Design Wall Monday--see more great creative endeavors on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog.
Following my last post about tea-dyeing linen, having diluted my tea bath to about 1/4 strength, I cut off a big piece of the white linen, wet it and put it in the pot after reheating. However, it did not take up any of the tea color after an hour. Perhaps I didn't wring out the piece of linen well, or the tea bath did not have enough salt. So I dumped it out and started over Sunday morning with fresh water and three tea bags. I carefully wet and wrung out the white linen and left it in the tea for 20 minutes or so, checking periodically against the prior dyed strips. I rinsed it in plain water and then in the water/vinegar bath, plain water again, rolled it in a towel and then hung to dry. Finally I ironed it.
The white strip is the original linen, the smaller strip my first choice of tea-dyed test pieces, and the background the final. The gray background of my ironing board cover isn't showing the true color well, but you can see it is a little darker than the test strip, which is what I wanted.
I used some colored pencils to color most of the stitching chart. I may start with the House, as it is just below the center of the design. I kind of want to get the overlapping pattern area out of the way so I don't get confused! I used some red floss to mark the center lines of the linen vertically and horizontally, but am considering adding a couple more registration lines. It is a lot harder to count linen threads than Aida cloth! The raw edges need to be folded and stitched too, to keep from raveling, but I'm getting closer to playing with the yummy floss.
We had a long visit with our newest grandson. Dane, and our son and DIL on Saturday. Dane is just shy of 8 months and crawling everywhere, standing with help, and generally busy busy busy.
Proud Dada Nick with his charmer...
..and ever-attentive Mama Ashley helping him play and learn. He loved crawling up the carpeted stairs in our house.
5 comments:
How fun — surprisingly we’ve had outdoor visits during much of the pandemic. Even Christmas was celebrated outdoors although we didn’t stay as long together cause we were getting cold. The grands were running around without coats while the adults were bundled up. It probably was in the lower 40s. We’ve started short indoor visits. Our son still needs his shot but the rest of the adults are good to go.
MAN, you persevered until you got the exact right color. Good job. But that linen would drive me insane and I'd probably wind up throwing it against the wall. Good luck with getting it done (which I do not doubt that you will!). That first picture is really good of dad and baby. I can't imagine not eating out for a year..been doing it for all but about 2-3 weeks.
Good job getting the linen to just the color you wanted!
Oh, that little guy is a cutie. What fun!! And your son--the family resemblance is strong! I can see you in him. :)
Hey, you commented on my blog about backings and cutting yardage on diagonal and 'sliding' it. Not sure I understand and going to check pinterest. (For some reason, I have been unable to months to respond to comments on my blog..UGH)
Dane has his daddy's eyes!
So nice that you are all vaccinated. We're still waiting...
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