Silk & Potassium Permanganate

Following on from my previous post, the first piece of fabric I encountered in my attempt to tidy up the Cave was a piece of silk twill dyed in potassium permangate (Condy's Crystals). It was left over from a gift I'd made more than 10 years ago and was only 96 x 93 cm. However, I managed to make five items from it: 3 bags (approx. 22 x 25 cm), a croissant bag and a pyramid purse.

Unfortunately, the straps I made first were too short - so I ended up dyeing another piece of silk twill for the straps. I could justify this on the grounds that I already had the fabric in my craft room, so was still using up my stash. However, I now have another piece of rusty-looking silk twill to transform into something else - but that can wait for another day.

The Cave

On 1 January, I proudly displayed my newly tidied craft room. Of course, the room isn't quite as tidy now but I can still get into it - and even work in there. However, I didn't reveal my secret shame - the Cave. This room opens off the craft room and is stacked full of fabrics and yarns, some of it sorted into plastic bins and some just cluttering up the centre of the room.

The window faces west and is usually shaded by an outdoor awning in summer, making it very dark, which is partly why I call it the Cave.

It is very difficult even to get into the Cave, let alone find anything in there, and I have made a few attempts to tidy it up. Unfortunately, as soon as I pick up a piece of fabric I get distracted thinking about what I could do with it. So now I'm trying a different approach. I grab the first piece of fabric that comes to hand and work out what I can do with it. So far, I've used up two (admittedly small) pieces of fabric. I wonder how long it will take me to clean it out. :)

Fabric postcards

I took part in the January and February fabric postcard swaps through the fabric postcards group on stitchinfingers. However, I only recently heard that the January card had reached its destination.

The theme for January was China, so I couched gold Madeira thread onto a red silk background in a fan shape.

Here's the lovely postcard I received from Teresa:

The theme for February was Vintage. I did this outline in brown thread on a burnt orange silk background (it looks much darker in this photo). I'm very proud of myself for tackling facial features - something I've tried to avoid in the past - but I'm still struggling with the ideas that the 70s count as vintage. Instead of being between 100 and 20 years ago, I think vintage should be from 100 years ago up to anything I don't remember. :)

The card I received from Faye is definitely and delightfully vintage.