Tootsie Tangents
Perhaps I should be working on my corset. Or my dress even. But I've become distracted.
I've become enamoured with the idea of little peasant stockings. Thanks to Melanie Schuessler. Aren't hers just adorable? I am still working on coming up with a pattern that fits my freakishly large calves and apparently mutant feet. ;) I will not go into too much detail about how I spent almost my entire sunday working on a pattern with no suitable result. Hubby came home to a very unhappy me. And of course tried to help. He did help a bit, actually. And today I went about trying to tweak the pattern more.
So far, I have been able to have it fit to my calve and tootsie fairly well. The problem is in the ankle. I"m getting funny baggy wrinkles. Must work on this....I actually think if i cut the slit in the pattern higher towards the top of my ankle that it will help immensely. That's my to-do for tonight. Oh, and isn't the sunflower muslin just loverly?
Oh, and since I'm doing socks, I thought, hey, wouldn't it be fun to dye some fabric for them? Even better, wouldn't it be cool to dye with natural stuff to be found around my apt?
My first foray into natural dyeing came this weekend when I realized we had 5 mulberry trees behind our apartment. A-berry-picking I went. Unfortunately, the trees are on a rather steep hill, and I'm short. Right when I was about to take my berry-booty inside, I slid down the hill on my own little (okay big) booty. Whoosh went the berries from my basket. Squish went the berries on the ground (and under my butt--the berry juice soaked all the way through and stained my cheeks purple;)
Never fear, I did recover most of my berries in the end. I put some swatches of white linen in to dye under different conditions just to see the outcomes. Left most is in acid (vinegar), and next one to the right is with soda ash fixer in the pot. I like the more muted soda ash version, myself. Kinda a grey-purply-blue.
The second round of swatches are a remnant of a linen blend i found in joanns in a hideous pinky coral. I thought I'd tone it down with a coffee/tea stain. That was too subtle for me (second orange swatch). Then I thought, hey, why not just throw in some black dye (admittedly not natural)? Which i liked (3rd "orange" swatch--kinda dusty rose). After it soaked longer it gave me the fourth look, which is what I ended on. Okay, actually, I ended on a rather splotchy version of that. Guess I should've stirred my dye better. So, I will have some splotchy stockings. I will fool myself that my crappy dye job is just like what a bonified peasant may have ended up with if they couldn't afford all the proper equipment. Did they have tie-dye in the renaissance? ;-)
My goal is to make two pair of stockings--one in the greyer mulberry , and one of the formerly coral linen stuff. Will these clash with my dress colors. Most likely. Isn't that part of the fun?
I've become enamoured with the idea of little peasant stockings. Thanks to Melanie Schuessler. Aren't hers just adorable? I am still working on coming up with a pattern that fits my freakishly large calves and apparently mutant feet. ;) I will not go into too much detail about how I spent almost my entire sunday working on a pattern with no suitable result. Hubby came home to a very unhappy me. And of course tried to help. He did help a bit, actually. And today I went about trying to tweak the pattern more.
So far, I have been able to have it fit to my calve and tootsie fairly well. The problem is in the ankle. I"m getting funny baggy wrinkles. Must work on this....I actually think if i cut the slit in the pattern higher towards the top of my ankle that it will help immensely. That's my to-do for tonight. Oh, and isn't the sunflower muslin just loverly?
Oh, and since I'm doing socks, I thought, hey, wouldn't it be fun to dye some fabric for them? Even better, wouldn't it be cool to dye with natural stuff to be found around my apt?
My first foray into natural dyeing came this weekend when I realized we had 5 mulberry trees behind our apartment. A-berry-picking I went. Unfortunately, the trees are on a rather steep hill, and I'm short. Right when I was about to take my berry-booty inside, I slid down the hill on my own little (okay big) booty. Whoosh went the berries from my basket. Squish went the berries on the ground (and under my butt--the berry juice soaked all the way through and stained my cheeks purple;)
Never fear, I did recover most of my berries in the end. I put some swatches of white linen in to dye under different conditions just to see the outcomes. Left most is in acid (vinegar), and next one to the right is with soda ash fixer in the pot. I like the more muted soda ash version, myself. Kinda a grey-purply-blue.
The second round of swatches are a remnant of a linen blend i found in joanns in a hideous pinky coral. I thought I'd tone it down with a coffee/tea stain. That was too subtle for me (second orange swatch). Then I thought, hey, why not just throw in some black dye (admittedly not natural)? Which i liked (3rd "orange" swatch--kinda dusty rose). After it soaked longer it gave me the fourth look, which is what I ended on. Okay, actually, I ended on a rather splotchy version of that. Guess I should've stirred my dye better. So, I will have some splotchy stockings. I will fool myself that my crappy dye job is just like what a bonified peasant may have ended up with if they couldn't afford all the proper equipment. Did they have tie-dye in the renaissance? ;-)
My goal is to make two pair of stockings--one in the greyer mulberry , and one of the formerly coral linen stuff. Will these clash with my dress colors. Most likely. Isn't that part of the fun?
2 Comments:
What? No pictures of the mulberry-dyed booty? The stockings are brilliant though.
Oh, that something no one would care to see. Well, Adam was amused, but I dont' think I need to be sharing that with the rest of the world! ;-)
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