Skeins...

foreground to background:

pink - beetroot

grey brown - black tea & wildberry tea

pink beige - beetroot (less alum used)

beige - black tea

yellow - tumeric (1 day in the dye and sun bleached afterwards)

pale yellow - bougainvillea

another closeup of the skeins

skeins of wool post-dye

Some of my first attempts at dyeing whole skeins of wool. These were all 50g balls which I unwound into skeins and tied with cotton threads. The cotton really helped prevent the wool from tangling up during the dye process. The amount of mordant & dyestuff needs to be refined though, as I'm not getting the depth of colour I get with the smaller amounts of wool.

The tea dyes had two rounds of tea each of one week to deepen the colour. I mordanted them again each time. The colours are still quite light though.

I've already started to over-dye again the pale beetroot skeins and the tea ones (for a third time!). I was hoping for a much darker pink on the second beetroot but for some reason the dye just didn't stick. I'm overdying the wildberry tea with more wildberry tea in the hope of a more grey colour. The plain black tea skein is being overdyed with some old red wine and will hopefully yield a darker brown colour.

This process sure encourages patience! Those few skeins are the result of about a month's work.

Dresses

Dress by Uniform Studio. I cannot help but think of the wrap dress from Weekend Sewing when I look at this. I think the cut of this dress is a little loose around the sleeves, but I love the light pinstriped linen. I have some light sand and white striped linen fabric that may look really nice in this style.

Kimono Wrap Dress from Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross. I was going to make it in black (which I still think I shall) but I think if the cut is nice, I'll make it in the linen too. Would be nice and light and cool in linen. Hmmmm....

Recycling

The Finished Singlet

View of the top details

Handmade buttons (kit from Daiso), handmade crochet neckline lace and cotton bobbin lace from Daiso

View of lace details

Buttons lace and soft grey knit fabric all make for happiness

In keeping with my year of no shopping pledge, a recycled singlet gets a new life with handmade details. An old singlet from Muji was looking tired around the neckline and sleeves so I cut off the old neckline and hand sewed on a crocheted one I had made ages ago and some new cotton lace sleeve edging. The buttons are from a button making kit I got at Daiso and covered with some striped cotton pillow case fabric I re-purposed.

Felted Hat

The Red Felted Hat

Wondering if the matching brooch is a good idea or not...

Details - though felted pretty closely, you can still see the shape of the crochet stitches

Brooch is nice on its own too... I eventually decided to make two separate brooches and just wear them as is and not on the hat

Hat looks better on a head I think

The hat is made from a simple hat design in a book called 'cool crocheted hats'. The yarn is Spotlight's own brand of pure wool in a orange red, with a ball of Daiso's red fluffy synthetic mohair. It is crocheted with a strand of each at once and felted well despite the synthetic.

Latest Batch of Dyes

The greys - dark brown on soy, light grey on wool and lighter grey on bamboo using black tea and iron water as mordant

The yellows - dark orange on soy, light yellow on wool, lemony yellow on bamboo using tumeric and iron water as mordant

Tumeric on cotton fabric with iron water mordant

I've had good success recently with yellows and greys. I'm really happy with the grey I got from iron mordanted wool with black tea.

Ooops

So I was wrong about Zorro bird. Its a Yellow Vented Bulbul. It has a yellow backside, likes fruit, berries and insects (plus lizards!), hangs out in pairs. Its song is very loud and distinctive. This one got caught in the rain and was sheltering under the awning, allowing me to get a good look at said yellow vented-ness.

I spy a zebra...

The other type of dove that frequents my garden. This one is smaller and has a pointier beak and is slightly blue in colour around the face. I think it is the Zebra Dove probably foraging for seeds and small insects.

This is also known as the Peaceful Dove. This is probably the male as it has a quite blueish head.