Painting updated.

These are the bits and pieces that I put under the threads. Why waste dye? 

Once all the thread is processed, I'll start on these. Rinsing and washing by hand. One by one.

But, as we all know these will lose definition and intensity when they are washed. 

So maybe I won't. Not all of them. 

There's time to consider 

Many years ago I used dye like paint on a piece of muslin. Bold strokes and colors. 

I was in a class with my dyeing mentor, Elizabeth Barton.

Couldn't wait to wash and iron it and get it under the needle.

The only problem was that I had forgotten to fix the dye with soda ash solution and my dyes completely washed away. I was devastated. 

Colin took these pictures for me. I was too tired to go back downstairs.

It looked a lot like this.

 

I found it. Fourteen years ago. Almost to the day. I wonder what this means?

Early returns

 

I chose these randomly last night, spent a half hour rinsing and washing, then letting them soak. Dried overnight on a shelf up out of cat reach. Bong is filled with insatiable curiosity, and anything new in his world gets a paw-on inspection. 

Not the strength of color I blustered about before I set to work. Still these have a lively variation within the subtlety of hues I hadn't expected and am grateful for. The lesson of the Tax of Time is a hard one to face. Dyes lose their kick. Some colors more than others. The soda ash may even be off. The first rinse water was very murky, mostly because of the Raven that I used up. I used up most of my dye stock. 

Later today, I'll ask Colin to hang the dryer from a hook out on the high deck. Today will be the last of the mid-eighty daytime temps, but still sunshine every day all week. In small batches, I'll get the threads and the cloths finished and into the store. 

The Librans

 

Conditions were perfect.

Unknown elements cropped up. Spirits hovered on song.

In the beginning, I worked slowly. Agonizing over choices. Oppressed (depressed?) by the knowledge that I wouldn’t be playing/being like this for six or seven months. 

I'm considering painting again. Some way, other than cloth and stitch, to keep big color in my life. 

The wrap-up- all the washing, rinsing and drying will take its own sweet time.