Dyed threads with Inktense

I mentioned yesterday that I'd been playing about with my new set of Inktense paints. These are the skeins of white crochet cotton that I experimented with dyeing. I painted two skeins with a mix of yellow, red and orange, and a third with blues and green.

The results were mixed, but overall positive. As you can see, the colours aren't in-your-face vivid, but soft and rather pretty. I probably could achieve bolder colours with applying a second layer. How I'd dyed these was to use a water spray and mist the skeins first of all. Then I applied the Inktense and allowed the crochet cotton to dry out on top of the radiator. Then, as the Inktense needs a decent amount of heat for the dye to set, I carefully ironed the skeins. That worked with the orange-yellow skeins, but when I wrapped the blue-green skein around the plastic holder some dye did come off and stain my fingertips. Maybe I hadn't ironed that as much as I should've? Never-mind, it's good enough to use on my banner, the one I started on Wednesday at the Stitch Art workshop. Speaking of which ...

I'm making progress. I took this picture earlier on today, and since then I've used chain stitch to embroider 'Let Cities Grow' and am continuing to add more leaves and vegetation. I've been sewing while listening to podcasts, and I think I might start on 'The Archers' now as I've several episodes to catch up with. Yup, that's my idea of an enjoyable Friday evening. Stitching, relaxing, nibbling on a chocolate mini egg or two. Other people can go out clubbing till all hours. I'll stretch out on the sofa instead!

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Taking a blog break ...

Hello! And goodbye, at least for now. The blog's on hold for a little while as I'm easing myself into 2026 gradually. I'm still stitching and reading and enjoying life with Badger the cat. Even though he treats my sofa like a giant scratching post!

Badger!

Here's Badger, looking like the little cutie-pie he is. He's settled in so well, is absurdly affectionate and eats anything and everything I put in his food bowl. The only fault I can find is that he likes to sharpen his claws on the side of my sofa. This is despite having two scratching posts, one of which is part of a cat tower that's taller than I am! I may have to try trimming his claws, but I don't know how Badger will react to that. Anyway, expect to see more photos of him, so sorry in advance for any of you who aren't feline fans. Apart from gazing in admiration at the cat I've continued to experiment with embroidery. I really can't decide whether this mainly pink piece of stitching is something I like or just a dog's dinner of a mess. This is another embroidery I've been stitching. Frankly, at the moment it looks like it should be lobbed straight into the bin. I'd painted with a mix of watercolour pa...

Final post for 2025 (I think. I mean, unless anything amazingly wonderful happens that I can't keep to myself any longer ...)

The days are marching by at record speed, and I've finally - possibly - bought all the presents I need to buy and written all the Christmas cards I need to send. I decided not to put up a full-sized tree this year as I'm convinced Badger the cat would simply view it as a climbing frame, and I'd find it toppled on a daily basis. Instead, there's a small green tree, and a simple white twiggy one that has lots of vintage baubles dangling from it. To be honest, I prefer the twiggy one, so the green tree might be permanently retired from now on. I've not gone crazy with the decorations, but there are various strings of fairy lights that look so pretty when they're lit. I have - between internet shopping and baking mince pies - made a little fishy pin cushion, decorated with seed stitches, French knots, chain stitch and stem stitch. I'm on the look-out for grey tweedy material to make another fish as I think that'd look better than plain ...

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