After Four Years of Exile...

We have finally moved to a place that has room for all my fabric and Fergus (plus at least 20 other cats for Fergus to get beat down by, including a random grey kitten that ran into our apartment today). It also doesn't have the stupidest tenancy agreement of all time, so even though I'm paying more, it's probably all worth it. 

Since I can put shelves on anything that doesn't move and we're paying more for rent, we are getting rid of the storage locker. We have enough room that we don't need it, and while I packed it like tetris before the move, we finally got down to the original layer and brought it all home today. This was virtually all my stuff, including my quilt hoop, the parts of the industrial sewing machine (now in the basement), the homemade drumcarder and fibre, the tubs of dyestuff and pots for dyeing, and the two jumbo tubs of FABRIC.

Ooh tub of TREASURE. SO EXCITING. Those are the poly brocades I hoarded on top. I started pulling everything out of them as soon as possible and depositing it into multiple piles around the living/dining area.

Fabric piles everywhere! And patterns. And test designs. And things I sort of made. And interfacings/fusible web/buckram/timtex. And other wonderful things.

It turned out I had lots of white fabric (mostly silk) for dyeing. Some cotton, linen, organza and also some kind of stiff silk I have no idea what I'm going to do with. It's almost like paper. Definitely silk though, which is my favorite fibre ever:

Especially duppioni, apparently. I love the versatility of silk and the way it dyes. It's the perfect fibre and if silk worms weren't so disgusting and nasty, I would totally raise them to reap the benefits of their hard work and sad little lives. Yay! But they ARE nasty so someone else has to do it for me. I also had some silk hankies (these are pulled out cocoons) in there, which I used in felting projects mostly.

 I took most of the quilting cotton in the form of fat quarters with me and they sat on the shelf of my room, but a few of the larger cuts I put into storage. I found some nice plain blacks and whites, both of which I've bought more of since. Plus some cotton, wool and silk/wool batting. Unfortunately I can't decide which is the wool and which is the silk/wool. Love wool batting though.

 

Various apparel fabrics plus the sari I bought all cheap. I also had a couple of patterns. I keep trying to do clothing sewing, but I'm just not that good at it. Mainly because I want to be able to sew like Alexander McQueen already and am always sadly disappointed that God didn't just make that happen like when the lame walk and the blind see.  IT'S JUST AS VITAL. Like who wants to make t shirts? I want to make COOL STUFF.

I totally did buy that Japanese Vionnet book in anticipation of him changing his mind on that this time though!!

These are muslins, test blocks and half finished projects. Never have known exactly what to do with some of these. I also have the ties and bits for the crazy quilt I have always been planning. One of these days I'll start it!

 I even found actually finished projects as well (yeah I do have a few of those). This was my big bagua batik. The tiger was probably my favorite, and I dyed the colours with procion mx and sodium alginate. I remember the black being really problematic and it ended up fading quite a bit after I put it in a window, though it was meant to fade out on the edges. Mama was like "let's put it on the table for decoration" haha.

  I also found the logwood dyed things had shifted quite a lot into brown from purple. Gotta watch those browns. And logwood of course. The dye woods are in their own tub, though I suspect I'll have to replace all the noxious chemicals I'm still not supposed to have.


Also,  FYEAH DRAGON











I did not find the three missing quilts. I think they are gone. Mama keeps saying "I didn't take them, just the other ones you found under my bed!!" Sigh.  It's possible they got moved, but they are not in any of the places my other things are. RIP quilts, where ever you are:

:(