So, at the suggestion of customers, I decided to start making the little baby shoes out of recycled wool sweaters. After cutting up a bunch of sweaters for pants and other goodies, I dug through the leftovers to find enough pieces to make a pair of shoes. Oddly, the pieces I have left when I’m done with sweaters aren’t necessarily big enough for shoes, so out of 8 sweaters, I found pieces for two slightly mismatched shoes. Which is fine just to give it a try, right?

But then, as I was sewing, I completely forgot how I make the heel. And so totally ruined that pair. Nice one.

Actually, the way I make the heel for cotton shoes works fine for cotton shoes, but will be REALLY bulky for wool shoes, so I need to figure out a new way anyway. Just, clearly, the way I did it is NOT that way.

Um, this shirt looks like vomit.

It’s not altogether bad for my first attempt at discharge paste.

Discharge paste removes dye from items once they’ve been dyed. You paint (or stamp or whatever) the paste on to your item, then let it dry. Once it’s dry, you steam it with an iron, and the heat is what takes the color out.

Now, ignore that some of the lines weren’t great to start with (I was bouncing Genna while painting!). Notice the big smeary part in the middle and near the bottom of the design. The iron wasn’t entirely hot when I started steaming my hankie and it spit water all over the place.

So, lesson learned. Make sure your iron is good and hot before using it. Especially with discharge paste.