Missing Photos

OK, so recently the service storing all my photos has disappeared forever, so I know there are images missing all over the place on the blog.
I'm attempting to fix them up. Hopefully it'll look better soon.
It's my fault I had plenty of warning to move them over, I just missed a whole heap of images!! So some are working fine, some are missing. I'll go over old blog posts and add the pics back in but I can only do one or two at a time.

In other news, I'm really angry a UK sewing magazine subscription purchased til December (my christmas pressie the past few years) hasn't sent me the past 3 magazines, has gone bankrupt and been bought by another company, changed it's name and still I havent received a new mag!

I'd been planning to not renew the subscription again anyway because the magazine had turned to absolute rubbish, pages and pages and pages of advertising and very little interesting content.

I think i'll just buy books on Amazon rather than bother with magazine subscriptions in future.

I can't end on a good note, the past couple of weeks have just been awful. Uni work is out of control. Much bad news in our family in many ways effecting many people and nothing I can talk about. Just one of those periods of time you wish you'd never answered the phone and weren't told and could live in a blissful ignorance bubble instead.

Angels For the Forgotten

I'm coming out of my self imposed -[No Sewing until my uni work is done mode] .

The reason is i came across this appeal today and I cannot imagine sitting here typing up my essay about self indulgent fashion icons for my uni assignment while rattling around in my head how I feel for any kids in this situation.

Just imagine being removed from your house with nothing but the clothes on your back. AND we all know what horrific or devastating conditions must have existed for a child to be taken out of their home in the first place.

Angels for the Forgotten do wonderful work. During the floods they were a God-send here.

So I'm setting aside uni work to sew as much as I can for them this week.

I ask you, please help them! Blog about them, link to their challenge, and I know we are all so busy, but I also know you can achieve sewing miracles so I urge you to make anything you can manage from their list even if it's just 1 or 2 thats 1 or 2 closer to their goals:

Angels for the forgotten have listed their 2012 challenge goals, they need:

2500 Angel bags 

1200 Angel blankies 

1200 crayon /pencil rolls 

1000 heart or angel dangels /tags 

For patterns and more information about what they need and to see where the local drop off point near you might be:

Visit Angels for the Forgotten's Angel Bag Sewing Challenge

Rust and Tannic Paste Resist

My favourite of all the dyeing exercises for uni, was the paste resist, rust & tannic dyeing. The effects are really striking and it's so easy to do!

Before dyeing with the alum, Starch & flour paste pattern applied

After rust & tannic dyeing

My Favourite of all the rust & tannic was the rust using metal objects. I tied objects up in cloth & soaked it all in cleaning vinegar in a plastic tub lifting in various parts out to expose to the air from time to time. It took several weeks, but it's just sitting there really so not too hard!

The colours & patterns are amazing!