Round Mat Finished

It fits nearly perfectly.

Now to pile a bunch of stuff on top of it.

Mat Coffee Dyed

I looked up coffee dyeing on the internet but in the end, I just used a big pot of water and put in some instant coffee, maybe a little over 1/4 cup.  The solution was heated to the simmer point. The mat was soaking in a bowl of water to make it evenly wet so the dye job would not be spotty, and then, after squeezing out most of the water it went into the pot.  Wish I could tell you how long I soaked it, but truth is I got busy and forgot it, so maybe an hour went by.  After rinsing the mat well in a bowl in the sink with many water changes, it went into the washer to spin.  Now it is on a drying rack and after it is dry it will get a nice pressing to flatten it out.

Before:

After:

I like it, the green is more acidy and less apple, and it matches the background on the cushions better.  Before I dyed it it fit on the table top perfectly, so here's hoping it didn't shrink much.

Close Finish

The plan for today was to go down to the JoAnns and buy some more purple thread because there was clearly not enough left. I thought I may as well finish the yarn I had and lo, there was enough, just barely.  There are only about 4 yards left, but a close finish is still a finish.  Now the mat just has to be tea dyed, or maybe coffee dyed, and dried, and it will be ready to put on the side table.

Cold Spring Needlework

Last year we needed a side table for the living room so got an inexpensive round-top one from IKEA.  It needed a mat on the top so I started crocheting one.  It seemed like a good idea to practice tapestry crochet but it was hard to find the right colors to match the cushions on the couch.  The couch is an interesting green color, a much more acid green than shows in the photo. 

 

 The crocheted mat languished in its bag by the couch for months before I finally picked it up again, but now it only needs about two more rows and an edging row.  The white and the colors are a lot more bright than the cushions, so when it is done I'm going to try tea dyeing it a bit.  That should be fun and should work fine since the threads are cotton.

When this is done I'll be able to take the shaggy placemats off the table and things will look neater.  After all that work, not much of the mat will show anyway since my husband keeps a rather large coffee table book up there.  But at least I will have finished something.

Knitting Again Finally

Just didn't have the urge to knit for a long while since I was busy pattern drafting and sewing, sewing, sewing.  Finally I picked up a pair of socks I was knitting for A and before I knew it, they were done:

These were knit on Size 1 needles using Trekking (XXL) color 100 from the deep, deep stash. For the first time, I made no attempt to match the uneven stripes which seemed to be pretty random.  It felt so good to finish a knitting project that I immediately started another sock.