Insulating the attic

In her prototype of the attic room that is this year's MEE project, Tina used strips of padded envelopes as insulation. Great look!

But for personal reasons, due to the nature of my attic, I wanted pink insulation. All along, I thought that I would use some type of batting for it. All I had in my stash was some really dense, thinner, cotton/polyester    blend (I think) batting.

A while back, in The Camp, DM made a comment about dying hair with Kool Aid. That twigged the idea that I might dye that batting with Kool Aid.

So I picked up a package of unsweetened strawberry Kool Aid and mixed it half a bowl of water (about 2 quarts). [This is the largest of four Pyrex nesting bowls that Vern and I received as a wedding gift 41 years ago. Still have all four of them - and use them regularly.]

Then I soaked strips of the batting in the mixture.

The batting was so dense and water-resistant that I used a saucepan lid (from before we were married) to gather up the fabric and force it under the Kool Aid mixture.

Then I held the lid down with a  piece of  laminate flooring that Vern collected on one of his "walk-abouts" or I should probably say "scooter-abouts". He thought I might be able to use it at some point - and I have used it many times over the years. It seems particularly appropriate that I use it for a project I'm making in his memory.

 It took about four hours total to dye each piece of the batting - changing the position of the batting in the bowl every hour or so. Then I would spread the batting over the back of a cookie sheet covered with plastic grocery bags.

I ended up with four great pieces of 'pink' insulation. Even though the picture above doesn't look that great, this is really looking good!

BUT :-( it isn't thick enough...even doubling it, it isn't thick enough...

Checked my stash again and found a piece of white batting that was thick enough to put behind the 'now' pink piece for a perfect depth but again :( didn't have enough.

So went to Quiltessentials, the quilting store just down the street...Had to go there anyway to get new blades for my rotary cutter.

Incredible customer service! Ingrid's son found me exactly what I needed! And didn't blink an eye when I told him that I wasn't a quilter but that I was a miniaturist who needed the batting for insulation for an attic!!

[Just FYI, I took along the cutting table, spools of thread, and fabric bolts that I had made for the quilt shop. He was really impressed with the cutting table and fabric bolts so I promised I would bring the quilt shop over when it's completed. But I should note that he didn't see those until after the 'above and beyond' service.]

Here I've taken a top layer of the dyed batting over a layer of the undyed batting and placed it between the first stud on the right hand wall.

It's just a start but I am really pleased with how it's looking.