Dye Pots Part IV - THE FINAL RESULT!!!!

Thank you for all the wonderful fabric suggestions! I loved the last two options: Etsuko Balance and Etsuko Scene. Very beautiful! This fabric is also GORGEOUS. It's from India and it's embroidered so it has a great textured look to it. Kind of pricey though...
And now, the moment we've all been waiting for! Last night I checked my scarves and they were completely dry (yeah!) so I removed them from the poles.

As you can see, the side that was hugging the pole is still the original turquoise or fuchsia color, while the side that was exposed to the dye is now purple or black. Aren't those wavy ripples awesome?

This unique dye distribution makes for a very cool diamond pattern once the scarf is opened.

They look even cooler on! The pleats in these scarves allow you to arrange the scarf any way you want. It can never look "bad" or as if you put it on "wrong". There is no such thing. I just threw it on for the pictures so that you can see that you don't need to mess around with it for a long time to get it to look cool. I did this twice for each so you can see two different possibilities:

I hope they were worth the wait! Let me know what you think!

Dye Pots Part III

Hope you all had a good weekend!

On Saturday, I dyed the pole wrapped fabric from my last post. I dyed the turquoise one purple and the fuschia one black. Here's the process:

1. I soak the pieces in warm water for about an hour. This ensures that the dye will penetrate all the fabric it can reach, not get stuck along the way because the fabric is dry.
2. I then put salt and dye in warm water and stick the poles in. I leave it for about 20 minutes or until I get the darkness in color that I'm looking for (keeping in mind that it's always lighter once it's dry). I sneak peeks every now and then to see how the color is setting:

I then add the soda ash to set the color and leave it soaking in the dye for about an hour (a bit longer for black). Make sure to set the timer!

3. This is always a good time to make yourself some tea. You've got a lot of waiting to do and since it's pole wrapped, there's very little stirring to occupy your time.

On Saturday, I chose some Japanese genmaicha. MMMM. :)

4. After having the poles in the dye bath for about an hour, take them out and rinse them in cold water first. When the water is clear (no color is bleeding) gradually rinse in increasingly warm water until you're rinsing in very warm water. Because my colors were so rich, and also because I wanted to keep them on the pole so they retained the pleats, I decided to soak my poles in clear water to make sure that all the excess dye was gone.

You can already see the water turning pink on this one!

5. After all the excess dye is removed, I wash the fabric with Synthrapol. You can also use a soft dishwashing soap like Dawn.

6. After washing the fabric, pat dry with a towel (don't use any nice ones!) and set out to dry. If you don't care for the pleats, just remove the fabric from the pole while you're rinsing and washing it and iron flat. This is also very pretty, but I wanted to keep the pleats so I have to be more patient. I checked the poles this morning and they're still damp, so I think they'll be ready sometime later this week. When they're dry, I'll remove them from the poles, take photos, and let you all see what all the fuss is about!

I can't wait to see them!!

Clay Pipe

Isn't this a gorgeous mug? It's huge, first of all, which is great, and it has "clay pipe" stamped on it like the old clay pipes used to back in the day. VERY cool. We picked it up at the Takoma Park Festival last year. I'm hoping to sign up for a booth this year. Last year I inquired a couple months before the festival and the booths were already taken! I'm determined to not let that happen this year. It's such a great time and so many people stop by with their family that I'm hoping to set up my little shop and sell some stuff. This year it's being held on October 7th, the first Sunday of the month. Four days after my birthday, actually! I should have plenty of time to make some stuff and design my booth layout. Exciting!!!

This is a fabric swatch I saw in Cia's Palette that I absolutely loved. I'm really into blues and browns together. I think it's such a great combination. Especially a cool turquoise and a rich milk chocolate brown. BEAUTIFUL! My whole outfit yesterday was those two colors. Should've gotten a picture of that...

Alexander Henry also has some beautiful fabrics on that site like this one: Buddha's Cloud in Indigo. That website was really a good find. Does anyone know of any other cool fabric / yarn websites?

Flaco-tastic

This is Flaco. He's my friend, Alex's dog. He's an English Pointer and she rescued him from the pound in Spain. He was so emaciated when she found him that she had to carry him home and hand feed him until he was strong enough to do it on his own. That's where he gets his name "Flaco." It means skinny in Spanish. He's had a tough life, there's no doubt, but now, he's very spoiled! My husband and I gave him that squirrel you see in the picture for Christmas. He loves it! He has such a soft mouth that he just nibbles on the paws! It's soooo cute!! :)

We dog-sat Flaco this last weekend so that Alex could attend her dad's graduation in Maine. While I was taking some pictures of new scarves that I'll be posting on my shop soon, I decided to make use of the camera and tripod and zoom in on the beautiful face that was watching me work! Good thing he sat still long enough for me to take it. He's known to flail when the camera is on him.

This weekend I also made myself a roll for my long knitting needles. I have yet to make one for my short ones, but here's a look at the one I made yesterday. All the fabrics are Amy Butler designs.

King Charles Brocade

This is a knitting project I'm currently working on (one of several). It's called the King Charles Brocade knit and I'm hoping to double the size of the piece you see here and make a little purse with it. I plan to line it with some left over Amy Butler fabric that I have (below) and put a little zipper on it in some flashy color like red or pink. Super cute!

Tonight my husband and I are going to eat at the Oval Room. It's restaurant week here in DC, which means that all the super expensive restaurants have set menus for lunch and dinner. Lunch is $20 and dinner is $30. The price includes appetizer, dinner, and dessert. A pretty good deal considering you'd end up paying about $50-60 per person at most of these restaurants any other time of the year. Gotta take advantage while we can! Can't wait.