Red door!

I couldn't wait till tomorrow to show you the red door:-) Flame red!! I've only painted one coat so far and will give it another coat tomorrow. I was going to paint the door surround red too but I think it may be better fading into the background a little. That means I'll have to get some more white gloss but I'll need it anyway to paint the windows and door on the inside.

Sigh! isn't it striking?! A little bit oranger than I thought but the reflective light is very bright and the paint is still wet. All I need now are some red planters attached to the windowsills;-)) Okay, maybe overkill! I do need to sort out the last bit of the outside though - the fascia. Problem is no-one delivers it and it's way to long to fit in a normal car. Still working on that one.....

It is a little bit darker red in real life, but not much! After painting, I turned round and saw my lovely bright red Dalias. The sun keeps bleaching out the depth of their colour as there are very subtle tonal variations going on.

I've been trying to capture those red tones today in my dyeing experimentation. With red being a primary colour, you can't mix it and have to use the bought tub of dye. Only problem is, that this red seems more vermillion and has an obviously orangey base. Adding magenta to take away the orange cast moves it very quickly into cranberry/plum tones. I'm wanting to run the strong red into deep crimsons but the red base just isn't going there. I know I have all the colours in the range of acid dyes but I really need a crimson red base.

Maybe its because I've painted the door:-) but these just don't seem very 'red' to me. We have orangey-reds, blue-reds, plum-reds, purpley-reds, browney-reds but not crimson red. Oh, they are all lovely in their own right and I'll probably use a lot of these soon but it's not what I'm looking for right now. I'll try again tomorrow or else look for another supplier of acid dyes........

Fixing up the shed

When we moved here, one of the main pluses for me was the fact there was a decent sized shed at the top of the garden which was shouting 'workshop!!' A big minus was the fact that it had no door, was really damp inside and was full of junk left from the previous owners. The big question was could I get it dry and keep it dry enough to put yarns or fabrics in without ruining them? This is still the big question I want the answer to but I just won't know till all the work is done.

The first thing we did was to seal in the roof as it's asbestos. Safe enough when sealed but I'd rather not take any chances:-) so its been sealed with waterproof ply. The most major thing was to get the shed weather tight as soon as possible. Summer should be a good time for drying out and DIY but we haven't had the driest summer here in the UK so its been a bit challenging;-)

As you can see, there is no door and this window wasn't held in by much. When it was time to take this out, one little push and it parted company sooner than was expected. I've been trying to keep the rain out from the missing panes with polythene which worked somewhat but mostly dribbled down the wall and soaked the floor on a bad rain day - sigh. But now they are gone and new windows are in place. Progress pics tomorrow:-)

Now the inside. To the left of the door, under the window, there were some mouldy old woodwormed kitchen units - I took great pleasure in ripping them out! And when we cleared a lot of junk away we found this little enclosure for compost on the right. I never even knew it was there. No wonder the shed smelled so - earthy! But its now nurturing my plants in the garden although it took a lot of trips to empty it completely. Then we had to knock down the wall with a sledgehammer but I still have to get rid of all the stones - added to the ever mounting pile of rubbish needing to go to the dump.

On the right side, There is mostly rubble bags under the window - outside now - and the chimney sweep brushes have found a new home as I don't intend to use them when the chimney sweep man has a hoover thing to do it a lot more efficiently - with no mess! But I don't use the open fire much - too messy.

The shelving unit is mine and is storing my knitting machines and tables. The tables have suffered a bit with damp but are still useable. Very annoying but I just didn't have room inside for everything and I didn't think the shed got as damp as it obviously does.

On a parting note, see the little wet patch? Yes? Well, that was a present left by my cat who, we've found out, has been using the shed as her inside toilet!!!!! Yes, a lot dryer than outside but I hope she can tell the difference between manky old shed and nice, clean new workshop. I don't want it being christened, thank you very much!

Tomorrow, I'll take some pics of where we are now - the windows, ceiling and door. It still needs a lot of cosmetic work visually but once I can get the walls dry I can get the paint out and make it look more like a workable space - fingers crossed. But its taking a long time.........

A maker's nature

At last I've got round to uploading my photos of heather verity. For once the weather wasn't to blame! The decision to change workrooms was only meant to take a small time and resulted in redecorating, waiting for paint to dry - all the while my computer was disconnected........

But the re-occuring problem I always have is how to fit it all in? Too much stuff and not enough space. Ahh, the perfect workroom, with pigeonholes of co-ordinated yarn and fleece, space for all the threads, fabric, buttons, ribbon, lace..... but in all honestly, I'd probably need a huge warehouse and the more room I have the more I will fill it! I don't think the notion of thinning out is compatible with my hoarder's nature!

But back to the verity. Although it has felted a little, it does have a lovely feel to it. I think the YO's have lost a bit of their crispness which is a shame but overall it's good - and it fits! The colour of this is really difficult to match as you can see - each picture has a slightly different tone. I feel the last picture is the closest but hey, it changes colour in the different light so all of the above!
It is proving difficult to match a button for this - grey is too dull, purple too strong, a pinky one could work or a wooden one.... Somehow none look just right. Oh dear, I may have to add to my button collection!

And this is why I have no room for anything and have spent DAYS organising and reorganising all my 'stuff' - buttons, threads, yarn, more yarn, fabric, books, more books.... Sometimes I wish I just concentrated on one discipline - my partner devoutly wishes I HAVE ONE DISCIPLINE!! - but I can't help finding all textiles interesting - melting plastic (stored plastic bags and tyvek), collage (boxes and drawers of papers, lace, letraset, image transfer paper....), drawing with stitch, printing, machine and hand knit, felting, weaving, spinning, dyeing, - the list goes on.

So have I finished? The loft is a little fuller and everything has a home of sorts for now - except for those annoying little 'bits' that are sitting cluttering up the floor looking accusingly at me when I think of doing some knitting rather than tidying up:-) And I want to get back to my new hat in the rose red pattern by Ysolda! I'm calling it 'snow white' - as it's white coloured this time. (Anyone else remember the ladybird book 'Snow White and Rose Red''?)