- Sketchy

Dana at Raven and Sparrow wrote a great post about words and I have to agree that finding the perfect word is a kick. So today's post-word is "sketchy" ... see if you think it fits.

First, today's patch ...

Patch #13 Silk stitch on linen

which was cut from a piece of scrap linen used to try out some ideas ...

prior to stitching them into this sampler (I used to plan things out more often in the past ... now I'm more into freestitching). The lighthouse that ended up on the patch is Montauk light, which Don and I visited on the last day of our honeymoon on January 2nd in 1978. It sounds romantic to say we honeymooned in the Hamptons, until you realize there was a reason our room only cost $24.95 a night. "Freezing cold" doesn't begin to cover it, as any Long Islander can tell you about standing on the edge of the Atlantic in the middle of winter.

I did take a picture of the b-side ...

prior to backing it with some very fine handkerchief material for stability ...

Then I cut the 1 3/4" patch shown at the beginning of the post. I must say I like it enough to plan on adding some other stitch sample patches as this project unfolds.

Meantime, I have one last piece to share from the dyeing workshop.  After dip dyeing two linen blouses in Brazilwood and madder  ...

Note: both blouses started out white,
but had been dyed with Prairie Tea prior to the workshop

I got home from the workshop only to realize I had neglected to dip either of them in cochineal. Deciding to work further on one of the blouses to remedy the situation, I took a stone taken as a souvenir from Maura's property ...

tied it into one corner of the blouse ...

then dipped it in water hoping to pull some rusty red as a base for the cochineal ...

Even after 24 hours of soaking and drying it didn't work well enough to even bother photographing the result. Undeterred, I continued to the next step: wadded up the unwashed cochineal sample I had brought home (knowing it would release excess dye when wet), wrapped it into the same corner of the blouse, dipped it in water, and gave a good hard squeeze before hanging it up to drip dry ...

That worked out much, much better ...

But as with much natural dyeing, the long term results after laundering and drying tend to be far less dramatic ...

Which isn't really a problem. The way I see it, this blouse is a work in progress simply waiting for the opportunity to be dipped into the next experimental dye pot.