Autumn leaves, red and some stitching

I really like the changing of the seasons, especially autumn leaves. I pick up leaves on my daily walks and put them in a large book to press them. After they're flat I photo copy them, on paper usually but sometimes also on to fabric. I never use them, just keep them. Here are some from this mornings walk.



This one I picked up because of the wonderful patterning.



Generally it's color that attracts me, especially red. We don't have quite the color of a New England autumn, but we have our fair share of trees that put on a show for me.

Speaking of red, Kathy Loomis and I are doing another photo collaboration for the next 2 weeks. This week the theme was my choice and I chose red. You can check out our pictures all week here and here.

I've also been stitching up more white pieces and dyeing them - here's a couple of the latest ones.

Fiber and dye experiment

I've been playing with some ideas that involve stitching different fibers and fabrics and then dyeing them with a dye color that I know will split and dye each type of fiber a different color. I also wanted some texture so most of the fabrics were not pre-washed before stitching. I stitched various pieces of silk, cotton and rayon fabrics to cotton batting with both cotton and silk threads, everything was white or off white to start with.



I dyed the piece with golden brown dye (Dharma's #113 procion mx) that I knew would look much redder on the silk. Here's the results. I'm not sure where this experimenting will lead, but I'm quite pleased with the results.


I also finished up the t-shirt quilt for my grand daughter and will be delivering it soon. Don has baked a batch of cookies so he'll have something to deliver also.