Aljo Dyes in NYC has the elusive (and expensive) Procion MX dye Blauviolett! Usually available only in Europe, this dye has a mystique built up around the color, which I had never seen. The color has been described as an unbelievable blue, not achieved through any other combination. Alas, it also has a reputation of fading hideously quickly. When I ordered it, Aljo also advised it has a much shorter shelf-life than the usual two years for procion mx dyes… it should be used in six months or less they said.

However, I got wind of the availability of this dye in the US for the first time in EONS, so I ordered a fairly small quantity (which I shared with some folks I met in Carol Soderlund’s dyeing classes) just to try. Through Paula Burch and Deb Harowitz of Scarlet Zebra, I learned that the dye might fade quickly on cotton, but that it seems to be MUCH more lightfast on silk. Hmmmm… so I not only dyed a fat quarter of cotton, but several different types of silk (I also finally broke out the citric acid crystals to use instead of the soda ash, which can have a negative effect on the hand and sheen or silk). The photo above shows cotton, silk jacquard (which appears not to be pure silk), sandwashed silk (from Dharma), and a silk chiffon, plus some silk rattail cord (also from Dharma). Here’s what they look like pinned to my design wall–

top row L to R: Sandwashed silk, mercerized cotton,

bottom row L to R: silk (and something) jacquard, silk dupioni, silk rattail cord, silk chiffon:

ALL fabrics were dyed with the same concentration of dye stock–all the silks were batched in the same container which you can see — the round tub on the bottom right! As you can see clearly, the chiffon and the silk portion of the jacquard “took” the dye very deeply, the dupioni and sandwashed silk (heavenly on the hands!) is less intense, and the cotton is lightest of all.

Now that the holidays are behind us, I am planning to cut two swatches of the cotton and the silks. One set of swatches will go inside an envelope and be tucked away inside a drawer or inside a book–thoroughly protected from exposure to any light. The other set of swatches I’ll tape to the inside of my window. Then, if I can actually manage to do this, every month (hopefully regularly, like on the first) I’ll take side-by-side photos to document fading due to light exposure.

Here’s a close-up of the cotton…sigh. Sad to think that in three months this will probably be a dingy purplish pale gray…….

If the silk remains light fast, I’ll buy up some silk and use up the rest of the dye… stay tuned!

Can you tell I love snow? And taking pictures… here, some more winter inspiration, starting with the tree in the cemetary (not that you can tell with all that snow), Mt. Battie in the background:

Here’s the Village Green:

And the Harbor, from in front of the library:

I love the “dinosaur ridges” on the tree branches (near our house):

The reflections in the not-yet-frozen run-off creek near the house:

Eli playing in the snow with ‘Widgeon:

and Joshua playing in the snow, too:

And the snow at least a foot deep blanketing my studio over the garage:

The snow-bound creek (which will freeze over before too long):

And the laden pine boughs alongside the driveway:

Let it snow:

Let is snow (some more):

Let it snow (even more!):

We had a White Christmas this year in spite of the warming weather last week, mostly because there was about 22 inches of snow on the ground. Quite a bit melted off before New Year’s Eve day, when we got more. Then the night of New Year’s Day, we got even more….. We now have more snow than I’ve seen in our short 3 1/2 years here. The snow plow ridge at the end of the driveway is SO high I can’t see over it to look for oncoming cars! So of course, since I love the winter and the cold (and being snug inside our house and quilting and reading and fixing tea and listening to the kids …well…. most of the time listening to them), I took pictures. LOTS of pictures! Here you go! Plenty of inspiration for art quilts, I think…. (a late note…too many pics! will post more tomorrow!)

Here’s our house:

And the mailbox:

The house end of the driveway after being plowed and shovelled…notice how high the pile goes compared to the basketball hoop!

And here’s Eli at the street end of the driveway…Widgeon loves the snow, at least when it is in the 20s. Today it was around 0, yep, ZERO Fahrenheit (which is well below zero centigrade!), currently with a windchill of minus 10! That was a bit too cold on his little tootsies!

More pics tomorrow, including ones of town and the neighborhood.

Gifts for the Frayed Edges were home-made and recycled this year… the best kind! I had found some gorgeous ribbon at Rock Paper Scissors, a store in Wiscasset. Deborah always loved to stop at Smitten, owned by the same person, and I had never been despite the fact that I drive through Wiscasset at least twice a month on my way to and from Frayed Edges meetings. So one time, on the way home, I finally stopped. And bought YARDS of this gorgeous ribbon, with the idea of making a gift for my fellow Frayeds. As Christmas approached, I thought…do they really need ANOTHER bag with this ribbon on it? Why not let them make something they like/want instead? That led to the decision to dye fabric.

I got home from Mom’s in California on Dec. 11th. Over the next couple of days I dyed about 16 yards of fabric! I did two yards each of five colors (one for each of the other Frayed Edges and one for Marie. Each person received a half yard of “their” color plus a fat quarter yard of the other four colors. While I was at it, I decided to also dye some wonderful PFD (prepared for dyeing) fabrics Marie gave me for Christmas last year: silk organdy, gauze, lawn… plus some cheesecloth and also some silks. Oh MY!

I moved my “table” (two old cabinets plus styrofoam insulation and a 4×4 piece of scratched up shower board) over by the basement windows. A vast improvement to being on the other side of the basement. Still no sink downstairs (I had a plumber give an estimate….$1200 not including sink, counter, faucet…to install….not gonna happen), so am hauling water, but at least it is space and I don’t need to worry about dye or soda ash splattering on the cement walls and floor. The shelving on the left is new and wonderful! All my dyes, auxiliaries and pots and beakers and whatnot in ONE place!

Batching and just rinsed fabrics look so wonderful (too see larger, click on the photo):

Then…. I took some raspberry syrup jars and painted them with glass paint. I used Pebeo Vitrea 160 (available here at Dick Blick) . I picked colors and a motif for each person….green for Marie, sea blues for Kathy, purple for Deborah, green for Kate, and deep coral for Hannah. The purple one for Deborah, for example, has the stalk with buds on it which she has used so often in her work, Kath’s has waves for the sea. I used contact paper cut into shapes and stuck on the bottles, then painted, allowed paint to dry. Paint is supposed to cure 24 hours (I cut it a little close on a few! as usual ran late on time) before baking. You put the glass in a cold oven, turn on the temp to 325. When the oven reaches 325 you “bake” for 40 minutes, then allow to cool inside the oven. It worked! Wouldn’t these look great in a window? I think we need to have more raspberry syrup on our waffles so I can make some for us!

Finally, I wrapped everything up…. the bottle got wrapped with a pair of hand-dyed socks, which got wrapped with the 1 1/2 yards of hand-dyed , which got rolled with that ribbon from Rock Paper Scissors!

In the interest of having good materials to work with for my art quilting, I dyed a lot of fabric… I’ll have more to share over the next week or two.

I’m on a quest…. there is a line drawing I remember (which I saw about 30+ years ago) that is a seated nude woman, and consists of two lines–I had thought it was by Picasso (it was reproduced as a poster sold on college campuses….). I asked on the quilt art list and got many “close” suggestions, but none that is the one I remember. The suggestions folks gave will help me illustrate my point in my class (that it is possible to convey a whole lot of meaning in just a few simple lines), but now that I can’t find the danged thing that is battering around inside my brain, and I’m plagued with a desire to figure out WHO did it, and see an image. It looked something like this:

I had thought it was by Picasso, but having spent a whole lot of time at the Online Picasso Project (here) I have decided that was probably not who did it… whoever drew the one I remember probably liked women more than Picasso did.

Here are some Picasso drawings that are close, but obviously not a female nude:

The closest is “Femme,” but it’s not quite the same thing, and I’m SURE I remember a seated woman…..I’ve scoured the Picasso online project from 1955 to 1973 with no luck….:

Terry Grant, Pamela Allen and a few others suggested Matisse, and this is also close but not quite (and obviously fulfills the purpose for the photo in my class):

Here are a few other Matisse that would work equally well:

and

If anyone, however, has a clue as to who did the two-line seated nude, please do drop me a note or suggestion for searching!