Always expect the unexpected....

 

Last time I showed you these three coiled - er - thingies, and said I was going to wash one and run another through the embellisher.

So I did.

I'm not quite sure what I thought would happen. I did expect the paler one (which went in the washing machine) to shrink - but not quite this much. I love the little tails, but it is a bit too shrunk for my liking - perhaps putting it in a hot wash with my towels was a bit over the top?

But the big surprise was the effect of the embellisher. The fabric curled up around the needles quite dramatically, producing what Wensleydale called 'a little hat' - I turned it the other way round to make the brim. And it blended the colours together beautifully on the underside - you can just see the result in the top image. I want to make more of these.

While I had the embellisher out, I tried an idea from an article by Samantha Pope in issue 36 of 'Quilting Arts', which suggested embellishing yarns in a sandwich of net. Now I have written whinged before on this blog about the inadequacy of some magazine instructions, and I didn't really think this would work, but I tried it anyway. I hereby apologise unreservedly to Ms. Pope for ever having doubted her. Her instructions are clear, and the technique works brilliantly.

As you can see.

The top image is the 'wrong' side, the other is the side that was uppermost on the embellisher. I used dark green net, but it is almost invisible.

One thing I really like about the techniques is that it is quite delicate - you may be able to see the holes in places - and could be even more delicate than this is. On her website Ms. Pope has some pieces mounted on interesting backgrounds - like corrugated iron.

My problem now is deciding which is the right side, as I want to add some stitch, unless I can get really clever and make it two-sided.

And then I want to make some more.

 

I also have some experimental hand stitching in progress - show you that another time - some socks on the needles for watching Scandinavia-noir (noire?), some crochet scrunchies promised to Babybel a long time ago, some apps to explore - oh, and some cycling to watch.

It's a quiet life when you're retired.