Painted silk scarf

A couple of Christmasses or birthdays (it's been a long while since I started this post) my eldest daughter gave me a silk-painting scarf kit. Both tie-dying and batik are things I've experimented with before , but I've never used silk as the fabric, so it felt a little daunting. 

It came with all the paints needed and a ready-hemmed piece of material to become the scarf  - but without any spare scraps to experiment on, so I was a bit nervous about starting. Get things wrong, and the whole project would be spoiled.

I decided it was an activity most suited to outdoors - that way splashes of paint didn't matter - so I waited till summer arrived, then set up my work station on the patio, using elastic bands to control where the paint would go. The technique is partly tie-dying, part painting as the material isn't immersed in dye.

It didn't turn out exactly as I expected - far more white patches than expected - so I might go back and repaint some sections but it's lovely as is.

 

Rainbow wool project

Just before Christmas my youngest daughter went to Riga for a weekend, and brought back this wonderful rainbow yarn for me. 

I struggled a bit to decide how to use it - there wasn't much, and I wanted something which would show off the marvelous colours, while avoiding the obvious thought of stripes.

This is what I decided on - stripes with stitch interest. It shows the colours off to perfection, and worked brilliantly as a scarf. As a hat, though it looked strange, like a baby's bonnet or something a flower fairy might wear so I decided to rip that back and start again.




















 This time I went for a simpler plain stitch with just an odd row of reverse stocking stitch at intervals to echo the similar lines in the scarf.

Scarf finished - and a change of plan

 Here's my first knitting project of the year finished already! One of my daughters bought me some fluffy sequined yarn for Christmas, and, with so much time over the holiday spent watching TV, it's already knitted and ready to wear!






So back to what I intended to knit next - or not. I'd sorted out a heap of blue/green/brown wool to knit into a short-sleeved jumper but, while thinking about stripes and patterns, I remembered this old long-sleeved jumper that I rarely wear any more, and I'm going to 're-do' that. I'll pull a thread or two and cut the sleeves just above the elbow, take the neck ribbing off (it's a bit high) and with unravelled yarn from the sleeves extend the rib at the bottom (it's a bit short for with jeans/trousers). It sounds a lot of fuss but will be quicker than knitting from scratch and I should have a finished garment while the weather's still cold.

One project finished, another begun....

Well, here I am looking relieved to have finished my cardigan knitting!
I started this back in September so it hasn't been the world's shortest knitting project but it was finished in time for the Boxing Day snowfall and has proved very handy for pottering in and out with laundry and dustbin rubbish these past few freezing days.

 Then immediately on to something new - for Christmas I was bought some fluffy, sequined yarn, perfect for a scarf, so I got out the needles, put on some other Christmas presents - dvds - and got knitting...

 I picked a feather pattern that gives a lacy, wavy finish but has simple repeats so I didn't need to be constantly checking against a written pattern....



and it's grown quickly....







after only a few days it's already about 3 feet long!

Trousers into Scarf project.

This is the third appearance of what was once a pair of orange velvet jeans. When the elder daughter was bored of them, they were cut into a pair of loose pull-on trousers for the younger one.

They've been worn and washed and eventually made their way to the 'charity bag' pile but I liked the material too much to let them go.
I've been wondering for a while what use I could make of orange velvet, then hit on the idea of a scarf - quick, easy, a couple of seams and done, hopefully.

The longest job was taking them apart and reducing them to 4 trouser shaped pieces. I carefully undid all the seams but needn't have bothered as I then cut all the edges off while turning into neat rectangles!
I was faced with two options at this point - either short, wide wrap or long thin scarf - and went for long and thin, sowing the short ends together....

...which made a long thin sausage to feed through the sewing machine.
Amazingly, even the turning right way round went easily
and

ta dah!!

finished scarf!

This definitely counts as upcycling as it's much more attractive than the trousers ever were!