Rescuing an online fabric purchase

I live in an area with very few fabric shops, there are in fact only three! I have a choice of the haberdasheries in Fenwicks or John Lewis, or convince my sister (who has a car while I currently don't) to drive me out to Dainty Supplies. This would really limit my options for clothes making if it weren't for the joy that is online fabric shopping. Here I am opened up to a world (literally) of options! I buy probably 90% of my fabric online, and 80% of the time this is very succesful, and I end up getting what I expected and loving what I got. But there are exceptions to this.

Colour! Getting the right colour can be very hit and miss!! And recently I fell fowl of this. I would like to say that all of the shops do say colour may not be exact, resolution of computer screen bla bla bla... But this time it was a bit bum. The colour on the screen was grey with some pink in it, although I should have really known from the name 'capuccino' what I was going to get...

Yep... Brown!! Not an unpleasant colour, and my God is this fabric soft and lovely quality... But I knew as soon as I opened the packet that I'd never wear something that colour (see previous note on brown jersey dress). So I figured, to rescue the fabric... Dye it!

So I got me some Dylon (in Burlesque Red don't you know), a bucket, some rubber gloves, and off I went..

Dying fabric by hand is really super easy, you just need the above mentioned ingredients and some table salt (you can use ground sea salt if you want... But I'm not rich so..). The dye packet simply asks to pre mix the dye in 500mls of hot water (doesn't even need to be boiling), then fill your bucket up with warm water and add the salt first...

Ooooh cloudy.... At this point I would recommend finding a nice old rug you don't mind getting a splash of dye on... Just in case.

Then you mix in your jug of dye...

Being VERY careful not to ruin your old rug. And pop in your fabric!

The next bit is very important, and very simple, and I never seem to get it right.... Smush your fabric up in the water so the dye gets to all of it evenly. The instructions say to agitate your fabric, which I find hilarious.

Leave your fabric to sit for 45 minutes.. Agitating it regularly (he he)...

Then rinse it in cold water before popping it into the washing machine for a cool wash.

I mean, what's easier than that?! I didn't leave mine the full 45 minutes as I just wanted a red tint rather than the deep red promised, though I love the colour it was when it was wet!!

Once dried I now have...

And if you look closely you can see variations in the shade... I'm not a very good agitator apparently, it gives it a subtle tie dyed effect, which luckily I really like. This fabric is still wonderfully soft, and is now in the pile of jerseys destined to become cosy t shirts. Crisis averted.

Ex libris

I've had a recent shopping spree which saw me buying a couple of crafting books. I blame watching the last series of Foyles War entirely for this! When I saw Sam wearing this lovely grey zig zag striped jumper I decided I was going to copy it and have one of my own (because it's winter and I obviously need a million jumpers).

So having tracked down a very similar one on Ravelry I found I had a book to buy (well the pattern wasn't being sold separately, and the rest of the book was so pretty), so off I went to Amazon to find one second hand. Turns out this book is pretty much only available in America, unless you want to pay three times what the Americans are selling it for. So I ordered it to arrive on the slow boat from the USA.

It's not in AMAZING shape I thought, but is is second hand... But then I noticed this...

This is ex library stock, anyone who is fond of a good read will recognise that sticker anywhere!! Then in the back I spot...

I got quite excited about this, is this the name of the actual library that it once belonged to?! Well possibly not, after some googling it looks like this is a library computer system that is used over there... But PLEASE PLEASE correct me if I am wrong about that! Upon closer inspection of the packing envelope it shows that this little book was sent from Toledo from a company called 'Let the Stories Live On'. Now I know I need to really care for this slightly battered book, it's had quite the career as a library book, and now it has reached its retirement as my own personal library stock.

It was this pattern that I really wanted from the book, the only thing I would need to do is to lengthen the sleeves for my Sam jumper...

When I have looked through it, it turns out that this book has much more to offer than I had thought. I have now managed to identify another couple of jumpers, plus socks, plus gloves, and maybe a hat, that I want to try out.

Some of the patterns are accompanied by a photo of the original inspiration like this beauty...

Some of them even have a little artists sketch of how the writer re-imagined the jumper, which is a lovely personal touch...

But they all have a little word about the style of jumper and when it was popular. And to top it off the instructions come as. Written pattern and as a chart, so you can pick whichever you find easier to follow.

Right, I'm off to find me some grey wool to get cracking on that Sam jumper...

Work in progress

Today has been a mixed day, after traipsing around town to hand documents in and then building myself up for a dentists appointment which turned out to be on a completely different day, I'm not feeling as relaxed as I could be on my day off. On the flip side of all this, today has also been the day of the great jersey wash of 2016!

What am I going on about? I imagine you must be asking. Well, since New Year I have been gradually collecting various different weights, patterns, and colours of jersey fabric. I also bought a couple of new patterns so that I can build up my basic wardrobe (a la wardrobe architect).

Meet the Fraser sweater and the Renfrew t shirt, both from Sewaholic. With a couple of each of these I plan to own Me Made May this year! The plans here are that I intend to use the heavier jerseys for some nice sweatshirts...

Like the quilted red and the Ponte Roma just behind it. The lighter jerseys I plan to make into some t shirts...

And apparently my winter colour palate of grey with colour splashes has heavily influenced my shopping choices (you can't really see it but the one at the back has bright splashes of green and red on a navy background).

So today they were all bundled into my washing machine and are now sitting happily on the clothes horse drying out for the weekend ready to be used.

In the meantime I am curled up watching DVDs and continuing work on my Andi Satterlund Cropped Sweater.

And my word is this the most ripped back jumper I have ever made! I wanted to make the body longer, to start the second colour at my hips before continuing to the ribbing, so I started one sleeve (which I also want wrist length) to check I would have enough wool for it all. Well sleeve version 1 was just far too tight... Rrrriped! So I picked up more stitches and didn't start decreases until I got to the elbow... This one fitted as per the pattern, so I continued to the wrist cuff (using up near exactly 1 ball). This resulted in my very first bit of stranded colour work...

Not too shabby!!

But after trying on the full sleeve and half body I decided that I really wanted a looser sleeve... Rrrrriped!! 

So for now I am finishing up the body, and I've nearly finished the ribbing again so I'm nearly back to sleeve version 3.

I think I'm getting the hang of this stranded colour business. I really love this merino wool too, it's really soft and easy to work with. I'm using this again... Just a few times.

So today hasn't been all that bad.