Tag Archives: Chromatic Alchemy

The SAL approaches!

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It is nearly the end of November and so in anticipation of the “Join the SAL” button appearing on 1st December I am ready and poised, with the whole SAL – all 12 chart packs with their charts, diagrams and instructions and all 24 blog posts with their explanatory close-up photographs – stored on my computer in glorious completeness, and a pile of 24 finished projects (12 on white fabric, 12 on coloured) mounted in cards and neatly tidied away in my project drawer.

If only. Or possibly even “yeah right”.

Don’t worry, we’re still on schedule here, I’m just not as far ahead of schedule as I would like to be. In some ways it would be reassuring to have the whole SAL ready for distribution throughout the coming year, but actually it’s much more fun to stitch the second set of 12 along with (or only a little bit ahead of) everyone else, and write the blog posts in real time – it also means I can react to feedback and rewrite descriptions or include extra photographs if that seems helpful.

And so I am gathering together lots of beautifully coloured Hardanger fabrics to use throughout 2016, and my doodle cloth is still at the ready to try things out and make last-minute changes if necessary. By the way, one necessary change has been to the SAL Materials List where some fairly vital words had got left out, and there was an “or” that should have been an “and”. So if you downloaded the list the moment I put it up, do please get the latest version.

And just to give you some ideas, here are the fabrics I’ve chosen for the White On Colour version: Sparklies’ hand-dyed Hardanger fabric in Cancer, Leo, Etain, Thalia and Ocean Depths, a solid coloured Hardanger (07 Dusty Green) from Spinning Jenny, and Chromatic Alchemy’s hand-dyed shade Dune.

Coloured fabrics for the SAL

As for the doodle cloth, does that provide a sneak peek at what will be in the SAL? Well, some of it does… and some of it doesn’t. You’ll have to wait and see which is which smiley.

An unexpected gift, and some very thin Vilene

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Do you like hand-dyed fabrics? If so you probably already know about Kate at Sparklies, one of my favourite suppliers. But there are others out there, like Sam at Chromatic Alchemy – visit her Facebook page to see some of the lovely colours and patterns she produces. I happen to know her in-laws and when I heard she was thinking of trying out sparkly materials I dug out some 28ct opalescent Lugana for her to try. She dyed it in blues and lilacs in striking swirls (the picture below doesn’t do justice to the colours but at least it shows the pattern) and then gave it to me! I feel I ought to warn her about being too generous and kind, although it seems a shame when there isn’t nearly enough of either going around in the world today.

Fabric by Sam from Chromatic Alchemy

Remember my note to self about getting some more thin black interfacing for the coasters? Well, I found a great bargain on eBay, but it’s a little different from the Vilene I had before – it works perfectly well but it’s so thin it needs to be covered with baking parchment when ironing because otherwise it sometimes crumples and sticks to the iron!