This and That

My dearest colleague Yoga who reads my blog regularly asked me one day why I haven't written any blog post lately? I thought, although I'm busy I have nothing I can show or write about! I take many photos everyday, but they are mainly photos of things I see around my daily life that inspire me. I post them up on Instagram. Some of these are photos of silly stuff I see on TV. Yes I take snap shots from TV sometimes too. Some photos are from my daily walk. Anyway, today I will show you just this and that I have been busy doing. 

Another coil basket using left over scraps from the quilt "Star Fish" I recently completed. Someone asked me if it's part of the exhibition I'm having in November. So I got an idea, yes it can go in the exhibition as well! 

One of the silly photos I took. I couldn't let this cool couch pass by without taking the photo of it! It's a couch I found in a shoe Department at David Jones in Chadstone Mall. It was quite worn from a lot of use when people try on shoes. I wish it was for sale. I would be happy to have it in my house!

While I was at Chadstone Mall I treated myself to this indigo jacket I really love. I saw it earlier in the season, but it was really really expensive for me! I was hoping the price would drop! But by the time this happened they might not have my size, so I got it anyway. It must have been my lucky day when I tried it the stitching on one of the press studs came loose! Of course I can easily stitch it back on, but to pay that kind of money for it! I showed it to the  shopkeeper and got 10% off for it!  

I got home and sewed the press stud securely back on! Of course I had to re sew all of them because I decided to use red thread instead of the original dark blue thread it came with!

With the 10% discount from the jacket I bought this cute hand dyed indigo T-shirt that was there. I had never seen it there before and I really love it. It was too plain, what to do? I can fix that by adding a few pieces of Japanese vintage fabric left over from the quilt top. It looks a lot better right? 

As I said, dyeing is always going on at my house in-spite of the cold weather. I thought I could do some cool water dye indoors using black beans. I did some searching and came across this blog and this blog and got enough information to start a batch. In the above photo I soak the beans in rain water. It takes 48 hours of soaking. Make sure to visit the blogs I mentioned to get proper instructions from them if you want to try dyeing with black beans. 

After 24 hours of soaking, the water colour turns dark purple. I got really excited to see the change. I needed to wait for another 24 hours before I could add the yarns. I got some hand spun white yarns I spun a few weeks ago so fingers crossed that I will get a gorgeous colour from the black beans. 

It was time to add the yarns and a skein of cotton threads. Of course you have to remove the beans before adding the yarns. After a few hours the cotton threads turned slightly purple, but the wool hand spun yarn didn't do much. I need to keep them in the dye bath for 48 hours in total. Will keep you posted on the results. 

I'm so excited to see my daughter Kitiya Palaskas featured in the current issue of FRANKIE magazine. Kitiya combines her love of cycling and crafts on the back of her bike. She runs her crafts workshop from the back of her bike. It reminds me of the post ladies (that is what they were called then) back in the olden days when they loaded their vans with goodies and supplies and delivered them into the remote villages and towns of the Australian outback. I even heard of some quilters taking their supplies and quilts in their cars to teach in outback country towns.

We are off to New Zealand for a couple of weeks next week. The trip is mainly to visit Mr Notjustnat's family, and he will present a paper at a conference in Auckland. As for me, I managed to get the quilt top ready to take for machine quilting. The highlight of the trip for me will be a drive South to Tauranga and Rotoroa districts and on the way back to pick up my quilt from Donna Ward in Hamilton. I have been to NZ many times. I used to live there for a few years as well. It's always nice to go back to such a beautiful country, the birth place of both my children and where DH is originally from. 

Until next time

Nat