It’s been a while since I’ve posted about my blackwork needle-case. I took a small break while I was doing the research on the cotte project. After picking it back up a few days ago, I’m almost half done with the cover. Doesn’t sound like much, but let me give you some perspective.
Each repeat is about 1 cm squared. Yep, one cm. Each one takes me 30 to 45 minutes to complete. If I over or under stitch by even one thread, I have to rip out back to the point where I digressed. I admit that I am pretty slow, but my work has less and less mistakes as I go along, which means less and less ripping out. I’m hoping that as I practice, I’ll be able to go faster – or at least I’m still holding out hope.
At this moment I’ve made it this far:
The red solid lines are the outline, and the dashed one is the middle. It’s coming along, and it helps make watching “Supernatural” less scary.
On to the side-laced cotehardie.
I’m picking out the color for my fabric, and I’m leaning towards a bluish-green. I test dyed two different colors of linen. Both of these linens I have used to make several items, and I’m pretty tired of the colors. It was on sale for a really good price, so I bought way too much.
I’ve been into tie-dying for the last couple of years. It started out as a fun thing to do at a non-traditional baby shower, and it stuck. I’ve moved on from using Rit dye. Please, please, please, please never use Rit dye to dye nice linen. Don’t even use it to dye not so nice linen. Dharma Trading Company sells the best fiber reactive dyes that don’t fade and don’t bleed. This is what I use http://www.dharmatrading.com/html/eng/3796-AA.shtml?lnav=dyes.html. I have a bunch of odds and ends left from tie-dying, and I’m trying to find a good mix to make a nice color. Of course I do promise my good friend E that I’ll replace anything I use up.
Today’s mix was brilliant blue and emerald green, about half and half. I mixed a very small amount and let it soak for a couple of hours.
Recycled containers are great for this kind of work.
The fabrics under each swatch are the base colors. The swatches are what the fabric looked like after dying. With this mix, I like the green one better. A bit darker would be nice, but the tone is good. Tomorrow I’ll try a bit more blue.