Colour Comparison

Since it has been remarked that the colour of the natural green cotton is subtle I thought I'd show a photo of it side by side with natural Sarepta brown and Acada white, though the white is in a skein since I have no unspun sliver left.

Apparently both the brown and the green will darken and intensify with use and laundering, or after being boiled for awhile. 

Skelly Lends a Hand

I've been so busy lately that my new friend "Skelly" offered to lend a hand. 

This warp, which I've named "Arabian Nights", has a considerable amount of dark brown alpaca in both the warp and the weft and Skelly was happy to help spin it.

The weaving he left to me.

65" later, (not including the fringe lengths), it's time to unhitch the front of the warp and turn it -- 

-- so that the beginning warp ends can then be woven as weft. 

Once they are woven into the end of the cloth the whole thing is cut free, the ends secured with overhand knots, and then the fringe twisted.

Once the cowl was taken care of I moved onto creating the hats from the remaining warp. 36" lengths of weaving (with fringe at both ends) is woven and then the warp ends are tied together to create the tube shape of the hat and those ends are twisted. The outermost warp threads are pulled to gather the crown end into a tight closure, and the "face edge" loosely to a slightly larger than head size circumference. 

Skelly helped with the next step. 

By this point though he was complaining that I was working him to the bone. And I have to agree, knitting the ribbed bands for the hats seems more tedious and less fun than the weaving.

But it gives such a nice finish to the hats that it's a step that I endure.

  

Change of Eye Colour

When Tingle first arrived I tried every set of eyes that I had on hand. I liked these brown ones the best but they were the full round type and had huge stem like protrusions sticking out the back. Those stems were too crowded in her small head and prevented the head back from fully closing so I chose a different colour.

I was repositioning Flame's eyes today (also the stem type) and accidentally made a discovery. Those eyes are two piece and the stems can be removed leaving just a half round eye. With that option available I switched from the default eyes she was wearing to these brown ones which I liked better. I also added a set of eyelashes while I was at it.

I still went ahead and ordered her some new eyes today, catching the last day of a 40% off sale at Masterpiece Eyes. They will be a similar colour but the iris will be one size smaller allowing for more flexibility in eye position and expression. 

Tingle's top, leggings, and shoes were all a gift from Ban of Ban's Boutique.