nemo ignorat

atlantic ocean

two precious weeks a year - see you later

I dyed

beware, this will be a picture heavy post, with some ramblings about my life the last month.

Last saturday, I had my first possibility to sell my hand dyed yarns and fabrics. Before I could sell some (I did sell some, not many but I learned a lot about building up a booth, writing labels, telling people about what I do, how I do it etc) I had to dye them.

As it sometimes happens, the last 4 weeks were ... challenging ... to say the least. My mum (who is 86 and lives at my house) fell about 4 weeks ago and broke her hip (to be precise, she had a femoral neck fracture). She came into the hospital, got a surgery and a femoral neck prothesis and then we had to wait. Being in the hospital is not easy for anyone and after a few days the grumbling set in. Since last week she is in rehab, which is good, because the rehab clinic is very good, modern, nice and especially for seniors.

To make things even more interesting, we will go on vacation (our only vacation in the year, and we really need it) end of this week. Two weeks France, Brittany ... at the sea side. We're both looking forward to it but for a while it seemed as if we might not be able to go.

All the other things that can happen when a dear family member fells ill happened and didn't make it any easier. Others involved themselves and it got complicated. And it is still not over and still very complicated.

So, I was quite happy to have a reason to stand at the dye pots (in between visits to the hospital, washing drying and ironing and taking it back to the hospital, talking a lot over the phone, arguings and debates and legal stuff and burocratic madness).

There were lots of fabrics as well. All dyed with natural dyes.

Fortunately, I took these pictures yesterday in the sun. I will show some dyed fabrics today - maybe. Right now, it's 2 am and I can't sleep.

Below is silk thread. Really thin thread I dyed with indigo. It took me a while to learn how to handle this really thin silk thread during dyeing, but now it looks so beautiful and I'm looking forward to sew with it. Maybe a bit embroidery as well?

And there was some mending as well. I follow Jude's Contempory Boro Class very interested. At first, I wanted to mend my most favourite jeans. But I had to acknowledge its age and the lack of fabric integrity. But there are always shirts. I haven't bought a new shirt for me in years, because I always inherit some from DH and male friends. Some are torn (those came from DH) and some just fell out of favour (mostly from my friends).

When I get a shirt I want to keep for myself, the first things I do is remove cuffs (I don't like them), the stiff collar (I prefer a small mandarin collar) and I look if I can take it in somehow. (I'm not petite but most male friends we have are huge.) And thanks to Jude's commentary, I now remove the labels as well.

And then there is a black linen jacket. I got it from a friend who didn't want it anymore (never really wore it) because she felt like a circus director in it. It is true, it looks a bit like swallow tails from a tail coat. I wore it as it is and the linen feels good. But as I looked at it today, I thought what if I would elongate the jacket with some indigo linen and fill in the gaps between the swallow tails. This is something to ponder on.

Maybe I could ponder about the black linen jacket in bed. Better that than all the other things rushing through my brain keeping me awake.

Somehow, I am glad I didn't sell all the yarn. I want to see them knitted into socks. Warm socks in white and red/blue/green or yellow. Maybe they will be stripy? Mismatched, stripy socks would feel quite good right now. 

Good night wherever you are