Dyeing - me and the vilene!

I have been invited back to the Suffolk East Embroiderers Guild next week (17th Sept) and will be teaching them to make vessels from pelmet vilene. I first taught them last year and they are a lovely, sparky bunch who were great fun to work with for the day. I'm looking forward to spending another day with them very much.

As not everyone has time or inclination to dye up a load of pelmet vilene I've done it for them and they will give me a few pennies for it. This is where I really notice the lack of a studio!! In fact, I tend to feel very hard done by and have to keep reminding myself that I traded my studio for an easier financial committment.

I ended up dyeing the pelmet vilene in the garden yesterday using a garden hose and a sprayer. The sprayer was very cheap as I wanted to try it out and I nearly regretted it - I hadn't realised that there was a lock feature on the spray button and had to hurl it away from me as the dye just POURED out and I couldn't stop it!!!!!

Once I got the kit under control (turquoise arms and feet!) I was able to spray it all up really easily. Today it got left on the lawn to dry off in the very windy weather.

Lumps of flint really came in handy today.

As it was so windy the puss cats were quite skittish anyway and this one was very warily watching a piece of dyed vilene that had blown across the garden and was twitching in the flower bed.



This is Ruffin and he wouldn't walk any further until I'd retrieved my errant vilene and got it firmly back under control - can't blame him really!