Making a 70s macrame owl look pretty again

 I really like owls and vintage stuff and cool things for my house. So when my mum happened across two smelly, old, woolen owls in a bin outside an op-shop, she grabbed them for me. She took them off the sticks they were threaded onto, popped them into a plastic bag, and then flew interstate with them. (She was coming back from interstate, she didn't make a special owl-bringing trip, btw)

Here they are! Fabulous, aren't they? When I opened that plastic bag, they STUNK! But, I felt that they had potential. First, I washed them. An important first step! I actually soaked them in a potent mixture of nappy-san and washing powder for a day. That made them a bit more palatable. But, they were still ugly colours. I don't know if the photo really captures that. The brown/orange one looks pretty similar, but the white one was actually more of a was white, now is stained yellow one. So, it was time for some dying! I brought some washing machine dye from Spotlight. Brown/orange was to be black, and "white" was to be red.

I did the orange/brown one first. I filled up the machine, put in the dye and vinegar, and dropped the owl in. The cycle was set for half and hour. When it finished, I opened the top of the washing machine, and there was brown/orange owl. Not dyed and also *dry*, looking up at me like, "You think you can defeat brown/orange owl!? NEVER! NEVER I SAY!". I seriously don't know what that owl is made of. Some creepy '70s fabric is my official guess.

So, then I tried "white" owl. I used red dye. Same thing, machine, dye, owl. When I came back, "white" owl was gone and in its place was ...

PINK OWL?! 

I can't win at dying. Still, it is fluffy and clean, and quite a nice shade of pink. So, I threaded it onto two blue vintage knitting needles, trimmed its tail and fluffy eye parts, and hung it up. Against our original '70s wooden door (I don't actually know that, but our house does *look* very seventies ... brown bricks, feature wall of brick, dark brown wooden staircase ... so I just assuming that the door is. Maybe someone in the '90s was like, "you know what? The '70s was awesome. I'm going to make an ugly house that looks like the worst decorating ideas of the '70s!" You never know.) it looks quite good.

So, I kinda failed. But, now we have a pink owl. And can that ever *really* be a fail? I don't think so ~_^

- Lisa