My week

 A quiet week here with just one day out to meet friends for lunch. And I seem to have had a quiet week on the sewing front too. However, I have kept up with my stitch journal and here it is for the last week.

I have started on a new theme today - but you will have to wait until next week for that!

My Christmas tree skirt rondel for the month is complete - only one more of these to do.

And this sock is coming along nicely - I haven't touched the Ryegrass one.

I opened up some of my solar dye jars this week and I am pleased with the results. This first one is avocado stones. This time I chopped the stones and cooked them for a bit in the microwave with some water then used that in my jars. It has given a nice soft browny pink which I like.

This next one is from fresh buddleia flowers (lilac) which has given this lovely dark yellowy green.

And in this last jar I used new leaves from our corkscrew hazel which has given a nice warm yellow.

I have tried to adjust the colours in my photos to give as accurate a colour as possible but the last one didn't want to play nicely. So I am very happy with those. I have a feeling that the laces, which are new, need a run through the washing machine to remove some sort of dressing as they don't seem to be taking up much dye.

I have been playing around in my sketchbook with ideas for my sketchbook cover - Chookshed Challenge #7 - and come up with something I like. I have just used shapes from the sketchbook and their placement needs to be adjusted.

The trouble I am having is that in my mind this cover has always been white which of course is totally impractical! So now I am thinking that the base should be a mixture of turquoise and terracotta, two colours I associate with the middle east, maybe kantha stitched with these designs embroidered on top. Still a work in progress as you can tell.

Anyway that is me up to date - I need to go and rummage in my fabric boxes. Have a great week.