Still playing around with the sunset images

I had to post today, it is 15/1/16.

I have done more on my banner quilt.  I laid out the scraps and sewed them on. I did use Vliesofix to hold them in place. The background was looking rather boring really, so I had to give it a focal point.
The image that inspired me had the city at the bottom. But that was a landscape image and would not work so well with the portrait orientation. (You can just see my printout beside the fabric.)

I cut up some paper to see what I might do.

I have decided the tree will be a much better way to go, it covers more of the background.

Now to go through my photos and find a tree image that I can use. I used Photoshop to cut, crop and take out the colour.

Then I'll have to work out the size I want and print it out so I can trace it. No freehand drawing for me, I never like what I produce that way.

gorgeous sunsets

I am currently working on a banner quilt, based on my old sunset photos. (It is not turning out as well as I had hoped but I may be able to rescue it.)

I just came across a blog post about using a sunset background.

Then I came across a news article about the wonderful sunset we had last night. The colours in these are amazing. You could think it was the end of the world in some, rather than the end of the day.

Seems my obsession won't be dying down soon.

Natural sculpture

The very hot day has passed and now it is much more bearable. But we still went out in the morning, before it got too hot and while it was overcast.

Walking along, I thought I saw a sculpture. Upon closer examination, it was a natural piece of art - a broken branch fallen to look like an animal.

I suppose it is possible that a passer-by stood it up to look like a sculpture but it is right under the branch it has fallen from. I prefer to think of it as natural art. 

Bird pests

I often take our dog, Penny, to a local park. Quite frequently I have to drag her away from where someone has obviously put half a loaf of bread for the birds. So I was very interested to see this sign:

The fine print is about how feral birds compete with native birds for nesting spots and food. Actually, we really don't like the Indian myna as they take over the nests of other birds and kill the babies.
The birds specifically mentioned on this sign are the Indian myna, the sparrow and starlings.

I often go to this park and usually see at least five different sorts of birds. Today was no exception. The birds were either suffering from the heat or have become used to dogs. They allowed us to get quite close to them before moving away - if necessary.

Penny was unfazed by the birds also, mostly ignoring them.

Galah, a pink headed one.

We got a bit too close!

Maybe I could design a tapestry from this. Our online group is working on the theme Flight.

The magpie was keeping an eye on us but not too worried.

Too close again, it flew up into the tree.

Kookaburras not too worried about us either. We suspect they were waiting for the people in the house to feed them.

I couldn't resist taking a couple of pictures of the trees, to add to my already vast store. This one was so obviously twisted anti-clockwise (as I have posted about before).

It was very dry in the park but the birds seemed to be finding plenty to eat. 

What a difference a bit of water makes though. This tap is for people and dogs to drink at. 

Quiet Day

I took the dog for a walk this morning. It is the Monday after Christmas but we are having a Boxing Day holiday, even though we seem to have also had a Boxing Day holiday on Saturday. Maybe today is so people can recover from the shopping frenzy.

I took this photo of the freeway into the city at what is usually peak hour.

We should have clean air at present anyway, with the recent rain and so little traffic.

I could tell my interests have changed. I walked past lots of beautiful bark lying on the ground and wasn't tempted to pick it up for dyeing experiments. I am even walking past the hollyhock flowers in our own backyard. I don't actually want to play around with it at the moment, I don't have any use for the fabric and it seems a huge waste of water to be playing around with the dyeing and rinsing.

But I couldn't resist this textured tree trunk.

Maybe my interests will revive or maybe I am moving on to other ideas. I am playing around with my sunset pictures from last year - still. 

It is much the same time of year as when I took them and I can tell that we are having some spectacular ones again, from looking at the tree that reflects the gorgeous colours. 

How Strange

After celebrating Christmas with some family and friends, I went out the the glass house and looked at my jars of cool water dyeing - it did not feel particularly cool! And the colour of the fabric was no longer purple, it had started to look grey, like the fabric I had boiled up in the pot. I suspect I should have taken it out of the jars yesterday or the day before. But I didn't, so that is that.

I threw out the flowers that were steeping in the jars and washed out the fabric. It is more green than grey, very strange. I don't know why I have this lovely shade of green, but I was quite happy to see it, it is very pretty, it is just unlike any other colours I have previously obtained from the hollyhock dyeing.

It looks rather grey in the photo but is much greener in real life.  I suppose it is a greenish grey, or a greyish green.

I still have some fabric scraps in the weak dye bath, I will have to rinse them out tomorrow. I have been amazingly unscientific about all this, even for me, so I have no idea what it will look like. A surprise in the making.

I think this happened last year.

I got the silk pieces out of the pot today and washed them out.
They started out a lovely purplish colour. The water continued to have some dye come out so I put it in the washing machine (on a very low and short setting) and let it finish rinsing. I did let warm water go in. Maybe that was the problem.
All the pieces are now grey!  A lovely warm grey, with tinges of purple, but definitely grey.

Once it happened, I remembered something similar happening previously. Obviously, the warm water had something to do with it - or not.
But it is good to know that the pink and blue colours wash out - it would be dreadful to make something and sell it and then have the colours change when the buyer washed it. (If I ever get around to making something, let alone selling it.)

I still have the fabric in the cold water jars. They are still purple and the dry flowers seem to be as strong as the frozen ones now.

Time will tell, I will have to leave them for a couple more days (or just one, if I am impatient) and then wash them out and see what eventuates.

There was still a dye bath, so I put in some odds and ends from previous works to see what would happen. The dye is much less intense, so the colour will be fainter. And I used wool and cotton batting, cotton fabric and some fabric that was polycotton mix. So it will be interesting to see what comes out of it all. I did boil it again, for a short time. Now I am thinking that the heat was probably not a great idea - too late, I did it.