A few summers back I wrote a post about my obsession with a blog called New Dress A Day, and how I thought I would give it a go... and failed epically. It really wasn't pretty, and I just feel bad for the vintage dress that gave its life for my attempt. I resigned myself to the fact that my sewing machine should be kept strictly for the purposes of minor repairs and hems.
But then, four years ago, I bought this dress:
I loved this dress. It was simple, it was fun, it was SUMMER. On roughly the second time I wore it, I attempted to replace an ink cartridge in my printer, and got a blob of pink ink right in the front center of the waist.
I immediately took a Tide pen to it. Stain remover. Bleach. Everything I could think of. Nothing would work. That pink stain was there to stay. So I threw it to the side in my laundry room and tried to think no more of it.
Then this week it caught my eye. And I remembered how in New Dress A Day, she often fixes stains by dyeing a garment. Cover it right up. I bought a bottle of pink dye (to match the ink stain) and went to town.
Well. First of all, they tell you to stir it constantly for thirty minutes. CONSTANTLY. Does anyone actually do this? I figured an occasional stir would do. Then they tell you to "rinse repeatedly until the water is clear". What they don't tell you is that takes infinity rinses. INFINITY. I don't know that it would have ever stopped coming out at least a bit pink, so I gave up, washed it with some detergent, and called it a day.
And it's not bad. It's not like the butchery I did to the dress in my previous post. But... well, I think the stirring mattered.
It's still super cute, and it no longer looks like there's a big stain on the middle. But it's... well, blotchy is the only word to describe it. I guess the whole stirring thing mattered. Add "fabric dye" to the list of things I shouldn't be allowed to play with.
Fortunately, there is one DIY thing that I'm really good at. I love, and I mean, love knitting. I love spinning my own yarn, I love all the different tools (the needles, the cable needles, the stitch markers, the yarn swift, the magnetic board I have to hold my lace patterns, all of it!), I love sitting with a project on my lap and a dog at my side and good show on the TV. Most of all, I love lace knitting. I love watching a design appear from my needles as if by magic. I love the dainty thread. I love it all.
For years people have been telling me to sell my knitted items. I flat out refuse, for multiple reasons. For one, if I charged what I should for each item given the cost of materials and the time spent making it, the cost would be astronomical. Especially given how long it takes to knit lace. But more importantly, I don't want a second beloved pasttime to become a job. I love music, and I love being a music teacher. But I have found over the past 15 years of teaching music that the stress of the job has taken some of the joy out of singing for me. I rarely do it on my own anymore, because all of that energy goes into my kids. I don't regret it, not for one second. But I need knitting to stay mine. My stress relief, my joy, my quiet nights alone. Mine.
But I've decided to make a small knitted shawlette as a giveaway on my Instagram. It's still not selling it, and I enjoyed the crap out of knitting it. I used leftover silk yarn, and it's gorgeous.
I often make items for friends as a gift (if they've requested it and I know they want it, because no one wants to be the person forcing handmade crafts on uninterested friends, and never again a sweater), but unless you're on my best friend tier, you've never before had one of my knitted items. Now's your chance! Head on over to my Instagram for the chance to win it!
And remind me to keep to knitting and leave all other DIY crafts alone in future.
No comments:
Post a Comment