What a difference a week makes! Finally, I’m feeling more like myself again and on Sunday I had the most productive day I’ve had in weeks. By 10am I had done 4 loads of washing, made more of the Scrummy Slice, homemade apple and raspberry jam and was about to start on a bunch of pikelets for afternoon tea.
Hubble and I enjoyed afternoon tea under the shade of my favourite tree in the garden. Although Hubble did have to go back inside for more pikelets.
I also started the very long process of tea dyeing the lace tablecloth I’ve been babbling about for a few weeks. The difficulty I had in this process was that I didn’t have a big enough pot to put the tablecloth in, so I had to boil the water and steep the tea bags in one pot and then transfer it all to a bucket. I added salt to this water to help the dye set and I put in 28 tea bags with the strings cut off.
Then that is where it sat for just over 3 hours. I checked it occasionally to ensure none of the cloth had risen out of the water and to agitate it a bit to try and ensure the tea soaked into all bits of the cloth. I then rinsed it really well, about 4 buckets of fresh water before I was satisfied that the tea was all out. I then soaked it for 10 minutes in a bucket of cold water with a splash of vinegar to further set the dye and then rinsed it again a couple of times before laying it out on an airer to dry.
Once dried I ironed it and had a good look at the colour and I must say I was pretty impressed with the job. It was fairly even throughout.
Here are some photos of the table done up with the cloth. I love that the tablecloth has been refurbished and now has a new purpose.
The candle is from the Yallingup Candle Co. Click on the photo if you want to check out their website. Soy candles that have a lovely smell.
I have been also working on my next design for The Paisley Hummingbird, which I can’t show you yet but it’s very pretty. I also caught up on some of my Stitch Therapy 365, although I am now about 11 days behind at the time of writing this post.
I keep forgetting to show you a little pouch I made some time ago. It was a free pattern I got off Angela Walters’ gift along she held on Bluprint. It was so easy to make and is a good size. I’ll definitely be making a few more.
Last night I started a class with Lena from the Knit Purl Yarn Boutique in Kalamunda. It is a 5 week class to make the Grinda Shawl. It was so much fun and the ladies were lovely. I’ve always wanted to crochet a shawl but looking at the patterns just totally confused me. So when I saw the advertisement for it on Lena’s facebook page I knew that I just had to take part.
I’m also taking another class on Wednesday to get some instruction on how to do mosaic knitting. I can’t wait to show you the little sample I will do in class.
Well that’s it for this week. I will be mostly concentrating on my designs and hopefully catching up on some more of the Stitch Therapy 365. Miss M’s quilt top is still brewing in the back of my mind about what type of border I’m going to put on. Oh and I want to have a go a crocheting a zig zag blanket. So I have some sampling to do there.
Have a great week and until next time…get creative!
Amanda Harwood Creates... 