Thing-a-day.com

Hand-dyed these rovings today. The wool is superwash (meaning it won’t felt), so these firey colours are destined to be spun into a skein of yarn.

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:

Today I started working on a paisley patterned duck egg which will be in red and pink tones. I’m drawing the paisley design mostly freehand. Curved designs like this one are a bit more challenging for me to draw in wax than straight-line designs like yesterday’s egg. Hopefully by tomorrow I can get the primary part of the design waxed and can start dying the egg more colors.

I finally understand the hype about duck eggs, and why so many people like using them for making pysanky. The surface of a duck egg is remarkably smooth compared to a grocery-store chicken egg. And that makes it much easier to make smooth straight lines with the kistka. I began dying and waxing my first large duck egg today. The design (so far) is more geometric than anything I’ve done previously. I used the egg lathe with a watercolor pencil to make even divisions on the egg. Tomorrow I hope to finish this egg and will post the result.

Today I worked more on the green egg that I started dying yesterday. The first part of the design (the green leaves with brown stems) was inspired by my jade plant. But it was looking too Christmas-y, so I outlined the leaves in gray, and added pink and blue to the background. (I’m using an electric kistka tool to heat and apply the wax, and aniline dyes to color the eggs.) I also used goo-gone to erase part of the wax design that I wasn’t happy with.

The final result was nice, but somewhat mottled in color. When I removed the wax from the outside of the egg, some of the dye started coming off as well, creating this uneven look. This doesn’t usually happen. I think I didn’t allow the egg to dry enough between dying and waxing.  Hopefully I can be more patient with my next egg!

Today I made homemade dye by boiling blueberries.

Silly me thought I would get a lovely indigo colour, however it’s pink.

I’m holding out on what I will be using the dye for, because that is for a future post.

For Day 5, I am going to decorate a container and fill it with pieces of paper that have yoga poses written on them. I am going to try doing my yoga practice from home, but I want it to be a no brainer, as well as mix the routine up so that it is different each day.