Shearer's Delight

You might think that it's strange for me to call this post Shearer's Delight! Let me tell you how I came up with the name. A few Sundays ago I went to Camberwell Sunday market. I hadn't been there for ages. I normally go there when I have visitors. It's an interesting market to entertain visitors from out of town. Anyway, at the market I found these gorgeous rusty shearer clippers! The store keeper was very apologetic that he didn't get around to cleaning the rust. I told him I wanted them to be rusty to use with the dye. I explained the dyeing process to him and he was delighted! 

The images are somewhat out of order here, but I think you get the picture!  

In the above photo there are bits and pieces I used for dyeing. A rusty tin can, a small pair of rusty scissors, well used strings and plenty of leaves! I like the look of the leaves after they come out of the dye process. I keep them on the coffee table until I'm bored with them.

The clippers are not the easiest object to bundle. They keep wanting to spring back to their normal position. I would have love to get an imprint of them on fabric, but well it isn't meant to be!

The bundle opening process starts with removing the strings. I carefully examined the prints and appearance of the bundle as I removed each layer. It's looking good so far! How exciting!

The result is as I expected. It has a rich colour from the red cabbage and purple carrot solution. The rusty clippers added the dark lines all and around the leaf imprints. 

A close up of the piece. I'm loving it already! I can see the potential with lots and lots of stitching all over it. The piece of silk is not as wide as I normally use, but it's a perfect size to go around the clippers. 

I hung the piece over the railing on my back deck. You see why I'm excited! The colour and pattern is to die for. I wish all my dye pieces turn out this good every time. I can imagine stitching using my hand dyed threads all over this piece. Yes, I will do that. 

I hope you are not bored with my dye posts. I drafted this post when I first opened the bundles a couple of weeks ago. It's good to write a draft post when the result is fresh in my mind. 

This coming weekend we are going to visit our son and his family. I prepared the binding on my Star Fish quilt to stitch on the drive. It means that Mr Notjustnat will have to do most of the driving. Luckily we both love road travels. 

Until next time

Nat