Dyeing again, it's always something

I pressed the beet-dyed linen and mounted the copper Doorway piece on it, the color working pretty well.  

However, another issue came up: the linen has lost its strength, to my surprise, very good linen, not subject to more than reasonable stresses, and as I pressed, the tip of the iron snagged right through it.  It's in a place that doesn't show, and I can fix it, but I'm sort of betwattled as Georgette Heyer would say, as to how it came about. And I hope the rest of it doesn't just fall off the wall! I wonder if the mordant did it.  Hm.  

Anyway, there's plenty of time to have it hung at home before anyone needs see it on exhibit, to determine if it's not too fragile to hang.  Ironic considering I made the linen backing  with the idea of making these three pieces less fragile to hang...

But, for the moment, this is where we are:

 Instead of a dowel, I slid a big wooden knitting needle through the pocket at the top, looks very finished.

 I have other pieces of linen ready to back two other doorway pieces, so that's next on the art agenda, at least for this series.  I'm still working on Big Doorway, and made another Dorset button last evening while I listened to Christopher Buckley's But Enough about You, very funny stuff.

And there's the chrysanthemum piece still progressing and another piece ready on the hoop to start.  And now that the dyeing is under way, I have more ideas about creating dyed fabric to stitch into...so many ideas, so few hands..