Dying, sewing, and sticking feathers on things with glue

Today's post was going to be all about the transformation of a bright coral cotton blouse into an elegant black top that I may wear as part of my DragonCon costume. But I couldn't find the right size buttons and had to order some online today, so until I get them and sew them on I can't claim I'm done with the top. I also can't make the decision as to whether I'll wear it or not. I like it, but I'm not sure I like it enough.

I didn't just dye that shirt, though, I also dyed a light jacket thingie that I stopped wearing because the khaki-green color just doesn't look good on me, and a pair of long white socks that I got on sale but never wear.

The coral shirt is 100% cotton, the jacket is 60% cotton and 40% modal, and I don't know what the socks are made of. Cotton dyes beautifully, so I got a bottle of black RIT dye and used the stovetop method to dye the clothes.

I'd used RIT dye before, but only for undyed wool (one of my hobbies is handspinning). I didn't think about bleaching the clothes first, just dumped them in the dyebath. I also probably didn't keep the water hot enough. When I took the clothes out of the dyebath they looked fine, but after drying overnight they were really uneven. The decorative stitching around the blouse's neckline didn't dye at all, but I like the effect.

I redyed the blouse by itself the next night, with much better results. After I took it out of the dyebath I added the jacket; it didn't dye as evenly but I like the shade of gray a lot better than the green it was before. (The socks hardly dyed at all, so I guess they aren't made of natural fibers.) I washed the clothes in the washer, delicate setting, and they look quite nice.

Anyway, so that was one thing I did this week. On Friday morning, I woke up with a bad crick in my neck, so after work I spent the rest of the day lying on the bed with a heating pad on my neck, movies on the TV, and bleak misery in my heart. To occupy myself I picked up the sleeve pieces of the nightgown I'd started sewing way back in April, and finally did the embroidery I'd planned to do but never quite found time for.

Saturday my neck felt a bit better and I finished the embroidery. Today I intended to finish the nightgown, but, well, see this picture? If you can tear your attention away from my adorable cat, you can see what I accidentally did when I sewed on one of the sleeves. Yeah. I need to rip that seam out and fix that. Maybe next April.

Finally, I ordered a very nice fan for DragonCon--it's hot, I'll be wearing several layers of clothes including feathers, and I'll be doing a lot of walking. I need a fan. I like this one, but it was a bit drab. To dress it up a bit, I decorated the tassel on its end. Ordinarily I'm not a fan of gears stuck randomly to things (hey, gears! that makes it steampunk, right?), but I think this one looks kind of neat. I also added some turkey feathers and I like them well enough that I plan to glue them in place as soon as I can find where I put the glue.