More overdying

Some time ago, I was given a vest that I over dyed.  It came out great, and J continues to wear it happily.  So when I came across this vest (also given to me by the same lovely woman) and saw the marks on the front of it, I realised that I should try over dying this one as well.

In consultation with J, we decided to dye it pink.  Given it was this light purple colour initially, I didn't want to make it too murky by trying to overdye it another purple, and I wasn't sure exactly what would happen if I used a blue dye over it.  So off to the supermarket for some pink food colouring it was.

I soaked the vest in some cold water with at least a cup of white vinegar in it (sorry, no photo of this step, but if you look through my blog at other photos of me soaking wool and wool garments, it looked exactly like those).

I then put it in the slow cooker with some of the soaking water, a bit more vinegar and some hot water to bring it up to temperature.  It is essentially the same process as dyeing wool.

I added lots of pink food colouring (because its actually pretty weak as far as dyes go), and voila, a pretty pink vest with no sign of the marks that were on the front of it.

The only downside to overdying a finished garment is the splotchiness of the dyeing process.  Where you do it with yarn, the act of knitting will redistribute the colours of the dye.  But with this, you do end up with some large dye patches on the finished product.  

I'm still really happy with it, and it has turned a stained top into a not stained top, so its definitely worth giving a go.

Have you overdyed anything? Or managed to remove stains or repurpose a garment before?

On my needles

So I am a bit behind in progress pictures of what I have been knitting.

 Although these might be the worst wip pictures ever, I have done quite a lot of knitting for my brother's partner.  She asked for a cotton hat, and I have been diligently knitting away.  However, I don't have enough cotton to finish the hat, so I'm going to have to rip it back, and add in another colour to get it complete.  I don't think there is anything I hate more than having to rip something back.  Its a physical manifestation of undoing all my hard work.
 

You can see how much I have done here.  The reason the pictures are so bad is that I was trying hard to take them before a small baby snatched this really interesting thing from me to see what it was.  You can just see her little fingers in the top picture, ready for snatching (and probably laughing and running away, but she didn't get that far).

More squishy knitting

Those of you sharp eyed readers of this blog will have noticed that C was wearing a little headband to go with her birthday dress.  I realised after her birthday that I hadn't blogged about it, so here it is.

I used up the scraps of wool left over from her dress, and I'm really happy with how it turned out.  Its just a moss stitch band, knitted flat so I could measure it against her head to get exactly the right size - you've got to love first birthdays, when they don't remember that they've already seen their presents a couple of times before.

I then used the variegated wool to make a flower for it.  I used this pattern, but if you search on Ravelry there are heaps of different patterns.  Because I was using up my scraps, I got to the last row, and realised I didn't have enough of my variegated yarn, so I had to use one strand of my blue.  I am so glad that I did.  The little extra bit of colour just makes the whole thing come together so beautifully.  It was a fantastic accident.

Success - of a sort

So my week of UFO sewing hasn't exactly been a success.  I did go through my UFO stash and throw out or give away most of the stuff in there.  But there still a few pieces that I really need to finish.  Unfortunately when moving all our stuff out to the Garage (and them moving some of it back in again), someone has misplaced my sewing needles.  So when I wanted to do some button sewing I couldn't.  A trip to the Hospice Shop and $2 later I had a little set of needles and I managed to complete one garment.

No, I don't mean the whole top.  Some months ago, P wanted me to sew this piece of rainbow yarn onto this top.  She taped it all down very carefully, I said I would sew it on, and promptly put it into my cupboard and forgot about it.  I showed her the finished product today, but she didn't seem terribly impressed.  Still, it is done and out of my cupboard.

UFOs

With most of my craft stuff packed away, my project this week is to finish off my UFOs, since these are still in my cupboards.  The blanket for my sister really needs to be completed, since she is 8 months pregnant at the moment.

If I don't love it

It isn't coming to our new house.

We recarpeted our entire house last week, and it was incredibly stressful.  It was all the stress of moving, without much benefit - we just bought it back inside again.  And despite the fact that we filled an entire skip bin over the weekend, it seems like we've got just as much stuff as before.  The house is full, and we haven't even got all our things back inside yet.

All of this brings me back to my statement at the beginning of this post.  I had an epiphany while we were moving thing in and out of the house (and into the rubbish).  We have lots of stuff - both furniture and other things - that we've accumulated without thinking too much about them.  But when we move into our new house, I've got an opportunity to really consider my stuff.  My mantra is going to be "if I don't love it, it doesn't come with us", so that I think really carefully about what I have.  We will see how that actually pans out.  If moving is anything like re carpeting, I suspect there will come a stage where I throw lots of random things into boxes and decide to sort them out 'another day'.

Happy First Birthday

We went to my parents for the weekend of C's birthday, so we had a little party for her there.  She was very spoilt by all my family.  Its been a great first year, and it seems just yesterday that I was holding her little form in my arms.  I thought I'd feel a bit sad, since she is my last baby, but I don't really.  I do miss those newborn snuggles - the way they snuffle into you, and the little baby smell, but I'm looking forward to the next stage with our little cheeky chops.

 Ooohhh (its her favourite expression, often accompanied by a pointing finger).

 The birthday cake.  This ballerina has sat atop many other birthday cakes over the years - both mine, and my sisters.  J was very keen to bring it home, but I had to explain that it needed to stay with Nana.  J also said that she would have her birthday at my parents, so it may get the chance to grace some more cakes yet.

Knitting

Our year of transformation continues apace.  We are getting new carpet in our house this week, and we have been working hard to rid both the house and the section of all the stuff we have accumulated over the course of the five years we've been living here.  Its been hard work to try to organise our house, and DH has been working hard for the last few days to sort it all out.

Of course C is also turning 1 this week.  She has started walking, and is toddling around the house, often accompanying her sisters.  She especially enjoys finding pens and trying to eat them.

All of this means that my project this needs to be something I can do easily in and around the mess.  So my project is to finish knitting a hat for my brother's girlfriend.