Finished product

So here are the final pictures of the tie dye marathon. I think my favorite by far is the one below.

Blue hands

Originally uploaded by shelleystimson

Now i have rinsed though all the terry squares and babygros with now colour left on my hands until the last 3 squares!!

But I do love to open each little bundle up and see what random patterns turn up

Alotta Cotton!

Originally uploaded by shelleystimson

This is what 4.5Kg of cotton looks like :)

Tie Dye for the nation!

Its been way too long since my last update.
So i have had a few days at home with the snowy cold weather so i caught up on some dying.
I have done some of my Nieces babygros and bits. I had some little vests from a craft fair I was going to do and I have been given a huge bag of terry squares to tie dye for a friend.
After twisting and securing i weighed it out to 4.5KG of cotton!!
They are all dyed and rinsed so now i have blue hands :)

I will post the pictures of my favorites.

The busy day of Friday.

Friday is my day off. I therefore try to cram as much as i can in. It was too hot to go to the gym so i decided to dye up some more yarn and sunbath.

Here are the willow leaves & twigs cooking up along side dinner :). A combination of spaghetti, meatballs and willow that smells like lemon when cooking is a very odd combination.









I am dyeing up some wool mix for someone on Ravelry and this is my process -


I presoaked in citric acid and mixed up Cerulean blue with some lemon yellow.
I microwaved for 5 mins and left it to cool.
When I rinsed it out it was very green so i though i would put it in for a second blast.
I rinsed it through again and its a nicer blue/green but a bit patchy.
Hopefully when its balled up it will look nicer.

A pot of Willow

Im am boiling a pot of Willow leaves and twigs today. I cut these from my tree that is far too big for my liking and chopped them with my secutures and filled the tub with water. I planned to wizz them in my blender like i had read but it just jammed the machine up.

I have put them all in my pot and brought it up to boil. This has been by far my most pleasent smelling dye to date, smelling of a strange lemon zest, but i have only got fermenting bean & smokey tea to campare.
I am going to use wool this time and follow all the correct procedures and NOT in an excited frenzy think that it is ok to not wait for it to cool or keep touching the wool so it felts.

On the way home today i spied a eucalyptus tree with the long thin leaves, now i have to just pluck up the courage to ask if i can have some leaves. In the mean time the guy from work reckons hes has a eucalyptus at his farm and i should have some by monday!

I rinsed out my tea soaked cotton today as you can see above. I will post a dry picture tomorrow.

Where to start?

Well, hello!!
This is my blog. At the moment im not quite sure what to do but i cant wait to get all my stuff on here.