they call me mellow yellow........

remember this? a calico pinafore dress having a bit of a swim in a flower vase?
[sunflower yellow by dylon]
 

well, it turned into this
I added the lace and the bow afterwards
,originally they were dyed with the dress but they sucked up so much dye that they were the colour of the rape fields that we are currently surrounded by so I had to paint over them with decolourant
, now pay attention cos this is where it gets complicated,.
 

I then added all the bits and bobs to the frock. 

then I had the wizard idea of making some freezer paper stencils and painting more decolourant onto the frock, giving me ghostly flowers, nice huh?

then I had an even more wizard idea of re-using the stencils and adding more flowers, this time with markels

looking good, im pleased with this, its got lots of pink markel flowers all over it now I intend to add cloth flowers and stitch to it, now normally I leave markels to cure for three days and jobs a goodun, but im not sure how long you can leave decolourant on fabric, so I heat treated the flowers[irond them],and popped the dress into a quick cold wash to get it out....... 

GAAARRRHHHGGGG,
WHERES THE PINK FLOWERS GONE?

OH  BOO HOO HOO,
washed out completely, gonna have to do them again, might use blue this time, and some sort of fabric paint,
I own enough ,time I tried using them, ah well its all an exciting journey isn't it,anyway,
I spotted jill dian izzards fabric books on her facebook  page and got quite excited at her little cuff books, well, a friend gave me a pair of cuffs recently, I was trying to scrounge the whole shirt but she knows me too well,

And here it is,2inches high, and 3 inches wide, and I had two endevours to watch and the house to myself,
life is good,

 

oh, I love scraps and bits,

I just picked up a pile of scraps and went for it, yay, love it, love it love it.

poppy was soo impressed,

and finally, isn't this nice? this is my good friend trudis new skirt, Im hoping, when she gets tired of it that she will remember me, hint hint, bye bye.

Time for tea.

It is definitely time for a cup of tea, but before I put the kettle on , lets have a catch up
first, this is my postcard for the  big postcard swap, loads of stitching, painting, printing and a few buttons.

very cheerful and zingy, I hope my swapee likes it. I really enjoy collecting postcards.

and this is the postcard I received from Janet Bemis, a beautifully and carefully painted card, thankyou janet.
And still catching up... .

Gilly Theotricoff came and gave a talk to our local quilt group last week, her talk was very interesting and her quilts were amazing,
I am very much looking forward to her workshop next month, but what really impressed me was her really, really  fine kantha work, truly beautiful.I love kantha and I think her technique is especially fine

 

change of subject--went to duxford a few weeks ago and spent too much money on very unnecessary Japanese fabric, what am I saying? wash my mouth out, no Japanese fabric is ever unnecessary, anyway whilst I was there I had a good look at the quilts and this one impressed me with its fine stitching.

really fine work.

really fine applique work.

beautiful.
there were more photos, but they appear to have disappeared.hmm
anyway....

this is a tiny fragment of a baby dress painted with walnut ink, to knock of the white, and added to my latest wallhanging  full of little scraps and memories.

looks like Im going to have to show you what Iv been working on as blogger has loaded my photos in the wrong order, so anyway...
here is teatime,,the layers are slowly building up, and it is stitched stitched stitched, who said less is more? rubbish, only more is more.



on top of all the stuff are some birdies, just for added interest.



oooh its busy, or as I like to say endlessly interesting. and only twelve inches wide,

vintage doillies waiting for a tickle from the walnut ink.



and now for a complete change of subject, thankyou blogger,
last week I went to the nec for the sewing for pleasure show, oh it was great, I watched Hillary beattie cutting and sticking and  glueing and painting and eating chocolate, then I popped over to the Palestinian embroideries and then I gazed good and long at gill travis's indian work, so beautiful,, and then stopped to chat to sue allen and her beautiful giant handmade felt chicken....gorgeous.

And then I spotted this stall, sew me something, selling these amazing pinafore patterns, a bit lagenlook, a bit boho,[ old boho in my case] I got really excited and bought a pattern and then fought my way through the crowds to buy some dress fabric,



exactly what Iv been looking for, I want some pinafores that I can paint, dye, sew stuff to, I can see a denim one, a vintage one, a linen one, flowers, bees spots ,oh the worlds my lobster, and did I mention indigo????

so heres my first attempt, on cheap calico having a swim in a flower vase with some bits of lace, the jar of beetroot keeps it constrained so that the dyeing  will be hopefully uneven and splodgy[that's a technical term we dyers use]

up close and interesting. 

   next time you will see the results.

oh! its so exciting.....