Dyeing for Fun and Profit

Silk Shantung dried and ready for washing out

I have been sequestered in the dye studio for the last three or five days, who can count? I needed to dye up some fabric for my March workshops and of course some to use in my own work. The piece above is for me. Sorry. And so is this one, below.

Silk Charmeuse. The side you are seeing here is the crepe side, the other side is satiny.

This is what the completed stash looks like. When the day's output is finished, I wash and iron it and put it in Rubbermaid containers to take with me next time I teach. I no longer sell my fabric online, so if you want to buy it, you'll have to wait til I come to a neighborhood near you. In March, it will be Wisconsin.

The other thing that has occupied my time is furniture rearranging. This is a constant hobby for myself and my husband. We either have too much furniture or not nearly enough. I find furniture buying a deadly curse. I cannot have too many shelves, or too many surfaces.

On the other hand, I can easily give away furniture that I have lost interest in. My brother, the bachelor is usually the recipient, and in our family we have an unspoken rule that furniture can always be returned if needed. When I visit his house it is like stepping back in time. The stuff I got while single in the late 70's is still thriving at Cary's. Glad I don't have it anymore.

Since Valentine's Day when I surprised Dave with a dinner in the living room, I decided to try and find a better table than the one I originally used, a card table from Target. I stopped at Pier One on my way to grocery shopping and found the perfect replacement below.

It is round with two drop leaves, as you can plainly see. When it is needed, we pull it to the now-empty center of the living room and set it with a nice tablecloth, candles, crystal and flowers. Then we dim the lights put on some romantic music and have a lovely dinner with actual conversation. This is so different from eating at the counter in the kitchen, watching old Law and Order reruns.

I have set up my laptop in the corner, and although it looks like a tight squeeze, it is really quite comfortable. The nice part is that the laptop now is safe from being knocked off the edge of the end table that used to hold it. And with a real chair and desk there is someplace for the whining Jet to put himself, while waiting for my lap to be available.




Jet awaiting the return of my lap.