Hearts and Flowers for All

PINK_ Cyclamen, Orchid and Hyacinth

Happy St Valentine's Day ALL! I would send you flowers or take flowers to your door if I knew which door, but in lieu of that, here are some romantic pink ones growing in the sunshine in our house. I hope you will enjoy them as if they were your own!

Tangling again- especially for you.

Here is a heart especially for you. I have not done many Zentangles for a while so I am a tad rusty, but I did it from my heart to say thanks to all of my kind, loyal followers and to wish you all a very happy Valentine's Day, 2013!

DH kindly drove me to Toronto today- the big city. I know now what a country girl I am! Holey molly- what a wild place!! The traffic is horrendous. We drove along the Lakeshore highway looking for a legal left turn to go north into the city and it seemed we were half way to Kingston before we found one. In the end, we DID get where we were going- to G&S Dyes on Dundas Street and I was able to get my chemicals and dyes AND I found that they also carry a wide range of interesting looking fabrics for dyeing and screen printing. Yummy! Must look into that :-) I was so grateful to DH for this huge sacrifice on my behalf ( he does NOT do Toronto !) that I treated him to a Tim's on the way home. He seemed happy, bless him.

Well, Happy Valentine's Day all. This is neither Needle nor Thread but I am posting it anyway to the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com I wanted to do that because there are so many kind folk there to whom I wish to give hearts and flowers too. Enjoy!!

Workplace safety

I am going to attach either a link or the actual message which was kindly sent to me earlier this week from Dr Paula Burch whose area of expertise is the chemical composition of dyestuffs. I have been VERY concerned for a LONG time about the inclusion of a chemical called benzedine in dyes we use so I emailed her with a question about it. She kindly replied with a long note to answer my question . I would urge you ALL to read the email she sent me and to be very careful using dyes in your work. Apparently they are much safer now than they were years ago when I did a lot of batik, but you still need to be very careful when using them. As soon as I figure out how to connect you to the link, I shall do so. Watch this space and read what Dr Burch wrote to me. I thank her profusely for getting back to me on this very important issue.

Happy, and SAFE dyeing!

Smoke Tree Leaves so far

Well, I am beginning to see this come together. There have been bits added since this and there will be more before I do the stitching but here is a start. I love the colours! Fun to do but fiddly!

Wow! I ordered a little starter kit of procion MX dyes YESTERDAY from a Markham company, G&S Dyes and UPS delivered it today to our front door. Not an inexpensive service, but very speedy. I used to use Procion dyes years ago doing batik but when I learned how dangerous they are , I stopped. I shall be mixing them OUTDOORS , covered up and wearing a mask. Should be quite a sight. Anyone for tickets??