Bernat Handicrafter Tote.

Well another project finished. I started this project back at the beginning of February and then as usual with my projects it got put by the wayside as something else caught my interest. It only took a month and a half to finish so that’s not to bad.

Bernat Handicrafter Tote in English Lavender.

The thing that’s really neat about this tote is that I dyed the lining and cord to match the crochet cotton. It really tickles my fancy that I have the ability now to do this. No more mad searching for just the right colour at the fabric stores. Just pop out my swatch book and look for a match.

Inside matching lining and cord dyed with ProChem’s Lavender Mist.

Now on to the next unfinished project….

Karen

Another one bite’s the dust…

I finally did it, finished my daughter’s afghan, one more project out of the way.

I’d started this a week before her birthday, which was on February 28th and was able to give her six squares in a gift bag. I would have started it earlier but didn’t know her colours and was busy with another project. It seems to have taken me forever to do but in retrospect it’s only been about 4 weeks.

Jen’s afghan in Paton’s Decor using Rich Taupe, Taupe, Woodbine Ombre and Black.

The pattern for the crocheted squares is based on one of the donated squares I worked with in the recent Blessings lap afghan I put together. I forgot to look at the square closely before handing in the finished afghan so I just fudged it as best I could.

The colour scheme for the squares was based on an afghan I saw on the Lion Brand Yarn website that I liked. It had a bit of a modern feel to it that I thought my daughter would like. I originally just started out with the three colours of taupe, dark taupe and woodbine ombre but after finishing the squares I felt they needed the black to make them pop.

I used the same joining technique Flat Fold Braid as I used on the Blessings afghan as it makes for a pretty join and adds some width to the blocks. I finished off the afghan by crocheting in the loops around the afghan and added the one row of taupe to give a little something extra to the border.

Karen

Ruching

I am hostessing a ruching swap this month and thought I’d post some pictures of the process or at least the process I did as I’m sure there are several ways to do this.

The idea behind ruching is to take a piece of fabric and roll it around a length of cord or string and then gather up the material and tie off the ends. You then apply the dye, let it batch 24 hours and then wash out the fabric. If you’ve compressed the material enough the compression will provide a resist of sorts.

Half a yard of fabric and nylon cord.

Starting to roll the fabric around the cord.

After I was done rolling the fabric I pinned the edges so they wouldn’t pop open when I started to gather the material.

Its helpful to tie off one end of the cord to a chair to help me with compressing the fabric as it was quite bulky having used a half yard.

The two ends tied off together.

Using left-over dyes from the snow-dyeing sessions to dye the donuts.

Grecian rose and golden yellow, done in strips because I didn’t have enough of either dye to do an entire donut.

Closeup of the ruching I used a bit to much of the yellow and the white didn’t show as well with that colour.

Lavender Mist.

Closeup of the lavender it made a really neat pattern.

Finally one last picture of snow-dye that I did before the snow all melted. I did this with regular strength dyes as I was going for a more pastel looking piece.

Colbalt and Grecian Rose.

Karen

Snowdyes and T-shirt

I did a few more snowdyes the other day and I also tried doing a t-shirt with the snowdye method. There have been a few girls on the forum who have had great success with these shirts so I thought I’d give it a try. I have to admit that the shirt I did wasn’t a success as far as showing the pattern you get with snow-dyeing but I like the way the colours turned out on it. Who would have thunk that Jet Black would turn out like this…

Jaquard’s Jet Black on t-shirt using the snowdye method.

Closer shot of the dyes.

ProChem’s rust brown

Mixing red and colbalt (MX-5B and MX-2G)

ProChem’s ultra violet

Close-up of the ultra violet separating out.

Karen

River and Ice Sheets

I was looking at the broken ice sheets down in the creek bed and debated with my husband whether or not they were a foot thick. He didn’t think they were so I just had to grab the camera and go check them out so here are a few pictures that I took while down there.

Ice sheet about 12″ thick.

Ice against the willows.

More ice from farther back.

The creek.

Mallard ducks making themselves at home.

Kid’s bike helmet swept up against a willow.

Snowdrops starting to peek through the grass. Can Spring be far behind?

Karen