Cotton, Hawthorn, and Other Things

I ordered cotton/bamboo yarn for the store when one of my customers mentioned a difficulty finding cotton yarns for not a lot of money.  It came on two cones but they were smaller than I had thought they would be.  I knew that I had ordered fingering weight, and the cones had the yards per pound listed when I bought them, but I'm so bad at extrapolating that when fingering weight yarns got here, I was surprised by how small fingering can be.  They wrap up at 20 WPI.  So, a small fingering, but still fingering.

Anyway, I set about re-learning how to dye cottons with Procion dyes from Dharma.  I figured that I would practice with some white t-shirts that my sister-in-law passed down to my son from her son.

There were 4 more shirts that didn't look as good so I didn't get pictures.

I followed the instructions and a day and a half later, I now have these;

Eight single-color skeins and one that color shifts.

Next up, I needed to get another sewing bag done for the shop before I felt free to sew my Hawthorn.  I used my dyed muslin from a few years ago;

I loved it so much that I elected to keep it.  That is MissT's Vortex shawl in progress.  I dyed that yarn, too.

I have two weeks to prepare for the Rouse's Summerfest, the next event that I'm vending for.  I have something like 100 skeins yet to dye, stitch markers to get made, stitch markers to put on the cards that I've prepared, soaps labeled and bagged, and the rest of Life to manage while I do it.

Hawthorn languishes, uncut, but ever in my mind.  I was really hoping to wear it when I'm vending Summerfest.

We're expanding our chicken coop this weekend.  Maybe that will be the next blog post!

Hawthorn Sew-Along, Day 1

Have pattern, printing it now.  I have sorted through my fabrics and identified my largest pieces.  I'm probably not going to be making a muslin as I don't have a similar fabric to make it with.  I only have quilting fabrics and...muslin!  I am in the process of working out if I have enough fabric to make the sleeveless dress or if I'll only be able to create the blouse version.  Here is the fabric that I want to work with;

Rust colored linen blend from JoAnn's.

I've also printed out the pattern for Sorbetto.  I figure I'll play with that today.  After I mend some of Raina's things!

Crafting ADD for the win!  I'm buzzing along happily with yarn dyeing, soap making, jewelry making...and WHIPLASH!  Sewing jumps up and says "HELLO!"

I'm going to jump right into this;