Thing-a-day.com

Today was quick and easy.  I had some left over crochet cotton and I needed some more dishcloths, so I made some. 

my friends gave me a tshirt that has a bunch of pandas in various tai chi poses. the sleeves were a little too long and bunched up a little under my arms, so i altered the sleeves to be capsleeves. i matched the sleeves to another tshirt of mine that fit well. i thought that i could just sew under the arms to make the sleeves tighter, but i ended up having to cut off the sleeves and re-sew them onto the shirt because they were angled too high before. it’s probably not that noticeable a difference (besides the fact that they are shorter) but i’m happier with the fit, and the shirt/sleeves are more comfortable as a result (doesn’t pull across the shoulders or bunch up under my arms as much).

before	after

Posting this a couple days late because I forgot to photograph it on Sat. night when I made it. I wove two Weavette squares from my hand-spun, home-grown, naturally coloured, brown cotton. Then I sewed the squares into a bag. I messed up the weaving a bit because I was in a hurry on Friday when I was weaving the squares (Thing 22). I learned that brown cotton, loosely woven, bears a visual resemblance to burlap, so next time I’ll probably choose a different technique for this cotton.

i reconstructed another oversized tshirt today:

i got the idea from 99 ways to cut, sew, trim, and tie your t-shirt into something special (#15, mimi) but had to modify the sleeves to make them fit better and also made the belt significantly shorter.

Today I finally spun some of my homegrown, naturally coloured cotton. Here’s a picture of the raw cotton. Yes, it really is chipmunk brown. I gin it (remove the seeds) at boring meetings at work. I love naturally coloured cotton and I grew a few plants in pots almost every year, alternating green or brown strains. It’s really cool stuff, because the colour doesn’t fade with sun or age. But you do have to be careful not to grow it near white cotton, to eliminate cross-pollination. For more info, see www.vreseis.com (my cotton isn’t FoxFibre, BTW).

Cotton rolag with hand carder (it’s a wool carder because I don’t own cotton carders:

Spun on a tahkli (Indian supported spindle). I did this during breaks at work. It’s a bit slubby because it wasn’t carded commercially:

Skein wound off on a niddy noddy:

Setting the twist. The twist of cotton has to be set with heat and moisture. I added a tsp. of baking soda because the colour deepens in an alkali solution.

Drying the skein. The weight of the cup is necessary to help set the twist:

If all goes well, I hope to make something with this skein and post it tomorrow.

i remade a american apparel men’s XL tshirt today:

i got the idea from save this shirt (fit to be thai’d) but didn’t realize until afterwards that the part that is woven through the back is supposed to remain connected to the rest of the shirt. i don’t think it matters all that much though. if i were doing it over again, i would have made the length a little bit longer, but otherwise, i’m happy with it.

tonight i dyed a turtleneck from a creme color to gray. i know that’s totally boring, but it had to be done, and it probably wouldn’t've happened for another month or more (past turtleneck-wearing season), had it not been for thing.a.day…

why not just buy a gray turtleneck, you ask? that’s a good question! i did look for one, but i couldn’t find one that i liked and that didn’t tickle my neck… you see, i have this thing about turtlenecks and can’t usually wear them—in fact, i haven’t worn them since high school until this year… because they tickle my neck, and i used end up having to pull them down off my neck all day whenever i would wear them… but i found a kind that i like… it’s thin and good for layering and the neck is loose enough (but not too loose!) so it doesn’t tickle my neck. i bought a bunch of them in multiple colors, but they were out of gray. so i bought a creme-colored one thinking that i could dye it if i needed to… and i even continued to look for another gray turtleneck, but couldn’t find one… this was like 3 months ago…. and i tend to procrastinate about stuff like this… so it didn’t look like i would actually get a gray turtleneck anytime soon, but today, because i hadn’t made a thing yet, i decided that would be my thing today, and i actually dragged myself to the store after work, bought some dye, and dyed/dried the whole thing when i got home. thank you, thing.a.day! my other clothes thank you too, for now they will have a gray turtleneck companion to keep them company!

also, here is a picture of a scorpion that i took the other day but forgot to upload:

cotton fabric (by Anna Griffin purchased from reprodepot.com) with lace embellishments.

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