Thursday, January 31, 2008

New Year's Resolutions and Miscellaneous

Well, it is time to confess to this year's New Year's resolution! I have actually managed to change some habits over the last two years so here goes with this year's goal -- getting rid of "stuff". This could be any kind of stuff and the first stuff to start getting weeded out were clothes yet again. No, I will never wear a suit to work again so what is the need to keep ANY of them anymore!! All the old pantyhose have long since been turned over to dye sieves!!

Today, two huge bags of polyester batts made their way to the local craft recycling place. I no longer use the polyester batts for hand quilting as I like to quilt with wool so much better and I don't do all that much hand quilting anymore anyway (but I do still do some). I tried using one of the poly batts on Marcia's longarm and it was awful for that so what is the point!! Out they go!

The sewing room looks like a tornado hit it so I am valiantly trying to get some stuff cleared out of there as well and down into the basement! If I can get to where I can see the floor again, I will start quilting on the Yellowstone III piece as I want to get that done by RAFA next week.

Next will be quilt books!! I rarely look at the traditional ones at all anymore and never look at the historical ones. I will get rid of most of the dyeing ones as well as I am so far past that. There are a couple of sentimental favorites as well as the Ann Johnston "bibles" which I will always keep. There are a few authors where I have everything they have written as I admire them and they have so much useful information in their books.

For you baby dyers out there, I can't recommend Ann Johnston's Color by Design and Color by Accident enough. They are a great jumping off point for low water immersion dyeing and dye painting. Elin Noble's book is the best for an overall view of dyeing and working with acylic paints. There are a few others that touch specific areas of dyeing that are worth owning as well. There are an awful lot that just give wrong information!!

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