She is torturing jumpers again

I have a huge blue cardigan. A most useful garment in the cold months, works like a daytime dressing gown. I’ve worn it most winter days since I bought it…5ish yrs ago maybe? I gave it a wash and a thorough depilling at the end of last winter so it was ready to go another season but I was getting really tired of the pale blue colour.

So I tortured it with string, beads and elastic bands as is my wont.

I used Earth Palette dye again, but this time in navy, which I hoped would give a truer blue than what they call “blue”. I bought a 500g lot and used about 150g for this. I did a better job of dissolving the dye this time. Add dye slowly to hot water, not the other way around. I poured the fresh hot dye solution straight onto the dampened garment. It seemed to take pretty much on contact, which made for a fairly blotchy effect. In this case that is fine as I wanted interesting varigation.  Next time I might cool and/or further dilute the solution before using.

I think it came out well. The new darker blue is the colour I hoped for, hurrah, and I like the pattern. I shan’t be modelling it today. Our weather peaked at 43C and is currently still 37C outside. Not good for wearing woolens but a great dye for drying them. Doesn’t it look all welcoming on the little sofa though? I’m now looking forward to wearing it when the weather cools sufficiently.

All of the above

Shirt? Dress? Coat? All of the above

This started with an experiment in diagonally folded shibori. The upper piece in the picture below.

I don’t recommend it. Diagonal means bias and that as you probably know, is stretchy. Getting this into neat parallel folds was NOT EASY. However, I bloody mindedly pursuaded it. I cut a large square from wide linen, heavy end of shirt weight and lovely quality. If I remember correctly, I folded the corners to the middle, then pleated it up on the bias and pegged it to hold, aiming for minimal resist. Grr. Big struggle to get it neat. There was a narrow strip left which I simply concertina pleated on the weft grain. That is where the finer stripes came from.

The bias experiment did make an interesting piece of fabric though. It was dyed all pegged up and then re dipped after the first lot had oxidised. Hence blue on blue rather than blue on white.

The dyeing happened back in about Feb 19. A few months ago I was frustrated with sewing fine silk and decided it was time for some nice friendly linen. I got this out and pressed it. Then got sick and hung it in the corridor. It made it to the cutting table a few weeks ago and then languished again. I changed my mind several times as to what I would cut from it. I was going to make a dress, but didn’t want anything too similar to the other things I’ve made from indigo shibori. I didn’t want a plain shirt. I ended up with a skirted shirt, a shirt dress, a lightweight coat.

I’m pretty impressed that I managed to get this out of a total of, I think, about 1.1×1.4m of fabric, plus a little plain dyed lesser quality linen for facings. Golly, can that be right? The back and sleeves did need to be pieced, but some good came of that. The bodice back became more interesting and gave me seams for shaping.

The sleeve piecing gave me an easy option for the vents- just leave part of the vertical piecing seam unsewn, press open and hem/fell.

There was rather too much inside out, upside down-ness during construction. Some got fixed, some didn’t.

Of course I put pockets on it. I forgot to put the label on the yoke facing as usual, so it went on one pocket instead. I was lazy. I haven’t given it a final press before taking these pictures, it’s only had construction pressing. I quite like the relaxed look of slightly rumpled linen.

Here it is on. Back and front

I really like it. It has 18thC frock coat overtones. Vaguely piratical. I’m thinking this shape would be nice in some lightweight coating I have in stash. I’ve been nice to future me and taken a pattern of the bodice adjustments before assembly. Pretty happy now that I did that.

 

 

Sensible Spinning?

I have this aim to keep my spinning stash under better control than my fabric stash. However, I’ve hooked into this lovely thing called the “Aussie Bale Project”. It’s small scale production. All the fleece is from Australian small farmers, with an emphasis on coloured sheep, and the processing is done locally. Every so often, there is a release. I already had a kilo of wool tops from two different bales, plus a bunch of other fluff. Another bale is due out this week, but do I want any of it? Good question. I decided it would be sensible to spin a little of the two I already have to help me make that decision.

One is fawn coloured, a mix of corriedale and merino. It’s a fairly easy spin and makes a nice enough yarn but not quite wearable against the skin, at least for me. I’m a bit meh about the colour but it would overdye well. The new bale is supposed to be similar but greyer, which I would prefer I think, but I already have this. Hmmm.

The other I was very excited about. It’s a blend of corriedale and suri alpaca. It has turned out coarser than I hoped for though. Very easy to spin but a little bit scratchy. It does have something of that lovely limpid drape from the suri that I was looking for. I should knit a sample and see how it behaves. I wonder if it will soften with wear? I have a desire for a jumper made from variagated indigo dyed yarn. I hope that this is the fluff to make it from. I have small quantities of some softer things in stash, I wonder if including a little would have good effect? or would that be a waste?

Straight off the wheel:

and washed. I’ve started labeling skeins, realising that I’m going to get confused if I don’t. There is quite a collection of spun yarn now. Eep.

I was a bit confused that I was getting so much spin into the singles and tried to treadle slower, which I find difficult. I thought I’d dropped back to a slower ratio. Eventually I realised I’d shifted the drive band on the drive wheel, but not on the flyer. Argh, silly me. These ended up almost balanced though.

 

F*ck Cancer

I have a friend needing to engage in full on chemo treatment. So I’ve made her a hat. Not a hand knitted hat because I didn’t have any appropriate yarn in the house. Instead it’s a more summer friendly fine mercerised cotton knit and I’ve had fun with paint.

This project gave me an excellent excuse to buy something I’ve wanted for years- a proper light box. Only these days it’s more a light board. The light is provided by LEDs and the whole thing is all of about 3mm thick. 3 light levels. Cool, literally, so I found I could paint directly over it rather than pencil tracing first, which is great for such a detailed design. I’m delighted with it.

The sewing part is only a single seam to tun this into a tube, which I failed to get a picture of. No hems or overlocking to keep potential irritation to a minimum. Put it on inside out, twist the loose end around 360 degrees until the design is at the front and invert over the top. It’s a bit hard to describe but it ends up looking like this…. I forgot to ask for a picture of it on her, so here it is on me.

Or it can be worn with the loose end draped down your back, or as a cowl or a head band.

The words might upset some, but she doesn’t care. I’ve deliberately made it less than perfectly easy to read to gently reduce the danger, but without actually obscuring the words. It’s a a slightly enhanced version of the “Parchment” font.