Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Tutankhamonkey and Monktenkahmum


Meet Tutankhamonkey and Monktenkahmum. 
They lurched their way into the house around about Halloween and decided to stay.


Tutankhamonkey is a birthday present for Mr Tabubil (last year's birthday.  Don't judge.)
Monktenkahamum is a farewell present for a friend who adores Halloween with an almost unholy passion. She left Chile well before he was finished, but he will get to her by New Year, even if he's got to lurch the whole way.

I used the Monkenottukhamun pattern by q.D.PatOOties.  Her own link appears to be down, but her etsy store is HERE and you can find the pattern HERE if you would like to make one of your own.

As you can see, the pattern is pretty simple.  But those bandages


Grubbying up the fabric was a headache and a half.
I didn't have any paints on hand, which really didn't matter because I wanted an organic sort of stain.  Basically, I was a twit.
I tried coffee. I tried tea.  I tried soy sauce.  I tried fish sauce and oyster sauce -
Everything washed out clean.
I let the stains dry - for days.  They washed out. 
I set them with salt.  They washed out. 
I set them with vinegar.  They washed out. 
I can't get a damned sauce stain out of a single shirt ever, but could I get one to stay when I actually wanted it to?
I could not.

In desperation, I wet the cloth and dragged it across our balcony railings to sop up the greasy Santiago dust, because this dust sticks.  We have a couple of pillowslips that were left to dry on the backs of balcony chairs that hadn't been dusted in four days, and those pillowslips are streaked and grubby forever - the sorts of linens you hope like hell don't accidentally slip onto the pillows in the spare bedroom before your guests arrived.

This time round, the dust washed out.
I wet the cloth again and used it to swab the grotty bits around the bottom of our outdoor flowerpots.
The dirt. Washed. Out.

After two weeks of moaning, hair-shredding and an increasingly befuddled Mr Tabubil ("Yes, I'm swearing in harmony with myself.  No, you don't need to know why.") I achieved a fabric that was mildly dingy, and at that point, I gave up.  Marking the grimiest spots with chalk, I cut the most careful casually-raveled bandages you've ever seen.

And draped.  


The draping was rather a lot of fun, actually.


The monkeys rewarded me with a matching set of musty grins (seriously, antique drains were nothing to it) and Mr Tabubil thinks they're awesome.


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