Hand-dyed inspiration

I took a two-week vacation from work, in the hopes of not injuring the incoming class of freshmen with my bad attitude (born of too much rah-rah orientation spirit and not enough me-time).  While some of this time was spent at the beach, at least a day of it was spent dying wool with my mom.

We've done dying days before, with rather less than stellar results.  Either the colors weren't quite right, or the yarn didn't take the dye evenly, or in the end it didn't align with the vision I saw in my head.  So this time, we changed up our system, worked a little more diligently and patiently, and came out with four skeins each of yarn that made us (for the most part) quite happy.

I thought I would share the photos that were our inspiration, and the resulting yarn.  All of these are on KnitPicks bare bases, some of which have been discontinued since we stashed them.

source: pinterest.

source: pinterest.

source: Pyrex Collective via pinterest

source: pinterest

Expectations, great or otherwise

You know the saying "caveat emptor?" I feel like that is doubly true since the invention of the internet and the proliferation of monitors with different color profiles.  When you fall in love with the image of yarn on your screen, you can't always be sure that the color you're seeing is the color of the yarn itself.  We've all purchased yarn we thought was a certain color, only to find out it was in fact five shades darker or greener or what have you.

This is doubly true of hand-painted yarns, where each skein is unique anyway, without the added burden of color profiles.  However, I recently received a skein where it was not simply a matter of it being a just different shade or hue than had been illustrated on the screen.  This was a matter of it being almost a completely different yarn.  I ordered what I was expecting to be a vibrantly saturated yarn that resembled green rolling hills, and received yarn that looked like a sad Easter Egg.

I am not going to name any names, because we all have off-days.  These things happen.  But I will admit to being extremely disappointed when I opened up my package and saw pastels staring up at me.  This was not the yarn I wanted when I excitedly purchased it lo these many weeks ago.

So being a good diy-er, I decided to fix it myself.  I soaked it in vinegar and went at it with some blue dye, and this is what I ended up with: 

Which was maybe slightly more vibrant than I had intended.  This is why I don't judge.  Dying yarn is hard, yo.  But I'm much happier with my shocking blue yarn than I was with my pastel Easter egg yarn, and already have the perfect project in mind for it: Regina, by Carina Spencer.

However, those of you who intend to do this yourself, take note - BFL felts.  Which probably shouldn't have been as surprising as it was, but I am impatient, and like to touch my yarn while it's soaking.  That was a mistake.  As you can see, the yarn is still servicable, but it certainly roughed up and each strand got cozy with its neighbors while it was drying.  I had to do some gentle tugging to separate things as I was rolling up the ball.

So note to self: when rinsing out hand-dyed yarn after defacing it, don't swish.

El Elefante

The Boy and I had a conversation the other night, and it went a little something like this:

Him: What are you doing?
Me: You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.
Him: …Try me.
Me: Baking an elephant.
Him: NO, NOT DUMBO!
Me: Yes. His ears have mocked me one too many times.

(Not without result has Miguel teased me about my big ears all these years.) But I was, in fact, baking an elephant.

Awhile back I saw a really cute wooden elephant ring holder at World Market, but they wanted an outrageous $12 for it.

Rather than fork over all that cash for a piece of balsa wood painted to look like an elephant, I took this crappy camera-phone picture with the intention of making one myself when I got home. Well, needless to say, as is the case with so many projects that require the use of Daddy’s tools, that never happened. So the other night, I sat down and made one out of some of the Fimo that we had in the studio.

It took three of the small, trial-sized blocks of Fimo (in three different colors, no less) to produce this baby, but I think he’s absolutely adorable. I didn’t like the way the ears were just painted on the other one, so I attached a pair that stick out the way elephant ears are supposed to do. I baked him for about 17 minutes at 275, and he came out perfectly.

Then I painted him dark grey, with black eyes. He looks just like a little baby elephant enjoying his bath, which means he fits perfectly in the center of the blue dish I use to hold my post earrings, which is exactly where I wanted him to go.

Necklace Holder

In case you were wondering why I've only been blogging about the things I'm making/fixing, it's because that's really the only interesting things going on in my life. Not much happens when you live at home with your parents. I could tell you all about the applications I've turned in that have been totally ignored, or the interviews I've had that have gone nowhere, or all the laundry I've folded, but who wants to read about that? I sure don't. Living it is boring enough.

There was an interview two weeks ago that I'm pretty excited about, with the advising center I worked with previously. Getting it would mean I'd be getting started on the career path I've been dreaming about for years, not to mention I'd have a reason to move back to the 'boro, which I really want to do (despite the fact that so many people have moved away in my absence). I'm fluctuating between excitement, nerves, and total uncertain misery. It's a rollercoaster ride of emotions, and I feel marginally stupid for being that invested in just a possibility, but it's my dream job, so please keep your fingers crossed for me.

With all that boring, whiney stuff out of the way, let's get on to the latest project. My necklace holder.

I took an old picture frame, painted it white, drilled some holes roughly half an inch apart along the top and screwed in some small brass cup hooks. I had originally intended to knit a lace insert for the middle of the frame, but the list of knitting projects is already miles long, and what with the recent slow-down in knitting output, I decided a picture would be the quicker option. So I played around on Photoshop using some images from the Graphics Fairy, some old jewelry ads from the 20s, and Dorothy Parker's poem "Observation," until I came up with an image I liked.

I printed it out on a piece of fabric-covered cardstock (I really like the texture that gives the image) and fitted it into the frame.

Unfortunately, now I have to repaint my earring holder because the whites don't match. Ooops.

The Christmas Llama

I'm not quite sure where the Christmas Llama originated, or if it's even a tradition outside of my family. My best guess, based on some superficial googling, is that the Christmas Llama is the Andean version of the reindeer - Santa packs the presents on their backs and they haul them up the sides of the Andes to give to all the good little girls and boys (why the Andes, which actually have snow even in December, would get llamas, while the American South, which does not have snow, gets stuck with the unrealistic reindeer and sleigh, is unclear to me. Santa works in mysterious ways). But I'm not sure. If anyone can tell me more, I'd be very happy to hear it.

All I know for certain is that when I was small, my great-aunt went to Peru and brought me back a Christmas Llama ornament for our tree.

The Christmas Llama became one of my favorite ornaments (along with GusGus, from Cinderella, and the tacky silver tinsel, but that's another story for another time). In 2000, Bas Bleu published their winter catalogue with a Christmas Llama on the cover. So of course, I ripped it off and have been saving it with the Christmas decorations ever since. Every year, it gets taped to my door or pinned up on my bulletin board, and every year I say to myself, "It's going to get ruined. You should really put it in a frame."

So a few days ago, I sat down with some Christmas sheet music I had lying around (Christmas carols are the best things to play on the piano because everybody knows them and there are four hundred different arrangements for each song. These were some of the more basic ones I don't use any more). I spray-adhesived them to a picture frame. This took some concentration, some expert folding (ha! more like I bent and twisted the pieces until they looked kind of like they fit), some patience, and an emory board to poke at it with (I imagine that last part is optional). I then rubbed some ink over it in spots, and painted over other portions with coffee.

Then I gave the whole thing two coats of Mod-Podge, attached the Christmas Llama to a mat, and slid him into the frame.

Now he's happy and protected from any further injury. I think he's going to look great on the wall come Christmas time. And who knows, maybe Santa will be so pleased that I'm finally giving the Christmas Llama the honor that's been denied to him all these years by the greater fame of the reindeer that he'll leave me even better presents than usual.

(Re)Construction: Side-table

For Christmas, I wanted to give J a coffee table and TV table. Unfortunately, troll the Goodwill though I might of a Saturday morning, I couldn't find anything worth converting. A stop by TROSA resulted in the purchase of Broyhill side-table that looked like a promising start for the TV table (as J's TV is fairly small).

But, a) I could never find anything that matched for a coffee table, and b) after thinking things through a little more, I realized it would be very hard to add a shelf to hold the DVD player to this table's rounded legs. So I made J's coffee table from scrap wood (more about that eventually), and decided to give the Broyhill to Kenzi, who is sadly lacking in furniture. But before I could turn it over to her, I needed to personalize it slightly. So, after pondering and combing the paint collection for ideas, I slapped on a couple coats of Kilz (I learned my lesson after the pink bed incident. Everything gets covered in Kilz first).

Then a coat of the same white paint that adorns my bookcases (Rust-Oleum American Accents in gloss white. I love this stuff with an unhealthy passion, and am heartbroken that they no longer make it). And then, to make it truly Kenzi-fied, I used Kenzi-blue (the color she most frequently has in her particolored hair) to apply this paisley stencil to the inset on the top.

The result:

I almost don't want to give it away.

(Re)Construction: Bookshelf

I am a book hoarder. One of those people who, with good intentions of clearing up some clutter, takes a bag of books to the used book store, only to walk out with twice as many as I came in with. Needless to say, all these books require storage space, and so roughly half of my furniture was either intended to house books or has been repurposed for that use. So when Mom said I could have the bookshelves that currently hold my parents' VHS collection, I was extremely excited. There was only one problem. They looked like this:

Which doesn't, exactly, suit my style. So, three coats of a white paint later, it looked like this:

Which was much prettier, but somewhat boring. So, after trolling some of the crafting blogs (This post at Twice Lovely, to be exact), I decided I wanted to do a little damask detail up the sides. So I made myself a stencil

and did a few repeats on each side of my bookshelf in a slightly yellower white. It's so subtle it's difficult to photograph, but it looks a little something like this:

3 repeats up both sides, and one in the center of the top. It turned out exactly like I wanted, and I couldn't be happier.

A Collection of Oddments

I posted a few of my patterns (r-link) to Ravelry yesterday, and have been compulsively refreshing the page to see how many people have added them to their favorites. It's just my armwarmer patterns so far, but I'll be adding other stuff as I finish setting up the patterns. Though I was proud of them before, it's kind of ridiculously gratifying to see that other people like them, too. Especially when I have been feeling rather dejected about my abilities over the last couple of weeks, it's nice to see that even though I can't manage to get a corporate-type job, I can at least produce a product people appreciate. I can't wait now to get the yarn for my baby sweater designs and see if they go over was well as the armwarmers.

The Swallowtail is doomed. That's the only possible explanation for why, ten minutes before I was going to unpin it from its blocking, the cat threw up all over it. Now the process must be begun all over again. Which I don't mind in theory, as I could certainly use the practice in blocking - it is a skill which does not come naturally to me. But in practice, I'm sick of the sight of the bloody thing, and would shred it into bits if only it wasn't intended as a gift for my mom.

Some other things I have finished lately include my lovely Lady of Guadalupe pillow. I quilted the image and then sewed it to a piece of fat-quarter and stuffed it with fiberfill. I had initially planned on appliqueing it to the front half of the fat-quarter and then sewing the whole thing up, but that resulted in an even more oddly shaped pillow, which I did not like. So this worked better, and I ended up with a very cute little pillow that cost me about $4.

On another snow day, I painted and decorated my earring holder, which Daddy built for me several months ago. White paint and the same purple and turquoise flowers that I put on those picture frames a few months ago, and the result is perfect. It made me realize, though, that I've lost several pairs of earrings, which makes me sad. I can't wait until I move and have to go through everything again, because I'm hopeful they're just hiding in the wreckage of my current half-life.

(Re)Construction: The Bed Saga

In my ever fruitless quest to encourage my dad to finish the construction upstairs, I decided to tackle some of the furniture that will eventually go in the bedroom I floored this past summer. It's going to be a guest bedroom, and after much arguing between my parents about the size and type of the bed/beds it ought to contain, my mom prevailed and we agreed to use the two twin pineapple-post beds we had up in the attic.

We've had these bed-frames for close to 25 years now; one of them was my first big-girl bed when I was 3. They originally came from the old tobacco farmhouse of a friend and neighbor, and are consequently of indeterminate age, although I would hazard a guess of at least 55-60 years old. When I got them down from the attic, they looked something like this:
I tried sanding them with 80-grit sandpaper, but nothing doing. The paint would not budge, but the wood that showed was getting worn down to nothing. So I went at it with a paint scraper, which was actually a lot of fun. I discovered that sometime in the past, both beds had been painted pitch-black, and that was covering a burgundy stain (remember this, it will be important later). After getting most of the paint off, I glued down the loose pieces of the headboards, filled in the really obvious holes, sanded the whole thing down with 220-grit sandpaper. The result?

Because I knew I was just going to paint them, I wasn't as worried about getting every bit of old paint off. I just made sure the edges were smooth.

Then I started to paint. And paint. And paint. Because it was quickly becoming clear to me why the past-someone who had painted these suckers black had been so avant garde for their time - it was the only color that would cover up the ridiculously strong burgundy stain that had been originally applied. I applied the first coat of the ecru paint - it turned pink. So I went at these babies with Killz primer, which I usually find is strong enough to take on God himself, and after three coats of it (so, four coats of a paint-like substance), the beds still looked like this:

It took three more coats of the ecru paint before the beds finally came out ecru-colored and not pink. But they're done, now, and aren't they pretty?

I can't wait to put up the rest of the trim and get the room finished, so they can be put in their place of honor.

"...for small town girls"

We all recognize that the recession has made things extremely difficult. If you have a job, no matter how annoying and horrible you find it on a daily basis, be grateful, because there are so many of us out there who would very much like to employed who simply cannot find work. There is an average of 6 people applying for every one job out there right now, and something like 80% of them are overqualified for the positions they are attempting to fill. Which is really just a long-winded way of saying that I graduated with my MA three months ago and can’t even find work as a glorified filing clerk. But rather than waste this time sitting on my backside, contemplating my navel, I have made a list (the Shit to Get Done Before I Find a Job list). This list is as follows:

1) Lay the flooring in my parents’ upstairs guest bedroom. As some of you may know, my parents have been constructing their house since roughly the time of my birth. It is unlikely to ever be completed, as every time the end approaches, my father either ceases all efforts to reach it or decides another addition is in order. In an attempt to prevent this by slipping in some completed projects under his nose, I am putting down the beautiful Brazilian hardwood flooring upstairs. It’s not particularly difficult, just time consuming, and I hope to have it completed by next weekend.

2) Make my own entertainment center. I’ve built furniture in the past – the bookshelf bed that was at my first apartment, the shelves that house my cds and all my language books in my room at my parents’ – but never anything as involved as an entertainment center. Since I’m at home, where all the tools are and where my daddy (who has the knowledge and skills) is, I might as well use this opportunity to learn to make myself a piece of furniture that meets my several and slightly odd criteria. These criteria include not only dimensions and design elements, but the all important requirement of weight. If the answer to the question “Can I move it (or at least lift one end of it) by myself?” is a resounding no, then I’ve done something wrong. Having lived with Susie, whose entertainment center weighed roughly the equivalent of the combined weight of the entire Chinese population, I’ve learned that I never want to have a piece of furniture that people ask if you still own before they agree to help you move. So, as long as I can hold my father back from his natural tendency to build furniture for giants, I will hopefully end up with an entertainment center that can hold my TV, DVD player, receiver, and record player, as well as all my DVDs, and still be light enough that I can – with some maneuvering – move it around my apartment by myself.

3) Make a rag rug. For some unfathomable reason (actually, it’s pretty fathomable. I blame the large display of DIY books at Barnes and Noble that included the Better Homes and Gardens New Cottage Style), I have become possessed of the need to make rag rugs. I had already intended to make one akin to Kay and Ann’s Tailgate Rag Rug, for a bathmat, so it would have to be blue and turquoise to match all my bathroom fixtures. But somehow, when I started cutting my pretty blue sheets up into strips (which, by the way, is hell. You will never truly understand just how big a full-sized sheet is until you attempt to cut it into ½ strips.), I began to realize that I wasn’t just imagining a single rag rug, but one in the bathroom and one in the kitchen. So, as frequently seems to happen, my project list has multiplied yet again, as I now have to make two rag rugs – the blue and crème one (for a bathmat), and a red and crème one (for the kitchen). And now I’m thinking that I may make another one of solely blue rags as a doormat for outside the back door. But I haven’t started knitting yet, so I don’t know. I’m still stuck cutting strips.

4) Make stuff for my etsy. As my penchant is for knitting small, relatively quickly completeable things, it makes some measure of sense to attempt to sell them to other people, because, let’s face it, how many arm-warmers does one person really need? So I’m trying my hand at designing and coming up with some pretty patterns, and then I’m hopeful people will give me money for them. If not, no great loss – I recognize that there’s a ridiculously large quantity of arm-warmers on etsy, and it’s not like I won’t wear them myself. But it’s a shot at making enough cash on the side to pay for my yarn habit.

5) Finish painting all the Christmas decorations from years past. Once upon a time, many, many years ago, I painted resin and acrylic ornaments and statues as a hobby and to keep myself off the mean streets. Then high school and college happened, and I haven’t so much as looked at my collection of half-painted Santas, angels, et al, in years. But as the studio is rapidly being taken over by uncompleted projects of my mother’s doing (or not-doing, in point of fact), I think it only right that I should get some of my stuff out of her way (not to mention gain the moral high ground for arguments about stash enhancement and the developing new artistic interests). So, I have begun to paint again, and have finished my 3D nativity scene, a puppy ornament, and begun work on an angel.

6) Pictures. I don’t love clutter. Clutter makes me antsy. So while I loved living with Susie, I was disinclined to put up my own artwork and photographs on the walls in our apartment because of the sheer volume of stuff already up there. The minimalist in me would have been overwhelmed by anything more. But now that I will be living on my own, every wall in my home will be up for grabs. In preparation for this, I have begun sorting through my pictures and printing out hi-def copies of the ones I love best to adorn my walls. I have also been busy painting and repairing old frames so that they are ready when the time comes.

What I'm listening to: "It Was a Very Good Year" by Robbie Williams and Frank Sinatra

Purchases

Recently, I have purchased many things for arts and crafting that are outside the realm of my typical interests.

These include, in no particular order:

3 fat quarters of fabric, from the etsy-ers precioussewingbox and rainbowfabrics.

The Christmas birds and the Virgin of Guadalupe are for quilted pillows, but the other one is a spur-of-the-moment piece that I have no real plans for. Perhaps it will be an art panel for the wall? I don't know yet, but we shall see.


2 skeins of Patons wool in charcoal grey, for the making of a cloche. Winter is coming far too fast, and my ears are already cringing. Granted, that may be due to the fact that I am allergic to wool, and the idea of wearing a solid wool hat for any time at all is making my eyes water and my ears turn red in anticipation. But as I plan to line the stupid thing, I doubt that's really the issue.



A red and white striped tablecloth/sheet (of obviously unknown use), c/o Goodwill, intended to be shredded into a gigantically long strip and turned into a rag rug for the kitchen I don't yet have. (More on rag-rugging in a later post. Prepare yourself.)





3 spools of 100% spun polyester thread, which, when held together, might turn out to be lace-weight (maybe. if I squint), and will hopefully turn in to some yet-to-be-determined lacy and attractive something.




A black bar bead from the wonderful folks at Fresh. What it will get used for, I have no idea. But it was 50% off and beautiful, so I had to get it. Maybe I'll make a bag or a camera case or something with it.




And I also bought, not for crafting, but just because, a canvas hamper with a bird screenprint and a cotton rug printed to look like a peacock's tail, both from urban. While I'm not usually such an indie hipster, I couldn't help myself this time. I've been looking for a nice hamper since I moved, and both things were surprisingly reasonably priced for urban, so I don't feel as bad as I might otherwise. But when I have money, I'm gonna have to avoid that webstore the same way I avoid the Pottery Barn.