January Finishes

 I bought this framed vintage car in an op shop and immediately thought about tearing it out of the frame and making a boys baby quilt out of it. Thank you very much to the maker, whom has painstakingly cross stitched this for me. Colour Inspiration- check, center focus - check , and left over triangles in brights already cut for me. Easy Peasy.. rip up an old sheet and quilt made in two afternoons. Got to be pretty happy with that! I put a running tacking stitch in red to give a little interest in the zigzag. One down , two girl quilts to go!

I riffled through all the bits of printed cottons I had and started whipping up cushions. Some I have crocheted edges to, others left simple.

I have also eco dyed some cloth to get leaf imprints on the fabric . I have then echoed the eco print with either a eucalypti flower or the actual leaf shape. 

 And more printing
magnolia flower and seed pods

Fan shapes

That's my crafted lot!

Crochet Cushion in Purple

12 weeks ago I hand dyed some wool using purple carrots. When one dyes (that being me) one does not always have a purpose in mind. I love to potter and tinker with pots and plants and brew. I am always on the lookout for wool ball ends in the op shops...but have noticed lately that it is cheaper to buy a whole ball of natural wool when on special and then you are guaranteed no moths visiting with the wool.

Diving into my bag of dyed wool oddments  I decided to go with this pattern .

It was a pick up and put down ordeal, and progress was slow. (It doesn't help the creative side of me to function if I am working full time) 

So eventually we got to a stage of it being big enough for a cushion.

I started the edging following the pattern and did not like it, so instead made my own up.

This is the  underside (wrongside) of the crochet

 A closer look at the trim.

 And one completed cushion

Natural wool dyes in pomegranate, purple carrot, acorn, eucalyptus, and berries

Cushion for sale in shop

Sock Finish

Following on from the last blog post I thought I would actually show a comparison of the colours obtained from the purple carrot. When you look at the carrot it actually almost looks black and when cut bleeds a dark purple juice, they are dark purple the whole way through. It is only recently that these heritage carrots have started appearing in the greengrocers. I think that as more people are steering to vegetarian/vegan diets the variety of vegetables grown for market has increased. (They have always been around and as my friend informed me the purple colour was bred out of the carrots) Other than the colour I can say I am not at all attracted to the taste of these carrots, they are strong and almost bitter. I will save them for dyeing and at least I wont have to race my children to them, as all have vetoed them because of their flavour.

 Squares so far

And 21 weeks later a pair of socks is finally finished!
I actually have made three socks because I introduced the wrong colour purple in to one of them and decided I might as well finish that sock and match them up later. So. so far we have one pair and the promise of a second pair.
My mother has very quickly nabbed these to take to Holland with her. They are just a tiny bit short in the toe department for me and fit her perfectly.- they have happily been adopted. The second pair I have adjusted for the largeness of my foot (size 12 womens, 44 US= that is nothing to brag about but at least I am well grounded!)

Not perfect by any means but I am happy to be finished/