Blog giveway winner

MelissaB, congratulations! you're the winner in our giveaway, please contact me ASAP to arrange your prize.

Thank you all once again for taking part and your lovely remarks, I will be having another giveaway next week, I think I'll tweak it though, not sure the blog works very well, sorry for those who had issues

Thank you
Robyn

I Love Rainbows! Celebrating 1000+ fans! 11 months and counting, What a year!

What a huge milestone, I'm so thrilled to be having another giveaway to thank all my loyal customers and fans! You have all supported me so much in my little startup business, I really appreciate all your support this past year. In Easter 2010 our lives changed in a big way, at first I was working nonstop from the moment I woke until midnight! My kids had a pretty rough school holidays, or two or three, come to think of it hehe.

I now have a fab setup in our garage that is still expanding, and am working towards also opening a retail store and/or hiring some factory space in our local area. I'll need to get a bit more profitable before I can do that though- streamlining a few things really helps, plus the way I've been sourcing product is far too labour intensive and unreliable, so I'm always looking for new sources and product.

It has been a dream of mine since the beginning to rent a dedicated dyeing space away from home, with enough room to run classes and workshops for all ages, so I can't wait until things fall into place a little more :)

A few of my favourite dyeups and memories this year

Beautiful Bamboo Velour, I'm very excited to announce R&R will now be exclusively supplying Wild Child Nappies with hand dyed bamboo velour...

My daughters cot sheets- I literally wanted to do these all year, they were one of the first things I prepped when I started. Then months later I still hadn't dyed them, so prepped flannelette sheets instead for winter. Around came summer again and they still weren't done! The other day I finally popped them in the "dyepot" and took the time out and my daughter was just so excited. She loves her new rainbow sheets, and yep still manages to fall asleep hehe. I'll be doing many more of these, in fact I have a set prepped to dye now :)

Rainbow stockings- and the opportunity to be part of an awesome photoshoot with Captured with Love Photography. Sophie and Laura are truly talented and took some beautiful shots of all the girls involved, including my little one, see previous blog post for more beautiful pics and details.

Skirts and dresses- I recently got stock of a rayon skirt to try and absolutely loved the result, unfortunately my latest stock order has still not arrived, so I am still waiting for more of these. It apparently could even be another month away (heres hoping its not!)

Tie Dyed Shirts, always a staple in my store! I do admit to favouring spirals as they just sell so well, but sometimes I just love the odd distraction and experiment!

and many wondersuits, singlets, muslin wraps and soooo much more. Looking back over all the items I have dyed its just phenomenal to me to think that all these items I've personally hand dyed and are all out there being worn and used and hopefully loved and brightening up someones day! I often get feedback that the kids won't wear anything else, they love their rainbows so much!

Now the giveaway part, sorry for making you wait...

Simply leave a comment below between now and Wednesday midnight EDST, I'll assign each comment a number (if the blog doesn't do so) and enter into random.org to choose a winner. The winner will receive one item of their choice from the following options:

*1x pair of my hand dyed rainbow stockings in any girls size I have available (these range from "0-6m" through  to "sz 11-14"
OR
*1x funky rainbow muslin wrap (single or double muslin depending on availability)
OR
*1x custom rainbow spiral wondersuit, pending size availability
OR
*1x custom hand dyed boys or girls tshirt- choice of long or short sleeve- if size is available.
OR
*1x custom hand dyed ladies shirt, long sleeve (short sleeves now in low supply but if available are fine)
OR
* 2x pairs custom Knee Hi Hand Dyed Rainbow Ladies socks

Thank you so much xxx Robyn

A photoshoot!

Rainbows and Ringlets had an awesome time recently with the lovely ladies from Captured With Love Photography who took amazing photos of our rainbow stockings and my gorgeous youngest girl. We were part of a photoshoot with other Coffs Coast WAHM's and WAHMs from Facebook. The Made With Love Product shoot featured gorgeous Muddy Ruffles Pettiskirts, Hair bows and accessories from BOWtique and Shelli Morse Designs, beautiful embellished singlets from TizzyD, Rainbows and Ringlets own Rainbow Stockings, and a handmade Monsters by Malt, Sock Monkeys by Monkey Dreams.

It was such a beautiful event, all the girls looked wonderful in their pettiskirts, tops and rainbow stockings with gumboots! Here are a few of photos which the lovely Sophie and Laura revealed on their Facebook page.

And a long time coming on our FB page is a giveaway! I am sorry for the delay but rules on FB would leave me open to being shut down if I gave away there and I just didn't have time to arrange sooner. So to celebrate an awesome 6 months, 500+ FB fans and our first ever product shoot I would like to giveaway two things-

Giveaway no1- 
a $25 voucher for spending in my MiniCUTEture store for telling me what is YOUR favourite photo from the photoshoot and why in 25 words or less (short and sweet is good too).

Giveaway no2-
One pair of child size rainbow stockings- sizes are limited but I have most sizes from babies up to Girls sz 11-14. If I don't have your size (or you have boys!) It will be a $15 voucher for my miniCUTEture store. This is for the first person to guess correctly which is MY favourite photo from the whole shoot- while confessing my daughter was also modelling in the shoot, shes the model above in the blue pettiskirt! I will message a friend with my fav photo so I can't change my mind!

Please post all your answers below this blog post, with the Giveaway number at the top of your answer.

Thank you :D Only one giveaway prize per person! And only one entry in each giveaway to make it fair on others to guess :)

Winners will be announced Saturday 18th September- 8.30pm!

I will just pop this up now, but if I can encourage you all to visit the FB pages of all the lovely ladies involved in the product shoot and "like" them as they are ALL awesome and had beautiful items. Links in my post and list coming shortly!

Not much sewing happening around here!

Not much sewing but lots of dyeing and a bit of knitting ;)

As I go through a lot of procion dyes and they have a limited life on cotton, I thought I'd try them out as acid dyes (as you can do that too!) Simple Turquoise, Fuschia and Yellow and I couldn't help myself but make rainbow yarn hehe.

Procions start to lose the capability to bond with cotton the older they get but the dye portion of them is fine, its just the "glue" so to speak that breaks down. So using them as acid dyes I prepared the yarn - Bendigo Woollen Mills Melody in this case- with a vinegar soak as per normal wool dyeing. I then applied dye as normal, wrapped in cling wrap and steamed inside a steriliser. It worked! and I am thrilled at the result, and hoping some of my favourite colours translate ok to wool too.

And then I couldn't resist as I needed to knit it up to see how it turned out, I CO Celias emergency 1 day hat for my youngest. Great knit and a free pattern too! It just squeezed in with enough to weave in the end left over (ok I made it fit lol) She loves it to bits too which is pretty good for a not quite 2yo! My older girl Ellie likes it too, and it fits her as well, but she isn't allowed to touch it with Kayla around, bossy much?

I have overflowing bags of undyed yarn and just slipped and ordered some more Melody, whoops! so better get dyeing some more...

aha! a hat!

Hooray it's finished!!!

This hat had been giving me curry as I couldn't work out the best way to dye it, I even had a miserable test run on one of dd's old hats (lets just say its ummm colourful now but not quite how I wanted it lol). Then I tried playing with the sodium alginate for painting with dye instead. It thickens the dye so it doesn't run everywhere. Of course my first attempt with that was hilarious...I still have a jug of goo! what was rather interesting looking lumpy grainy stuff, actually turned to a gel the next day and went quite thick, like jelly!

Did anyone see Masterchef episode with the carnival/beach challenge, where they were making popcorn icecream, and Claire and Jonathon put in a heap of this stuff to thicken it, they had to guess how much to use. I had to laugh as thats the stuff I'm using exactly, but they were cooking with it.

My results were similar to theirs, but with dye! hehe Its actually seaweed of all things. It does work quite well for dye thickening, but then I'm no artist so then couldn't figure out how to paint it on, a couple of singlets to practice on and I still wasn't happy... was I ever going to get this hat finished?????  I even had a couple of goes putting the gooey dye in squirty bottles but nah, not worth the effort.

Then inspiration struck (yeah I know its more like what I usually do - thats slow inspiration for you... ) and tada! end result, one tie dyed hat... its still damp and drying but thought it was about time for a pic, dyeing with procion dyes can be so prolonged, especially in winter I feel like I'm not getting anywhere so piccies help me feel like I'm achieving hehe.

My other challenge I'd been wanting to try was a infant sized hoodie, it had been sitting in my basket for a month or two waiting for the chance and inspiration. In the end I grabbed it the other day, threw it in the soaking solution, and tied it, why not have another rainbow... lol. I am rather fond of my rainbow colours :)

So here I am quite pleased, a couple of the projects that had been stumping me as to how to dye them, and in the end they actually turned out like most of my items hehe! But I'm very happy with the results. Don't mess with what works is perhaps something I should keep in mind ;)

Kaylas new longies!

Kaylas new Fairy Ribbons longies! A marathon effort, took nearly 2 months, yikes! Just haven't had time each night to knit as I've been dyeing instead :) Gorgeous Ladybug Loops organic Aran, and the pattern is Ladybug Loops Longies. I just love how they turned out. They haven't been blocked or lanolised yet, definitely need to get onto that this week. I've knitted this pattern so many times and keep going to try a different one, but this one works so well!

I've now done a couple of tension swatches with some divine new yarn from Celias Basket its so soft and luscious. Next project is In Threes a cardigan for Kayla... lets hope its ready before summer hehe.

Finally my own space!

Finally my own little dyeing nook!

Ok, a work in progress but at least I don't need to pack up and down at the kitchen table anymore, and what a relief that is! This is my new "studio" (its not much of a studio yet but its a start lol). I plan on taking over most of the garage and setting up a little display and packing area as well, plus setting up my sewing machine and overlocker so I can get back to sewing. At the moment I'm settling for functional, and child safe with the safety gate keeping Kayla out of there, I can keep it set up all the time.

My dyeing table (I'm hoping to get a bigger, longer table but for now theres no room so the old outside table has been claimed) Its so good to leave everything set up ready to go, and I can duck out there at any time

The only place I have to put my long flat items at the moment is the top of the chest freezer, but its better than trying to keep them in the laundry lol. These stockings are nearly all destined for Swings and Roundabouts!

I can't wait to do more yarn dyeing but that has to wait until the current orders are completed! Oh and sewing well thats a bit hard atm, I'm afraid theres no more sewing challenges for me for a few months at least.

The last couple of weeks have been enough of a challenge (on top of a lot of orders to dye/pack/send, and dyeing some rainbow stockings for Swings and Roundabouts, a local shop which I'm really excited about stocking in hehe!). I've also been trying to work out how to dye a hat! Perhaps I should have dyed some fabric and tried to sew it up, but having never attempted to make a hat before I went for an already made one.

My first effort with one of Ellies old preschool hats didn't go so well although Kayla loves it, because its not flat, the dye just ran everywhere and mingled too much. So this week I've been playing with thickening dyes to see if that would help and I think thats the way to go :)