A few recent projects from this holiday season...
I watched a friend spend much of November and December making and accessorising several of these bunnies, modifiying a Miffy pattern by knitterbees. And though sort of I dreaded the fiddlyness, I eventually made one too, to give to my niece for Christmas. It was fiddly but it actually didn't take that long and it was a lot of fun decorating her dress and making her necklace (which I think my niece can also wear as a bracelet). I was in a hurry so I knit the dress plain and used duplicate stitch to add three hearts.
This very cool silk shirt called to me in the op shop on a very hot day. I think it had faded from what might originally have been closer to fluoro yellow - the stitching and buttons are a much brighter colour. It wasn't really a very flattering colour for me and it also had a couple of pinkish marks on it, as well as an extra faded patch where the previous owner had tried to remove a stain.
Perfect candidate for dyeing!
I went to my dye stash and pulled out two greens and a blue, but decided to just start with one colour (dark green). I sprinkled the dye on, pretty sparingly, then folded it up concertina-style from the bottom to the top, rolled it into a small package and stuffed it into a jar, adding hot water.
It never stops being entertaining, seeing all the different colours that appear when I use a single dye in powdered form. I only used dark green, but blue, yellow and pink marks appeared.
I find these dyed fabrics really hard to photograph. Depending on your screen, these photos might make it look a bit more dramatic maybe than it is in real life, but I wanted to show some of the patterning and detail.
And finally, a pair of pillowslips I dyed for my parents.
Mum had looked through my pile of dyed pillow slips, hoping for something that would go with her pale blue sheets, as the matching pillow slips had gotten a bit tired-looking. I realised the simplest option would be to overdye her blue ones instead of starting from scratch with white ones and trying to get something that would match well enough.
