Monday, August 17, 2009

A bit of Sewing & Dye'ing

I had gotten some scrap leather from a very good friend--scrap for him, but *more* than enough to do things with for me. So, I took the strips of leather (gold & red) and started making a waist cincher for myself.

The cincher is an easy project; I've already got a complete and fitted pattern. Plus there was *just* enough leather for the cincher, as the leather came in strips and scraps.

I pieced together the strips of leather to be able to cut out some of the the pattern pieces and used some of the scraps for others. This is the *first* time I've actually worked with leather for anything. the scraps allowed me not to worry about "ruining" a whole hide of leather. I was "winging" the overall look of the cincher with the scraps, but it managed to pull itself together really well. I had enough left over red pieces to even make little decorative buckles.

I had fun putting that together. I went through two leather needles making the whole of the project. It's done, except I still have to do the bindings and the grommets. The leather binding is going to be a pain since I'm going to have to hand-sew the inside of the binding. UGH! THAT might take me a bit of time and effort.

While I was busily sewing the leather, I had a pot of blood red dye on the stove on low heat and dye'ing up some of the handspun I had finished at least 1-2 weeks before that were sitting resting. (I *really* need to get some used thrift-store crockpots for this!)

There was some generic long wool (unknown sheep), one skein of fawn BFL, and one skein of tawny Corriedale. I added the long wool and BFL first, then several hours later added the Corriedale. After about 5 hours, it absorbed all of the dye, and is now hanging drying in the spare bathroom.

Some of my first Handspun

The then-wet colors looked absolutely brilliant although I know that they'll dry a bit lighter, so I'm waiting to see how it looks when finishing the drying process.

In between all of it, I got a bit of spinning done. I started on some dark grey Icelandic wool, which, while feels a little scratchy as the roving, feels really nice spinning. Of course, it'll might knit up a bit itchy.

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