I’d seen the online announcement from Dijanne that she was about to begin another Travellers Blanket project.  I’d even dithered about joining in the fun but hadn’t done anything about it.  But then Paulene said that she had signed up, Nita did as well, then Maggie, Mags, Carol, Sue, Lynn and Dorothy.

I couldn’t let them have such fun without me.

 

 

The original intention was to use what I have, to create this masterpiece without buying another thing, but that was soon overcome when I found that I didn’t have any pieces of fabric large enough.  As soon as I’d got them, though, the dyes came out of the box and I risked a few purple fingernails in getting the colour I had in mind; a deep, rich purply blue.

The colour of Marion’s coat, in fact!

I waited a couple of hours before rinsing and drying.

 

 

Not what I had in mind.  The bump interlining might have slurped up the dye in the bowl but it didn’t hang onto it for long and what had looked like a rich violet rinsed out to a scary pink.

 

 

But trying to look on the bright side, I thought that it could be quite interesting to sandwich between the two darker, outer layers, especially since one of them is fairly transparent.

 

 

But first, I had to overdye them with navy blue, to knock back that pink.  It was partly successful, though there are still some rather pink areas which might need a little work.

 

 

I’ve decided to go with it as it is, having successfully survived two days of dyeing with pink, blue and navy without one single leak in my rubber gloves.  The maroony-purple layer on the left is the thin, gauzey top, the bright pink is the flannel middle and the bluey purple is the soft cotton backing.

I tied the three layers together with my tag gun and am now thinking about the next step.  I’ve not dyed a grid of any kind into the base fabrics, thinking that I don’t really want to be tied to a particular shape – I’m still working on one or two ideas for that.  But I think this is really going to be a travellers blanket in the traditional sense, because the extensive and very detailed travel record I’ve kept on the Passport Stamp website for years seems to have disappeared altogether and I fear is lost.  What better time to begin recreating it in a more tangible and long-lasting format?