- and Ash Wednesday Costumes

You can not dye cotton with Kool-Aid. Most of the websites I consulted said so. Some reported considerable success  with cotton yarn though, and that gave me some hope. I wanted to dye an off white robe you see, and I didn’t have any fabric dye , there is no such thing available in the village and there was no time to order any.

This was for a costume, my daughter wanted to be Mulan in her bride outfit  for the local Ash Wednesday dance tonight. More on that below. But back to the dyeing. My heart sank a little when I found out that the robe was NOT pure cotton as I thought, but a cotton blend, or should I say polyester blend; 65% polyester and 35% cotton.

But nothing ventured, nothing gained, and besides I had little to loose. This robe had been stowed away in the children’s costume bag for years. I forgot to take a “before” picture, but here is the “during” one.

I used two sachets of  Kool-Aid and a splotch of red and blue food dye, dissolved in warm water, I soaked the robe for several hours, turning and moving it often.

And, lo and behold, it worked. The color is not dark, but it’s a pretty pink and my daughter likes it.

It’s not perfectly even, but it’s not very streaky either. The robe was rather wet when I hug it to dry. I didn’t want this dye anywhere near my washing machine, so drip drying was the only option.

Here is a photo from the first try on, earlier today:

Much is missing, the makeup, hairdo etc. Read on, for the finished photo.

This Ash Wednesday  is more relaxed than previous years. My daughter has won prices for best costume, for two years in a row.

Last year for The Vampire Bride :

The year before that, for her Na’vi

This year she will not compete. She will go to the dance, in full costume of course, but she is a part of the preparations committee this year and she will also one of the judges.

She did the makeup herself, without any help. She is wearing the dress from last year, under the robe, as a skirt. I did her hair, the flowers are a rest from a wedding album I did for her sister, some years ago.

And last, here is she and her classmates (this is a really small village) in their, more casual, morning costumes: 

I’m very glad I ventured out, despite the biting frost. On Sunday it started to rain, and it has rained since…

On Saturday I ventured out in the freezing cold, to photograph some of the lovely abandoned stables in Mýrdalur, the county, surrounding Vík.  I didn’t stay out very long, it was just too cold, but I did get some half decent photos. At least I like them.

Here are the best of the stable photos, some village and rock photos are due tomorrow.

is a little dark, since my walk was in the late afternoon. That does not matter very much, I like darker photos, at least sometimes. Everything does not have do be bright and colorful, as is the norm in stock photos and such. A little more thoughtful mood, and some grey clouds are not necessarily sad and gloomy. They can be happy as well, just in a quiet, understated way.

Free neck warmer PATTERN

The free Baby Neck Warmer pattern can easily be adapted to make bigger neck warmers. This one is for a full grown gentleman with a rather wide neck. I cast on 66 sts with 3mm needles, for each “flap” , increased 1 st in each side, as stated in the pattern so there are 66+66+2+2 = 136 sts in the collar itself.

A crochet cardigan

A very nice woman gave me this, many years ago:  The back and one front piece were finished, and the second one was about 1/3 done. There is not pattern to follow. I’m going to finish this now. The second front piece is almost done, it’s very quick work and it is easy to follow the shape of the first one. The crochet pattern is pretty, but a bit to sweet for me, for a whole sweater. I’m thinking about combining knitting and crochet.  Ribbed sleeves, pockets, and collar – if I have enough yarn that is. I have no idea what brand of yarn this is. It feels like wool and it’s not very soft.

Perhaps the combination will be hideous, what do you think?

Whoopie Pie Recipe

There should have been more little whoopie pies on the photo, but when I got around to photographing them, there was only one left. My family absolutely loved them, the kids especially.

This one has been frozen for a few days. The butter cream is not quite as fluffy as it was, and the cake itself is a tiny bit sticky to the touch, but it tastes better after freezing than before.

I got this recipe from my friend Shannon from Baltimore.

1 cup shortening
2 cups sugar (I used a little less, 1 3/4 perhaps)
2 egg yolks
1 cup buttermilk or plain milk (I would use whole and not skim)
1 cup hot water
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 cups flour
1 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix. Drop like cookies on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 400F 10-12 minutes.

Chocolate buttercream icing

3 tbl spoons cocoa
1 cup butter
2 egg yolks
1 cup Confectioner’s sugar
tepid water

Mix, add drops of water if needed.

  embroidery stitches

This is the purple line on the green and white hat.

The base of the line is Basque Stitch as before.The blossoms are in giant French knots ans the leaves are in Satin stitch.

This is the third line, of six in all. I finished the pink line first:

Here the blooms are in Buttonhole stitch, and the leaves are in Fly stitch.

Then the blue one. The three that are left are probably going to be peach tone, yellow and – well I don’t know about the last one. We will see.

The stitch list for the blue line is here.

Embroidery Floss Storage DIY

I use many colors when I’m embroidering. I tend to keep them on the coffee table beside my chair, and that can sometimes become a bit messy:

So I thought of a neater way to keep all the colors I need for a project handy. There was nothing available in the village, and besides, I really didn’t want to buy more than I absolutely had to.

So I bought this:

A big packet of very inexpensive wallpaper adhesive, which I had been planning to try for a long time. The rest I had at home

Materials for this project:

• An empty cereal box
• glue (wallpaper glue or something else)
• fabric or pretty paper
• a paintbrush (not your best one)
• scissors
• a Stanley knife
• a ruler
• a pen or pencil
• empty boxes or cardboard rests

Method:

Measure 7cm (2.7 in), or you desired height, from the bottom of the cereal box. Draw a line, all the way around.

 Cut along the line, all the way around.

Now you have a low open box.

Spread you your fabric and lay the box on  the side, close to the edge. Draw around the side.

Roll the box carefully over, without shifting it, and draw around the bottom;

roll it over to the other side and draw around that.

Finally you roll it back on the bottom, and from there on to the front and back and draw around those pieces too.

Your pattern should now look something like this:

Make two of these.

On one of them you add a 1cm (1/2 in) seam allowance all around.

Cut out the pieces. Cut into the corners, on the one with the seam allowances. 

Mix the glue, if you are using wall paper glue. I used 1 small teaspoon in 1 dl of water. I think that is a bit too much, I’m going to use a bit less powder next time.

Cover the inside of the box with a liberal amount of glue. Ease the fabric, without the seam allowance into place.  Then do the same on the outside of the box. Fold the seam allowance neatly over the edges, and around the corners.

The colors from the box shine through, when the glue is still wet, but once dry, that disappears.

And now for the interesting part. You could skip covering the box, paint it or just pick a prettier one, but the actual storage thingies, the ones I’m a bit proud of, are the next step.

You cut out small cards, in the inside measurements of your box (here just about 7×7 cm /2.7×2.7 in) and cut a small curves at each end like this:

Then you cut small slots on each side of the curves.

And fasten one end of the floss into one slot, wind it around the card, and fasten the other end into the other slot. You can write the number of the floss on the card, if you like.

Pretty neat, right?

112 - Emergency Services

112 is the emergency telephone number in Iceland, as in many other countries, and today, the 11th of February, the 112 day is celebrated in Iceland. The purpose is to introduce the emergency number and all the different services connected to it. Today, the emphasis was, that people should not hesitate to call, that it’s better to be safe than sorry.

The 112 day was celebrated here in Vík. The Search and Rescue volunteer services, the Firefighters, the Red Cross, the Police and the Heath care center, celebrated together, with an open house. First there was a celebratory drive though the village, with lights on and a lot of noise.

The tourists by Vík wool and the gas station were quite alarmed at first, but then they saw what was happening, and the fright was replaced by frantic photographing.

Here is everyone that participated, except me – I took the picture…

We from the Red Cross made waffles for everyone. There was a good turnout and the waffles were very popular. I baked too – and I had someone take a photo of me, but sadly they were completely out of focus.

 Afternoon Walk

It’s didn’t rain today. Or not much at least. It did however snow a little bit, hail for short, but surprisingly violent bursts and there were also brief but very welcome stints of sunshine.

I missed the actual sunshine, and I got caught in a sudden and very cold hailstorm, but otherwise my walk this afternoon was pleasant and not too cold. And rain free. That was very nice.

Here are the rock photos I took:

The persons in the forefront are two photographs, that were working with some very fancy equipment. Huge L- Series  and things like that. I’m going to get me one of those – someday.

Wallpaper Adhesive

I was experimenting with this today:

Not with wallpaper though. More on that later.