First Post!

Greetings!

I have been reading some wonderful blogs and news postings over the past few years and wondered whether I should add one of these to my website, now that it is officially up and running. I talked it over with my website/book designer, Jane Glennie, and she thought it was an excellent way to keep this website current and to keep you up-do-date on how things are progressing on the new book that I'm writing. So I'm going to post some information from time to time about about what's going on "behind-the-scenes" while researching material and techniques for this book. It will hopefully keep you entertained, and is definitely a great way to procrastinate from what I should actually be doing, which is writing the book itself!

Anyway, at this point the book is probably about half finished. I am currently working on the Surface Design chapter, specifically on Natural Dyeing. I can't tell you how exciting it is to research all the different topics for this book, and how wonderful it is to be able to "play" while learning about each subject in depth. Natural Dyeing has opened my eyes not only to the wonderful substances that can be used to create beautifully coloured fabric, but it's also encouraged me to really observe the gorgeous colours all around me at the moment--colours that echo what can be achieved with natural dyeing. I think this is the most spectacular autumn I can remember since moving to England in 1984.

When I took this picture of my Border Terrier, Jack, I decided that I had to try dyeing with Japanese maple leaves. So I've gathered up a huge amount of bright red leaves. Next time I'll show you the results!

PS. The photo at the top of this post shows a small selection of fabrics from my stash. Jane told me to put a photo at the top of each post to make it look more interesting and I always listen to her!