Incoherent Scribblings

RR Relief and an SBQ

I am going to start off with today’s SBQ. This question is something I thought of about a month ago, but just hadn’t posted it yet. I am posting it today because I have been in sort of a flurry to finish up the “Round Robin from Hell” and haven’t had time to properly think of another question. So, today’s question is:

Have you hand-dyed your own fabric? Why or why not? Would you like to try to do so?

Yes, I have… That’s why I thought of this question in the first place!

I decided to try dyeing my own fabric because I really like hand-dyed fabrics. However, I don’t have a credit card or PayPal so getting Silkweavers or other hand-dyed fabrics aren’t much of an option for me at the moment.

I was quite pleased with the way my hand-dye attempts turned out and will try it again in the future!

* * *

And now, for a report on the Round Robin from Hell… First off, I am finished!! YES!! I can’t wait to send this off to the next person so that I don’t have to see it again! I mentioned some issues I had with this robin a while back. However, that didn’t really even begin to touch the surface.

Not only was I unimpressed with the fact that the stitches weren’t consistent and that the pattern was boring and simplistic, I was also surprised to see that instead of stitching the RR borders, my partner drew them on the back! (I am not sure what she drew with, but I think it was colored pencil.)

The irony is that even though I found this pattern boring and simplistic, I had to start it over three times! The first time was because I didn’t get it centered properly in between all her pencil markings. The markings are just wide enough for the pattern to fit… but only if it is centered properly.

The second time was because it has a lot of DMC 702 in it and I ran out. When I bought my new skein it was apparently a different dye lot than what I had before and it was very obviously different. Luckily, I had only done about 5 rows, but it was still a pain in the ass to have to rip it out AGAIN!

But the third time was a charm. After I got it centered and had matching colors it did stitch up pretty quickly. I didn’t really time my stitching like I usually do because at first I had a hard time stitching on it for more than 30 minutes at a time. After my false starts I think it took me about 15 hours. In the last three days I probably stitched at least half of it because I knew I was getting close to being done and I really wanted to have it finished at least a week before the post date (August 10).

In addition to all that, another reason I nicknamed it the RR from Hell was because hubby and I were joking that the character looks suspiciously like a combination of the devil and “Darth Maul” from Star Wars: Episode I… We have been jokingly referring to him as “Clown Maul.” (ha ha) Anyway, I am done and very happy about that and if you really want to, you can see a pic of “Clown Maul” in my gallery.