I dug out my stash of wool bits and pieces today. When I came here from Seattle one of the things I couldn't leave behind was all the bits and pieces of wool I had collected. I had a reweaving shop there for years and spent many a long day with piles of cashmere sweaters on my lap, patiently reknitting the holes to make them disappear. Often when I had to shorten a sweater I would have huge pieces of fabric left over. I would always give my customer the extra pieces but before I did I would wind a little onto a card and put it in my box. THis helped me much when someone brought in a sweater that had no place where I could find extra yarn...and often would help the original owner when they brought their sweater back but had managed to lose the spare piece I had returned to them. I looked at this pile of wool today and realized just how many sweaters I must have worked on if this represented only a tiny percent of the sweaters I did ( most times I did not harvest any yarn from a sweater, only when I shortened them)
I was quite sad to see that somehow I missed at least one box of my wool. Where are the reds? The pinks and oranges? All the wonderful sunny yellows and golds? Sad that they were left behind. I had pulled out these wools as I had a new idea for a square. I decided to do a sunrise on this wonderful piece of shimmer taffeta in the center of this photo. I was going to take pieces of wool and build up a misty cloudy effect. A sunrise on a cloudy morning. I am still going to try to accomplish something along this idea. I am doing two dye baths this week, one of them in pink, maybe I will add a few pieces of wool and see what I get. Since dyeing is an all new thing for me I am wandering into unexplored territory.
Last but not least...more strips! I sat and cut these the last two evenings. I am making a rug for my MIL like the one I did for my bathroom. She fell in love with mine when she came to visit and she does have need for a nice bathroom mat. I hope I get this done by christmas. I have 1500 strips cut for her rug. It should take about 5000 so almost a third of the way done. WIsh me luck *grin*
Hi Diane,
ReplyDeleteAbout opening an etsy shop: it's reasonable money wise and fun but also a lot of work. If you enjoy making handbags why not make so inventory and give it a go. Your only loss would be time.
You already know that wool loves dye...you can come up with some really nice surprise colors...just remember your color wheel! Oy!
ReplyDeleteAs for all those strips, I feel for you 0o These rugs have so much time, effort, and Love put into them...they are worth more than silver or gold! =)