This isn't the greatest scan because it was raised in some places and I had to put a fabric background to cover it instead of the scanner lid. I tried both ways. This is the brightest and clearest in spite of the shadows. This is the last of the batch. I rinsed them this morning and blocked them. As you might guess, much of this is shuttle endings and mistakes but there are a few good pieces too. I really wanted to see if I could dye the little blue rosette at the top one color and the leaves a different color without them blending together into one color. I was partially successful. Most of the blue is in the blossom and most of the green is in the leaves. The problem is that the whole thing is wet from the presoak so the color is naturally wicked into whatever is touching. I could dye one segment and hang it so that the color stays in that area. Then presoak (?) again at another session and do the leaves alone. That sounds like an awful lot of trouble. Maybe I wouldn't have to presoak for as long the second time, maybe just enough to get wet and in that case, I could only dip the part to be dyed. Hmmmmmmm....I'm trying to keep track of all these "mental notes".

I wasn't going to dye any skeins of thread but at the last minute the night before, I wrapped two skeins of Lizbeth white, since I had nothing to lose there. The odd thing was that they floated in the presoak solution. I had to keep pushing them down. While I mostly liked the colorway that resulted, I was disappointed to see large amounts of white spaces that were not planned or expected. I'm assuming it didn't take the dye well for the same reason it kept floating, whatever that is.

Someone asked what I was going to do with all of this. I didn't preplan anything special since I knew it was all experimental. There are some pieces I don't like and some I love. The edgings can always be used on something. Flowers and butterflys can always go on/in cards or on a fabric landscape. The shuttle endings and mistakes are generally destined for crazy quilting, embroidery or cards.

Speaking of edgings, I wanted you to have a better look at these. The top one is a vintage pattern that I mean to write out in modern terms and add to the pattern links. I loved the way the "flowers" look vintage. I think I started with grape and then added lemon or the other way around. The combination seemed to "age" each other. I would probably pick a different green colorway next time but this one is okay. It tends to bluish tones in some areas and yellow tones in other areas so it works okay with the grape/yellow flowers.

The zigzag edging was a play with shades of brown and it's what inspired my results with the cross. The edging was purely accidental but once I saw it, I knew I wanted to be more deliberate with the colors on another piece.

The Hen & Chicks edging was one of the last edgings I colored and I hadn't used greens all that much yet so decided to go with blues/greens. I didn't really have a large selection of red/yellow to work with but maybe next time. I have a yard of this edging made which enlarges my options for usage.

And then the simple ring/chain edging I mentioned before. I think it's about 24" long. Lots of options for this one too.

The first two edgings were painted laying down since they are short. The last two were wrapped on cylinders; H&C on a big cardboard cylinder and the other on a straw,covered by saran wrap. I mentioned in yesterday's post how I painted the straw laying down and the H&C with the tube standing up.

Someone came out this evening and cut up the tree enough to be off the house and garage so that the insurance adjuster can make an assessment. While that was happening, I cut out the outfits for the sock monkeys I made awhile back. I hope to sew those tomorrow afternoon.

I haven't tatted anything yet today but I did do some drawn thread stitching that I'm practicing. It will be on my lace blog.

And I'm off to stitch/tat/watch tv/relax!