Here's the result of some dyeing I did during the summer at my old job:
The three on the left are all dyed with violet lupin flowers. The yellow ones are dyed with onion and the red ones with a mixture of cochineal and madder. The striped one used to be a yarn in the french colours bleu-blanche-rouge, but I think it looks much, much better this way! Aluna was used for all of these soups.
There's also a small apricot- or salmon-coloured ball of yarn in the front. That's a silk-alpaca yarn dyed with japanese safflower. It's used for dying silk and gives both yellow and pink shades. If you're interested to know more about how it worked out for us, take a look at this blog kept by one of my old colleagues. There's also a bit more information about the lupins.
Here's another thing I learned this past summer:
I spun my first skeins of yarn! And everything is made from scratch. The sheep is called Elviira (in the middle of the picture below, picture by Espoon kaupunginmuseo) and I helped shearing here, then I carded the wool by hand and finally spun it into yarn. Can't wait to start knitting something out of it!
I've always looked at teachers walking around with their keys hanging around their neck in a beautiful lanyard and thought for myself "If I one day become a teacher, I want to have a nice looking lanyard myself!". And now that I have my new job and my new keys, the only thing that was missing was the lanyard.
But since big, colourful lanyards pretty much catches the eye, I made three of them - all in different colours and all designed to match different kind of clothings. The yellow-brownish pearl lanyard is for my retro clothing. The white and pink lanyard with crochet pearls is for sweet and girlish light-coloured clothing. And finally the violet one (looking almost black in the picture) is for casual clothing.
The pattern for the violet crochet lanyard can be found here at the blog Pienestä Suurta. I made my lanyarn 5 dc wide and then added a loop at the bottom to hang my keys at.
The pattern for the crochet pearls is from a very good book called Lankatekniikoiden käsikirja. If you're interested in special techniques using yarn, I really recommend this book. It has anything from frivolité to tunisian crochet and needle lace.
It seems like everyone has gone mad about dresses this summer. So have I. Or well, actually I've been mad about skirts and dresses for quite some time already. You hardly ever see me in a pair of trousers anymore. And I've tried to master the skill of sewing every once in a while - to make dresses I like - but with hardly any success.
The first one I made is this one. Haven't used it that much anymore. After my proudness of actually finishing something using a sewing machine had worn off, I started to see all the stupid mistakes I had made and that kind of ruined the dress for me.
The second dress I made hasn't even made it to my blog yet. It needs some serious fixing... And the third one. Well, it was perfect. It was a beautiful 50's style dress with a wide skirt and a perfect fit for my body. Man, I was just so, so proud of it. I wore it on my graduation party a year ago in May and a couple of more times during that summer. But unfortunately I didn't take a picture of it while wearing it. And that's a real pity, because then I tossed it into the washing machine, and the damn thing shrunk. It shrunk so much that I just can't fit into it anymore. And I was just so guttered for so long, that I really didn't feel like sewing anything. The dress is still waiting for a miracle: me to either loose weight or to find the inspiration to make some pretty damn big changes to it. But here's a picture of it anyway. Perhaps you can at least sence the beauty it once posessed.
So, all of you out there who want to start sewing something: always, ALWAYS, wash and shrink the fabric BEFORE cutting and sewing it!! I've learned my lesson. I hope you won't have to learn it the hard way.
But this summer I took the bull by the horns and started sewing again. Mostly because I figured I really should practise a little bit more before teaching sewing in high school. And this is my first take on a dress in tricot.
The fabric is from lovely PaaPii and is called Onnenlintu. The design is my own, but since the pictures were taken, I've actually redone the sleeves (I really wasn't ready for puff sleeves just yet) and added some pockets.
I absolutely love this fabric. It's so retro and earthly. And it feels so lovely on your skin!
These pictures were taken in Hanko when I gave away these socks, but a few days earlier we also visited a winery near my parents' house. They had huge wine barrels on the yard and a cute, little friend right next to them. Really loved their ciders and white wines, too. You should definately pay them a visit if you happen to drive by!
p.s. Thanks dad for the photos!
