Updates, and a project fail!

Hi!  I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day weekend!  We had activities planned all weekend and I enjoyed being celebrated.

Just wanted to let y'all know I'm still alive over here.  Busy as always!

• My car is still (!) in the shop and should be well again by the end of the week.  This is week 2. Looks like most of the repairs are covered at least, so beyond the extra costs and rental car, it isn't a huge money pit. Whew.  
• Lucy 1 shipped out last Friday as I waved it onto it's new life somewhere (parts?).  Lucy 2 arrived yesterday and I haven't had a chance to unpack her yet.   Hopefully today or tomorrow I'll be able to get there - 
• I have orders to finish!  It's so fun to say that.  I need to correct the waist size of a little girls Woodland Fairy skirt after a fitting, draft the right size and start and finish a Ruffled Party Skirt for a distant relative, finish the carseat cover, and work on another secret project.  Some of you who follow on Facebook know I was working on my Mother's Day gift when my serger died.  Hopefully I'll have some pictures to show you when I finish that.

I have plenty of creative ideas floating around in my head too, so don't think it's just old news and/or sewing around here!

Since I don't have a new creative project, I thought I'd share with you a major fail!  It makes me laugh, and hey, maybe you have a solution that would make it all work!

Have you seen the bleach gel projects floating around the web?  Jump to here for just one example.

It's a pretty easy process, and fun to do.   But those little bleach pens are expensive!  I've seen recipes floating around for bleach gel that people use for cleaning...so put 2 and 2 together, I thought I'd try to make my own bleach gel.  I put these three ingredients together according to the recipe -  don't worry, I had adequate ventilation and gloves.  And the littles were at school.

It was very similar to making play dough.  You make the goo and then after it cools, divide it into a workable portion, and add the bleach.  I couldn't even find bleach in my house - I found a gallon of Elmer's glue, but I had to go out to buy bleach.  If that doesn't say something about a person, what does?  Anyway, if you added the bleach when the gel was warm, you cause the bleach to react too quickly and lose the bleaching ability.  There's a time limit on the activity of the bleach.

This is what the gel looked like when I was done - that's a coffee stirrer for perspective. Goo!

I applied on some black broadcloth with a big foam stamp (a 2.5" dump truck).  You could see where the gel was on the project, and how well you applied it.  The gel was thick enough to sit in one place, but some of the bleach ran out of it.  And then I let it sit.  And sit. And sit some more.  After 1 hour the fabric has not changed one iota.  Seriously, the stuff was bleach proof!  I didn't know it wouldn't work on it! I washed the fabric, and it was exactly the same as before.  Was it the gel or me? How can that happen?

Attempt number 2.  I pulled out some gray jersey.   Used the same foam stamp, added more bleach than the first time to a portion of gel, and went to town.  After a few minutes, you could definitely tell a difference in the fabric. The gray changed to light pink, and was really quite pretty.  But 99% of the time, you totally couldn't tell what I had stamped on the fabric.  But at least it worked!! It would probably just be as effective to splash bleach on the shirt though.

What do you think?  Should I try again?  Maybe it would be something good to use for a bigger pattern, a batik type print?  Totally didn't work for a 2.5" stamp. It was fun to do, but I want it to be gel-lier.

I bit the bullet and bought a bleach pen the other day.  Can't bring myself to use it though - doesn't sound near as fun to play with after I had a big pot of goo.

I had my fun, but I hate failed projects!  It sure got a laugh from Mr. Tupelo though.  A big pot of bleachy goo means your wife has lost her mind, apparently.  :)  See what I go through to get projects up some days?  I love it.

PS - the simple summer tunic -

 has been a HUGE hit when we go out - A gets compliments on it every time, and I even get compliments on my sewing because he proudly says 'my mom made it!'.  Please never grow out of that, A.