I’m pleased as punch with how my fabric dying experiments came out. The two main secrets turned out to be mixing the dye with corn starch and heat setting it with the iron before washing.
It’s actually super easy! I’ll do a little tutorial while I’m riding in the car. (No pictures, sorry. I didn’t get pictures of the process.) What you need: Liquid fabric dye Corn starch Measuring spoons Glass bowls paint brushes Iron and ironing board Towel (black is best. It’ll get stained) mix the liquid fabric dye with roughly equal parts corn starch glass bowls until desired consistency is achieved. More corn starch for thicker paint, less for thinner. No need to add water if you started with liquid dye. Starting with powder dye, you may have to experiment a bit. paint onto clean, dry fabric. Make sure to use natural dye for natural fabric and synthetic for synthetic fabric. Have the folded towel underneath to absorb the dye and wetness soaking through the fabric. Keeps your design from spreading and blurring. Let dry. Takes about ten minutes. heat set with an iron by laying and pressing down on the dry dye. Don’t rub it around or you risk smearing the dye. wash and dry on your normal laundry settings. I painted in layers, lighter purple and green first, then wash and dry, dark purple and touching up the green on the second pass.
One more thing to add. If you have a beeswax crayon (Like the ones you get in egg dying kits around Easter) (an uncolored candle works too) you can draw on the fabric where you don’t want the dye to be and it’ll give you a good negative space or a really clean border.
im not sure whether to keep it like this - the original pattern has an extra pattern of crosses around the edge, but that would involve more working with metallic thread.
It looks finished! Slightly sparse, but that honestly adds to the hilarity, esp given that I'm familiar with the source material for the joke.
So, I have this purse that I love. It is exactly perfect for me. I call it my bag of holding because it can hold a lot more than it looks like it can, and still be pretty comfortable. I love where all the pockets are. I haven't been able to find another purse like it. It's also important to me because I got it from Medieval Times on my birthday :P A few years ago, the bag went through a really bad car crash with me. The jewelry that I had in the back pocket ended up crushed - some of it into a power. My mom cried when she cleaned it out. It also got ripped in a bunch of places and the stitching started unraveling in thick threads. I stubbornly continued to use it, but I had to stop using it for any occasion in which I wanted to look professional or put together. It looked like a mess, lol. A little while later, it finally became completely unusable, as the holes had gotten big enough to cause problems. (the inner lining was intact, so it wasn't like I was losing my things, but still). I thought I threw it out, but since I am a terrible hoarder child, I actually threw it to the back of my closet at my parents house when I moved out. Well, I just moved back in and found it again. I cleaned up all the edges - cutting away the threads that were loose and tangled, so it looks mildly presentable again. But in the pictures you can see all the rips and tears, or at least most of them. I really want to try my hand at darning and other decorative mending stitches, but there are a few places that i'm going to need to actually patch, so I might do some embroidery things there. I already did a small darning patch in one corner - the blue and purple patch. The thread I used is more of a cord, since I originally bought it to fix jeans. I think I'm going to need to use something smaller going forward though. I have a ridiculously large stash of embroidery thread, so I'm not really concerned lol If you know of any cool stitches, or have any suggestions or links or whatever, I'm happy to take them! I have no idea what I'm going to actually do yet.
I feel like I keep running into videos of this kind of thing on pinterest, though of course when I try to find them on purpose, it's totally impossible :p But this is hopefully a decent example with a few options! I got to it by going to pinterest and searching 'embroidery hack' and looking for a promising link to click through. Some of the things they suggest are more complicated than the others, but I've also messed around a little with things like sashiko as a total amateur and was able to get some cool looking results.
second panel on the skirt finished today! meaning I only needed 5 days for it instead of 8, but then I'm on vacation and have a lot more time to actually sit down and embroider than when I gotta go work.
Blankets! A baby blanket, and a wedding gift blanket that's so very late I'm also sending it with the subsequent baby gift. The baby blanket is the Atlanticus CAL, and the adult blanket is the Wrapped In Jamie CAL (and I am so bitter this thing has gone on pause, even though it destroys my hands. there are only six squares out of twenty released, and I'm able to follow the patterns as written just fine, and I crave MORE overlay crochet) Spoiler: large
i have 3 rougly 100g skeins of handspun laceweight in a sort of creamsicle-and-raspberry-sherbet colorway and no idea what to do with it. i don't like knitting lace. what do you do with laceweight if you don't like knitting lace? ideally i'd like to make something for myself. it's a bit of a femmy color scheme and doesn't go with anything i ever wear, but dangit, i spent way too long spinning this stuff, and i keep giving away the things i make.
i find ajour/openwork knit patterns work well in lace weight, especially on giant big needles to get a sort of spider-webby loose effect that looks very delicate without much effort at all
I've seen some really nice cardigans and drapey (but not lacey) shawls in laceweight, and really really really detailed and delicate socks!
I've seen some fingerless gloves too! My fave way to enjoy luxury yarn. A lot of the patterns on Rav are lacey, but not all of them.
