Three adults, two kids, a bag of rusty things: Eco Dyeing Again

My city recently had a Category 2 tropical cyclone pass through. Though it's been a couple of weeks since then, there were so many trees down that they are still cleaning them up. This poor gum tree still had enough roots in the ground for its leaves to be green, but it is still going to be cleared away.

I went for a little drive around with my cutters and grabbed some leaves for dyeing over Easter weekend: two kinds of gum and grevillea.

Out at a friend's place we dipped and wrapped for a couple of hours, pretty much every bit of fabric, shirt and cotton lace that I had taken.

The pots went very black when we boiled them. Always interesting to see what colour comes out the strongest. This pot had gum leaves in it:

This pot had none. But both had rusty things and vinegar. Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble indeed.

We wrapped so many things that we had to do two lots: that's four pots full in total.

Coffee while we wait? Why not.

The first batch had some spectacular colours when we hung them up wet.

The silk always takes up colours particularly well, like this shirt. It does seem to speckle the tea though, rather than soak up full patches of colour.

Interesting speckling on this fabric.

This pillowcase showed a lot of promise.

Once dried

This shirt didn't print any of the leaves that I wrapped in it, but it's interesting nonetheless.

And the lace at the top took up the tea leaves' copper colour for a nice contrast.

This silk shirt was magnificent: silk body and cotton sleeves that took up different colours. The green comes from onion skins. My friend wrapped this one up.

Even op shop doilies deserve a second chance in life. I think this one will make a nice patch on something.

First time dyeing cotton lace. Also looking forward to adding this to some clothes.

I found a whole box of these little bags. I was hoping that they were cotton and would take up the dye: turns out they are! They'll be nice little bags to put my jewellery in.

Lots of random scraps of fabric for patches.

And I was right: the sloth pillowcase was one of my favourite dye jobs of the day. Rather than being on a white background he is now firmly ensconced in the jungle.

Next favourite: this lace. Wish I had had more to dye!

Anther random piece of fabric.

But it has some great leaf prints.

Plain white skirt to eco dyed magic! Again, the green is from onion skins.

Lots of clear grevillea leaf prints here.

This was a white men's shirt. Strangely, there was a large section of rusty fence in the middle of this shirt that hasn't printed at all! Interesting effect though. Perhaps it needs a lino print in the middle?

This shirt was a pale mint green that now looks like it was tie dyed! There were lots of things wrapped in this.

Some very interesting patterns in it.

Last but not least, another white cotton shirt that had a flower pattern all over it.

Liking the sleeve details.

I wonder what will happen next time? #lovelypennypatterns

Op Shop Refashion - Green cotton shirt

Another op shop find in need of refashioning!

It's not my usual pick, but it's nice, light cotton and I like the embroidered detail. I can definitely refashion it into something.

I eco-dyed it to make it a less.. fluoro yellow colour. and it made a huge difference.

These markings were where I pushed rusty nails through the fabric to create a pattern. Unfortunately it damaged part of the fabric, but the top row of markings are undamaged. So I'll take some fabric off the bottom.

I really love the full leaf print on the back

I thought about taking the collar off, because I never like those. I wanted to shorten the sleeves as well. But the more I looked at the shirt the more I felt like it needed to stay whole. Maybe I could add something instead? I do have a whole box of trims!

 The red stands out a bit, but what else is there?

 I didn't mind this blue.

 Or the plain black, though I thought it darkened the whole shirt,

 Some roses? No?

 The winner - multi-coloured tassle braid.

I used the trim to cover the nail holes, and it was a simple straight sew to add it to the bottom.

 And shirt done!

#lovelypennypatterns

Dress Refashion: from Caftan to House Dress

A friend asked me to refashion this fantastic caftan that she had inherited into something more comfortable for our tropical climate.

A high collar =  not so good in the heat.

I unpicked the little decoration from the front and set it aside: it might make its way back on.

 Love those patterns! It came from somewhere like Singapore. It has birds, elephants, trees.

I started by taking the collar off, because I thought was going to change the neckline to a round one and it would be in the way. Rather than cut it off, I unpicked the stitches in case I could reuse the pieces.

It took a while, because the garment had been quite well made. But I didn't want to rip anything, so slow and steady it was. I watch a lot of background TV when I sew! Or musicals, they're good to sew to.

These parts could be useful in creating a new neckline.

Onto the sides, and I'll leave the neckline for last.
There's lots of spare fabric on the sides, which can be cut down.

There is already a seam that runs from under the arms to the hem, and the dress fits my friend with this seam, so I don't have to re-size or do anything too tricky.

My plan was the cut a seam allowance outside this line and then fold and hem the full length of the dress. But I'll need to cut out the top so that I can hem it at the same time. Bring in another dress of mine to use as a pattern. We're about the same size, which always make it easier.

I simply pinned around the dress... 

...and then realised that I had fabric pencils and replaced the pins with that! The pink circle is the belt hole from the caftan.

It looks like a different dress already 😁

Because the extra fabric from the caftan was on the outside of the dress, when I trimmed it down I needed to fold the fabric down and sew it flat to the dress,

A bit of manoeuvring around the machine.

Onto the collar: I left the original shape and used the support fabric that I had picked off to re-create it.

More and more promising! Excuse the creative chaos in the back...

Though, because the caftan wasn't quite centred, my shoulders did end up uneven.

It also gapes quite a bit under the arms. The blue is where the underarm line should be.

The solution? A cute little triangle shoulder fold, that serves the double purpose of making the shoulders look more even and lifting the underarm of the dress. I do this to some singlets and dresses that I buy, because I often find that the arm holes are too big.

Very happy with the top half of the dress.

And with the final dress! 
Because I lifted the shoulders it is a little it isn't as long as the original caftan, but that was floor-length and I usually find that I trip over hems when I'm around the house. Especially if you have stairs!

And there you have it: from caftan to house dress. Very happy friend, who has a few more of them for me to do too!

I'll have to think of some other patterns for the top 😊 #lovelypennypatterns