Dying Rope & Non-Gardening

Did that title confuse you? Well, today is the day I usually do my monthly gardening post, but there’s not much gardening going on around here – it’s too dang hot y’all! I do have a few nature-y pictures to show y’all, which are really not that interesting. I did finally try dying rope to make a new rope bowl with, so I decided to share that today too. Neither thing is really long enough for one post, but together they make up for it. Even if they don’t really have anything to do with each other! : D

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Non-Gardening

I’m going to get this out of the way before moving to the really fun stuff! You can scroll on down to the “dying rope” section if you’re not interested in my non-gardening. ; P

So, my tomatoes are still making tomatoes, but I pulled FIVE big, green horn worms off of them the other day. Between that & the ding, dang stink bugs, I’ve picked very few edible tomatoes – bleh! My lilies, on the other hand, have outdone themselves this year.

This is in one of my front flower beds. I showed the main lily in last month’s gardening post, if you want to see that. They look the same as these because these are the babies. Well, minus my dog’s butt! : D

I often take these pictures while walking my dog, Hefy-Lou.  This little lizard peaked it’s head out when we walked by & he looked like we interrupted his nap. One bump of the bush from Hefy-Lou & he darted back inside.

I spied some purslane in bloom along the edge of my driveway. This is supposed to be an edible plant, but I have yet to try it. Especially since the end of my driveway is the “scratch & sniff” area for all the dogs in the neighborhood. Ahem.

My husband brought home a bowl full of figs from his grandmother’s house. I decided to flash freeze them, so I can make some preserves later on.

That’s about all the “gardening” I’ve done this month! I did get one eggplant from the 6 plants I planted & the banana peppers are still making. My strawberries & peppers in my side garden have withered up because I keep forgetting to water them. Oops!

Dying Rope

I’ve been wanting to try this out for a while now & I finally decided to just dive right in! I’m using a 20 foot length of cotton rope, Rit liquid dye in Fuschia, & my handy Dollar Tree bin for this project.

I filled the bin about 1/4 of the way with VERY hot water, as the instructions state. It was really just the hottest water I could get out of my tap! Then I added about a tablespoon +/- {did not measure this} to the water. As you can see, I used the end of my fancy “hanging apparatus” {a dowel} to stir up everything.

I wanted to let one end hand in the dye & leave the other end free. The rubber band was hidden under the label & worked great for keeping the rope looped. This picture is after about 2 hours in the dye & after I flipped it around to get to the backside.

It wasn’t soaking up the dye very well, so I thought I’d try to wet the rope to help it along. I also set it inside a measuring cup to try to cover more of the bottom.

After another couple of hours, I decided to flip the whole thing. Since one end was still wet, it did run down a bit into the un-dyed rope.

I only left the other end for maybe an hour before pulling the whole thing out. An egg carton made the perfect drying station!

I left everything to dry out over night. Then I rinsed it all with VERY hot water {tap water} again, trying to keep the dyed portions together. I thought it might run, but it really didn’t. After squeezing out the excess, I removed the rubber band & threw it in the dryer.

It turned out different than I imagined, but I really like it. Time to make a bowl!

I used a navy blue thread to stitch this together & I love the contrast with the pink. You can see more about how to do this in my DIY Rope Basket post.

Here’s how the bottom looks…

And a close up…

It makes a great yarn holder!

I’m really digging this & now I want to make a bigger one!

I tried making a small bowl first then dying it, but I did not like how that turned out. Next time, I’m going to try dying all of the rope, then use bleach spray for a more speckled effect. Look for picks on Instagram or in the monthly roundup coming up on Monday.

Well, that’s it for this crazy, mixed up post. Hope y’all are having a great week! : )

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