Sunday, August 28, 2011

The Week That Was

The week has just flown by, so I will flood this post with lots of photos and minimal text - I hope!  I woke up Tuesday morning with visions of a new silk runner for my dining room table, so that was one of the first things on my agenda.  I began by using an extruder to shoot dyes along my silk:



Not a pretty picture, I agree, but that was just the beginning.  When I had finished with the extruders, the silk looked like this:




That was more to my liking!

After batching and the washout, it looked like this:


I had purchased the lovely pottery bowl on our visit to Asheville, and was hoping to match the colors.  The blue did well, as did the yellow, but I failed miserably on the red - I should have trusted my brain and not my instincts!  (meaning: I knew better than to use that red dye!)  When I was bringing the silk in from my dye studio, I wrapped it around my neck and realized what a wonderful scarf it would make.  So, I may just dye another table runner and use the piece above as an accessory for me!  I've dyed silk ribbons to match, and will felt/embellish them onto the silk.

Charlie and his folks came to visit on Wednesday evening and stayed with us till Saturday evening, so I put down my dyeing hat (well, for the most part) and donned my grandmother gear.  We had a great time: exploring the yard, napping together, swimming, shopping, eating, crawling, and working hard on walking.  On Thursday afternoon, he fell asleep in my arms and we napped together - me holding him to my chest and he, clutching his stuffed loon in one hand and me in his other:


there's no better feeling or memory on earth!

The loon makes its wonderful primordial call when his belly is squeezed, and it makes Charlie smile and giggle.  It also comforts him when he gets upset.  It stays at MiMi's house, so it is something different for Charlie to play with when he comes to visit.

We got Charlie a few Melissa and Doug toys for our house too.  He loves this one:


I don't think it'll be long before he's running around the house pushing this, unassisted!

Sadly, our company departed last evening, so we headed off to the city for a couple days of R&R.  I spotted this lovely butterfly on the sidewalk during our morning jaunt through Midtown:


The red wasn't visible until I uploaded the photo to my laptop.  Aren't the markings gorgeous!

We enjoyed our morning visit to Bakeshop


lunch at Metrofresh, "The Green Book" at Theatrical Outfit, and will be heading out to dinner at Top Flr shortly!  

Tomorrow we go home and I dye.....and that's with a y and not an i!

PEACE

6 comments:

Eva Hagbjärn said...

Lovely colors on the runner and gorgeous pictures of Charlie and Barker.

Kram

Gerrie said...

beautifully dyed fabric always finds a use.

Jeannie said...

Gorgeous bowl! And Charlie is just too adorable with that loon. M&D toys are wonderful. I picked up some for my 2nd cousin and she loved them. Barker always steals my heart. Sounds like a wonderful week.

Lora Martin said...

Charlie is so danged cute! My youngest grand baby starts kindergarten tomorrow, it all goes by too quickly.

Karen said...

Great Judy, I'm catching up on your blog, the next thing I know, I've spent $150.00 on toys

Carol said...

Gorgeous fabric - you are so clever. The pics of Charlie and Barker are always a delight and I love that Loon. Hi Barker Woof Woof xxx