Committed to Cloth – June 2012

The best laid plans of mice and Melanie don’t always come to pass. I had wanted to have a nice relaxing breakfast at the Vintage Tea House before I arrived at my monthly ‘Stitch with Intent’ day at Committed to Cloth but due to slow moving traffic on the M25 I grabbed a takeaway toasted peanut butter and jelly bagel from Urban Kitchen.

Urban Kitchen

It was delicious! I ate it in the car.

I spent the morning in the basement at the studio working on low water immersion dyeing. I wanted to make a palette of cloth, a related family of colours. This session I completed stage 1 and dyed 12 fat quarters in light, medium and dark royal blue. I used some cotton sateen, some cheap percale and some of the hospital sheets which my friend Amanda gave me.

Colour book

Working in basement on my own was very peaceful.

Salt, urea, soda ash

Mixing potions like Harry Potter!

Love to plunge that virgin cloth in to the dye bucket!

All my cloth in buckets.

Cloth bagged up ready to rinse at home.

Then it was time for lunch, we have this upstairs at the studio. It’s great to talk to the other students and lunch is always delicious. When it’s colder we have soup but as it was summery this month we had salad. I really appreciate not having to think about bringing food.

After lunch I worked on my curved piecing. I’m getting used to using a design board. I am using cloth that I’ve dyed and printed in the last two and a half years.