Sunday 11 March 2012

Weekend crafting

Edited to say:  There is a new giveaway at the end of this post.

If any of you are following the stash bash at Crunchy Catholic Momma you may have seen these felted dryer balls.  I am always looking for a way to reduce our energy consumption, so I thought I would give them a go...The problem...I did not have that much wool yarn I was willing to sacrifice.  I do however, have plenty of wool fleece.  So I made the centers from the fleece and wrapped the outside with the wool.

 A ball of fleece...
 ...rolled up as tight as I could manage...
 ...and wrapped with yarn...
 ...until I ran out of yarn...
This is what they looked like after one run through the washer and one through the dryer.  I forgot to time the dryer to see if the load was any faster than usual...to be determined next laundry day.

Here is the funny thing...the grey/green and the beige/pink in the picture above...that was my attempt at buying colour a few years back.  It was a very determined attempt to buy "not beige" and "not grey".  I love colour, but for some reason I seem physically incapable of actually buying it and bringing it home.  I am working on it.

And, and update on my felted eggs.  The project was put on hold for a while because I was angry with it.  The cat kept running away with the eggs and shredding them...no matter where I hid them.  But I finally got to it this weekend.
 One set almost done...
 ...second set needing the blanket stitch...
 ...the hands down favourite...everybody loves this one in my house.
 ...ta-la...wouldn't this be cute in a play kitchen?  I'll have to save that idea.
So with the projects here, and a few others I have been working on, I have used up half of my stash of fleece...going from two large bins, down to one. 

And, for those of you who are interested...here is a sampling from my summer (a few years back, now) of dyeing wool with things from my yard...
From left to right:  white - just washed and brushed...no dye; technicolour yellow - goldenrod flowers with tin; that strange nameless colour - dandelion and then sage with copper;  pale yellow (really pretty actually) - is either goldenrod flowers and leaves with tin, or yarrow with alum (sorry, but on my colour swatch board they are very similar); second row: pinky/beige - peppermint with alum; pink - red rose petals, strawberries, and raspberries with alum ( the same thing with tin gives a strange grey); purple - alum with blueberries; and black - peppermint with iron.  Most of these were tried out searching for green. 
Didn't find it!  
This is how I kept track...little swatches with a tag underneath.  Clearly some have fallen off.  That's OK, they were probably beige.  I have a lot of beige in the test bin.

Have any of you ever made green with a common plant?  Please comment if you can help me out.

I'll be linking up with Crunchy Catholic Momma for stash bash, Wisdom Begins in Wonder for Fiber Arts Friday.

11 comments:

  1. Your egg is amazing! I am so glad you were able to keep it away from your cat; now I want to try and make one. Thank you for the wonderful idea.

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  2. wow natalie, your crafting is so inspiring! i am signed up for a dying class since i've never done it (on my own) before. i love how you've kept track and your results.
    i hope you make the leaf cloths, i think you'll like the pattern very much!

    and now i need to make some dryer balls!

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  3. Hahaha, great post. I can just picture your cat with the felted eggs! My dog loves them too. They look great though, I'd love to make some too.

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  4. I was thinking of making some of those wool balls. Yours look beautiful! Thanks for the inspiration.

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  5. Great stuff! I love the wool balls, what's a great idea. And the egg--adorable!

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  6. Very sweet! I have also used yucky yarn for the inside of my dryer balls and finished off with wool yarn in the past and they also worked fine. Let me know how they work for the laundry!

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  7. If you are not opposed to using things other than common plants for your dye, you could try something like easter egg dyes or kool-aid.
    I love the colors you get from nature, especially the pinks!
    and the eggs are super cute :)

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  8. Oh I love the sample color guide for natural dying, I may have to give some of these a try!

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  9. Love the dye samples... would love to start dying with natural plants.

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  10. Good luck finding the green. I dyed with some marigold heads last year and got an unusual gold-ish color. Your felted eggs are super cute.

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  11. Haha, I can just see the cat running off with the felted eggs. Those turned out really cool.

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