The months from November to April carry with them what my husband calls "statistically perfect days." I had one such day earlier this week. There was no humidity, a gentle breeze blew across the lake and a mild 75 degrees lured me onto the back deck with squirt bottles of dye, five yards of white PFD fabric and lace soaking in a bucket of soda ash. I strung a laundry line from the fence and hung the first yard of fabric across it. Dyeing fabric is part science (I use PRO Chemical & Dye fiber reactive dyes), art and magic. The color combinations of magenta, golden yellow, raspberry, emerald green, turquoise, baby blue, lemon yellow and amethyst are but just a few of the colors I used that day. It took most of the morning to get all the dyeing done and batched (this is when the magic occurs). You can leave the batched fabric anywhere from two to twenty-four hours in their plastic bags. I have left them for longer and there was no mildew when the bags were opened just glorious color.
Two days later, when I opened the bags and washed the fabric, I discovered that the color was not as intense as I first imagined, in fact it was quite the opposite. I was not sure if I liked such soft color as I like my colors bold and bright, but I guess it grew on me and now it reminds me of spun sugar. I'm thinking cotton candy, in soft pink, blue, green and yellow.
Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment