Today I sewed the cushion cover from my Ulu Fruit block. I nearly didn’t have enough material for the back, but with a bit of judicious piecing I managed it. Instead of doing a zip closure I made a button closure so that I was able to use smaller pieces of fabric. I’ve never actually been shown how to make cushion covers so I always just wing it as I go along. Perhaps before I start the next one I should look at the previous efforts to learn from my mistakes. But I don’t suppose I will when the time comes.

After all the effort I put into the cover I was very p***ed off to discover that the cushion inner I bought yesterday at IKEA was not 50 X 50cm as it claimed on the package, but more like 45 x 45 cm. Still it did for taking the photos. I shall have to get another one at some point.

We went to IKEA this morning to buy a cushion inside to put in my Ulu Fruit block that is destined to become a cushion cover. (BTW the quilting is all finished now and the block is washed to remove the chalk marks.)

And this is what we returned with:

• 2 bolts of unbleached muslin (unbeatable pricing)
• 6 measuring jugs as dyeing containers
• various black and white printed fabrics
• dark blue, red and greeny yellow transparent fabric
• glass beads for using in shibori dyeing
• and 2 packets of fabric petals

I thought everything would have its use for either quilting or dyeing. So quite a good time was had by all - well me anyway.

We did buy the cushion inner and a couple of other household items but they didn’t merit a picture on my blog

I’ve been doing some gradation dyeing today. This is still part of the class Quilter’s Palette, that I’m taking at QU, but I changed one of the recipes. The yellow/ochre gradtion was one of the recipes supplied for a 4 tone gradation. I made up my own green shade to do the 6 tone gradation. The yellow ones are already in their rinsing buckets and are looking quite neat. The greens are still soaking up the dye. (I only have 6 small buckets, so they had do be done one after another.) These are all done with my new batch of unbleached muslin, which arrived mid week.

For the balled up piece I used up a piece of my IKEA fabric that doesn’t always behave reliably. It started off plain yellow and then got dumped into the darkest ochre dye. Once opened out and rinsed a bit the darker colour got lost. So now it is having a second chance to do something exciting in green dye.

I read about rust dyeing on someone’s blog - I forget whose. I then followed a link to Lois Jarvis’ blog to discover that she sells an instructional CD about the technique. It sounded so intriguing I had to order it. And yesterday it arrived in the post:

I couldn’t resist browsing last night. Got so involved I forgot to post about it. Looks good fun. I now need some rusty objects, copper wire and a local plant similar to sumac for extracting my tannic acid.

My ulu fruit hawaiian quilt block is slowly taking form. I am finding the outline quilting much easier to do. There is one less layer to get the needle through, which does seem to make a big difference. I’m also getting a callus on my index finger of the left hand, so that sometimes I’m not sure if the needle has really gone all the way through!

Here are a couple of shots.

My next lesson in dyeing was to make skies with clouds and sunsets. I had run out of the unbleached muslin so went back to using my IKEA fabric. Quite disappointing to see all the colour wash out down the sink, but in fact the dried results are quite good - even if the colours are quite pale. The original colours may have been a bit too much of a good thing.

Having gained more experience in dyeing now, I am sure the difference lies with the material and not with me or any of the other ingredients. So I have sent off for 10 metres of unbleached muslin from a supplier here in Germany. They shipped the order today so I hope it gets here before the weekend. If the material turns out to be a success I’ll post the supplier to my links page.

Here’s the results of this weekend’s efforts.

Blue sky and clouds

Storm sky

Red sky at night

I recently read a post on sharonb’s blog about why she blogs. I also read the entry by Heather James on whipup that had caused sharonb to write hers.

Both were interesting and got me thinking about what I wanted to do with my blog. Originally I had thought it should just be about my dyeing and quilting, but as I read more blogs and as a result of the thought process started by the 2 articles mentioned above, I realised that I like to read something about the person themselves too. So although this isn’t going to turn into a “bare your soul” blog, I did think I may add some entries and thoughts on things that interest me, on a more wider range of topics.

Look to this day:
For it is life, the very life of life.

In its brief course
lie all the verities and realities of your existence.
The bliss of growth,
the glory of action,
the splendour of achievement
are but experiences of time.

For yesterday is but a dream
and tomorrow is only a vision;
but today well-lived, makes
every yesterday a dream of happiness
and every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well therefore to this day!
Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!

- Kalidasa, Indian poet and dramatist

Here are the dried results. I may go over them again with some more dye paint. I didn’t want to overdo the painting until I saw the finished results. You can always add more, but it’s tricky to take away!

This first piece had the dyes painted onto dry fabric. The green is more like grass than water I think. Next time I will try to be less heavy handed with the first layer of dye. The left hand side where there is more white showing through, is more like sparkling water than the other bits and visually more interesting.

This is the second piece painted onto wet fabric. I used the other green as the background here (there were 2 blues and 2 greens) and I think this colour is more watery. The greener green used in small amounts on top, is definitely the way to go. But in both cases there is room for more play.

The third piece was first dyed all over pale brown, given a quick rinse and then left to dry. The darker brown was then painted on top of the dry cloth. As I’d knew I wanted to go for earth or tree bark effect here, I was more generous with the amount of dye applied in the second sitting. This piece is the most successful, but I may have another tweak. I think a third application of an even darker brown would make it more interesting.