Where shall I begin.

not from the beginning, that would take forever. So I will just catch you up on what's been happenings in my life since last Tuesday morning.

Tuesday afternoon I needed a touch of normalness, so I went to my friend Marti's as planned to begin preparing for a scheduled marthon sessions of fabric dyeing. We have been joint dyeing for several years. Dyeing in her basement in the Winter and in her garage in the Spring. We often plan our dying sessions for times when Marti's husband is away on trips.

This time he is away fishing in the wilds of Canada. When the cat is away the mice work their butts off. We began our dyeing in earnest on Wednesday, beginning with what is Liz Axford's method of making triples dyed fabric. Our first dyeing workshop was with Liz at Arrowmont in 2001.

Triple dyeing is a multi step process. You dye the fabric one color let it set for for 30 minutes then add soda ash and let set, this is done two more times using two other colors each time. This process gives you a totally different look than what can be achieved by mixing all three colors together and dyeing in one step. I use the Triple dyes I create in my work primarily as backgrounds because they are a visually interesting neutral.

Both Marti and I took a dyeing class from Carole Souderland at the Crow Barn several years ago and I love her method and recipes for producing specific colors that are reproduceable. We have selected dozens of our favorite colors to dye as single colors and/or as gradations of that color.

Since I have decided to use my own hand dyes exclusively in the work I will be creating in the next few months I need a lot of fabric to add to the large store of fabric I already have. However I am not sure if I will be dyeing all 180 yards of the fabric I ordered during this dyeing session.

Since I could not import images to my blog site while in Columbia I will give you a photo update of what I have been doing and seeing there since I last posted with images.

Here goes: MY ARTIST DATE, JOHN'S ART and the NEW HOUSE
John's art class project.


My artist date included a trip to the Columbia Library.


From my favorite seat on the second floor of the library this is what I can see to my left.
and this is the view to my right.



Here are the two pieces I made while at Lyn's during the week of my latest trip out there. These pieces measure approximaely 45 inches square give or take an inch in each direction.

I find I am doing more simplistic stuff while at Lyn's. I think that is because of the lack of a design wall. The fact is that if I got going on something REALLY, REALLY WONDERFUL and could not complete it or transported it back to Louisville easily I know I would be extremely unhappy if I had to leave it there until I could get back to it weeks later.

, these two quilts are from my most recent trip proving that I am working








this one is from the other trip three weeks or so ago. Remember?








Then there is this one completed while back in Louisvile for a short time. LIMITED TIME WORKS I guess is what I should label what I am doing now.







Here is a look at the new house in its unfinished state.
The view through a dirty window on the deck level or main floor of the back yard. The house is on a fall away lot so the area I will have on the lower level has great southeast facing windows.





Will finish my update tomorrow.