how my value range is in all the colors.
Keep in mind, my stash is tiny compared to many quilters. I'm lucky enough to have a decent size studio that is also set up for dyeing, but I don't have huge storage capacity. I've got a closet that is under the stairs, set up with shelving. I've got it filled as much as I can and still leave room to get into it. . .
Even the floor is filled to the brim. The large storage container is where I keep my cuts of fabric that are 1 yard or larger.
I sorted all my fabrics by color- and, surprise, surprise- I have a ton of greens. Too many for one tub, so I sorted them by warm (yellow) and cool (blue) greens. Everything else fit in my bins- I'll just need to get one to stash the hand-dyes that don't fit any particular category.
So here's my stash after sorting. . .
The bin in the lower left corner has my sequenced overdyes, something I learned from Katy Widger's book Color Wheel Fabric Dyeing. Small book, but tons of good information. And the sequenced overdyeing is fun to do. If you can't tell, I'm drawn to more unusual combinations, not something like red to violet!
And, finally, my tan/brown bin. For someone who doesn't normally wear this color, I sure have a lot of it in my stash. What to I need to add to my stash? More yellows, and more values in just about every color except green and blue. You can tell I really like the deep, rich colors, and am not so fond of pastels. But I know the pales can add a lot to a quilt when used right.
So maybe all this will get the creative juices flowing again- they have been markedly dry lately.
We did spend a nice evening Friday at the Salem Pond. DJ caught some little blue gills- here he is showing Shannon how to bait her hook. I grew up fishing with my father and brother, so when she said she'd never been fishing, I realized I have been significantly derelict as a parent. Never been FISHING!! How could I be so lax???
If you've noticed the change in my template, I'm trying to individualize my look. Like an idiot, I deleted the old template without printing it out first. So, now, I can't get the FFAC button to load. And, I'm not having any luck getting the banner I designed to load either. I'll keep trying- I've already learned more html than I ever figured I would, but it hasn't helped me yet!! So, if you blog, and decide you want to change stuff- do yourself a favor and PRINT out all the coding for your old template BEFORE you change it.
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