Messin and a Gommin, Correction and a Doodle

Happy Thursday  and welcome, ya'll. How has your week been so far? Mine has been very soggy. Lots and lots of rain since Monday and more rain through the day is expected. But on the plus side that is good stitching weather. 

I have been working on a new saltbox.  Here is a sneak peek. 

Speaking of saltboxes, I made a little oops on Spring Green Saltbox. I  have seen many stitchers working  on it, and many have finished it. I  believe many stitched right through  the mistake probably knowing what I meant to  chart. Lol. But I wanted to point it out  and make the correction. 

In my first photo, I have my scissors pointed to an area which uses  DMC 937 and uses the symbol $   . There were a couple of squares that were accidently charted with the symbol " 3". They were supposed to be charted with the symbol $ for 937. 

The 2nd photo has my scissors pointed to the top of the flower leaf. There was the symbol •  ( which is 310) . It was supposed to be the symbol  3 which is for DMC 3345 the same as the rest of the leaf . 

I have corrected both the colored and black charts. You can click here to go to the original post or you may want to make a note on your copy.  I am so sorry about that, and hope it has not caused too much inconvenience or confusion.   Please if you ever see anything that seems off  in a chart, let me know. It is truly appreciated. 

Well, what else have I been up too - a little messin and gommin. That's what we say in the south when we are making a mess. Do you want to come along with me and see?  We are off to the kitchen. 

I was recently asked about how I dyed my aida. There are a lot of wonderful tutorials out there, but I will tell you how I do mine probably not much different than you do. 

First, I know you might be wondering do I actually cook with all that stuff on my the stove. Yep I do , but I am always right with it . Usually I cook on my other  stove though. 

First, I cut a hunk of 14 count aida and gather up my supplies. I used coffee, family size tea bags and sometimes cinnamon . Sometimes I also add black walnuts  but not this time though.

Usually, I use about 4 or 5 tea bags, a cup of coffee grounds and a couple of tablespoons of cinnamon- I like the smell. This time hubby saved me some used tea bags so I have those to add in too. 

 I dampen my aida so it is easy to put in the pot. Sometimes I use a big stock pot, but today it is a small pot. 

I place the coffee, tea bags, cinnamon and water in the pot. Now I am a bit messy when I am dyeing. I would suggest putting your coffee grounds in a little cloth bag tied off. I just threw mine in . Eeek - I bet you are saying- "She is  a gommin" .  Lol. ( More about that later.)  

I bring my fabric to a boil, and then I reduce the heat to low and let it sit on the stove for a few hours checking it often.  I keep a pitcher of water by the stove to add to the dye when the water gets low. I ended up cutting off the heat when I went to bed but left the fabric in the mixture. 

Now sometimes I immediately take it out of the pot and then bake it for about 20 minutes in a pyrex dish at 180 degrees,  but I watch it carefully. Other times I do not bake it at all. 

This time after letting the fabric sit overnight, I took the pot outside and hung the fabric on the swing to dry. Once the fabric was dried, I shook out the coffee grounds- messin again.  Since I liked the color of my fabric , I went ahead and discarded  the tea /coffee dye into my garden ( tea bags and all). I broke down the tea bags with a garden shovel and buried them among the garden dirt. They will be gone in no time. Plus the mixture is good for my plants. 

This is how my fabric looks in comparison to beforehand. It is pretty dark. I like it!! Now it is time to stitch. 

 

Oh, I hope you are not cringing too much after reading this. I am sure you do not mess and gom like I do but boy is it fun. 

It has been awhile since I gifted you a doodle. I am all into my chickens right now. So I was working on some Spring Chick doodles last night. I haven't got to stitch them yet, but they are on my agenda for this weekend. I am going to embroider mine using a back stitch and create a little quilt. 

Click here for the Spring Chick Doodles. 

Thank you so much for coming to visit me today. Bring some fabric next time, and we will mess and gom together. I will promise not to be too messy. Lol.   As always...

Happy Stitching, ya'll

Melisa

This weekend I am joining Wendy at Sugarlane Designs for a Friday Night Sew In. Hope you will pop over and check her out and perhaps sign up and check out the others who are participating.

A creative mess is better than tidy idleness. 

Hugs and Stitches!!!