Sewed bag, dyed yarn, knitted hat.

[corrvin]

After 2 years of having a Brother sewing machine that was erratic to the point of being unusable, I took the time to troubleshoot the problem online, and figured out that I needed to buy actual name-brand Brother bobbins.

Having grown up on recipes that specified "Pillsbury brand all-purpose flour" and the like, I had assumed the manual specifying "Our brand bobbins only" was a marketing gimmick. Let me tell you, it's NOT. I spent $3 on new bobbins and my machine works again.



Here is a tutorial for making a nifty bag out of a piece of handwoven fabric.

I don't weave, but I put together a strip of blue floral and a strip of yellow solid fabric, turned all the edges under, pinned them, and FULLY intended to hand-sew the edges. Three weeks later, I ran it through the sewing machine, so it got done in under an hour.


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Also, last week I dyed some yarn using Kool-Aid drink mix and some tea (some generic buck-a-box teabags). I did the colors first and then overlaid it with the tea for a muted effect. Here's the first pass with the colors:


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And after that, I overlaid it with tea and got this:

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Also, I found my head! My glass head, I mean, so I could take a picture of the hat I finished last week:

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The thing at the crown is actually a loop for hanging or clipping to something. The colorful yarn is some Jojoland Rhythm superwash. The brown double-knit bottom cuff (brim?) is Berroco Vintage Wool (which is part wool and part acrylic). I didn't knit it from an actual pattern, just winged it, so there are things I'd do differently if I were to knit another (like do a provisional caston and knit the bottom all at once, instead of the inside and then the outside).

I am really, really excited that my sewing machine works again. I have some quilt bits I cut out two years ago that I can now put together!

Comments

[undyedyarnpire]

Is the double-knit brim the only difference between this one and your Loopy (also here)?

Congratulations on the sewing stuff. Neat to see someone who actually made the Doni's Deli bag... that looked easy but the sewing was insanely advanced for my skills. Yours came out nice.

(comment replaced for failed links).

[seryn]

But. but... this could have been 4 posts..... think of all the wonderful posts... sewing machine fixing (leading to other stuff), bag making, yarn dyeing, hat making.... they each are so creative and well I'm just concerned that they won't all get sufficient attention.
[/mod hat]

I really like the green better after the tea rinse. Personally my opinion is that nothing fixes orange, but aesthetically it is better after being muted.

You have a similar hat pattern on Ravelry. (Without the double-knit brim but with that loop at the top.) If you linked it... [ETA see other comment for actual link! heh.] other knitters might also love on you. Although I have to say that I like how the brim came out.

And it's awesome that you were able to fix your sewing machine for a few dollars and make something that was posted about here.

[corrvin]

It's like Loopy except that I thought of an easier way to make it.

Stockinette curls. So if you provisionally cast on 9, and knit about 16 rows flat stockinette, when you let go of it it's going to roll up at the sides and look just like i-cord.

So you take your 9 live stitches and 9 provisional caston stitches, and that makes 18, you can put them on 3 needles and start increasing 6 per round until it's hat-sized (I used 120 stitches for extra-slouchy) and then knit til brim-time.

[seryn]

After my attempts at knitting i-cord around my earbud cords, anything that minimizes that would be appreciated.

I really like the loop at the top. If I could hang my hat, it wouldn't wander off so easily!

[thistleingrey]

I like how the hat turned out!

[reishka]

Interesting about the Brother bobbins... I've gone through 4 or 5 brands of bobbins and finally settled on a brand/style that didn't make mine act all crazy-like, and they're not Brother-branded. Makes me wonder if my machine would run any better if I got some (not that it acts crazy anymore, but it does have its moments)