I'll never get used to the shortness of Spring here. There are no lilacs, forsythia, or weeping willows to ease me into summer. You look up and, BAM, summer is breathing down your neck and the thin-blooded are looking to turn on the AC. I just finished paying off the grotesque gas bill from heating this barn during the deep freeze. grumble grumble.
Oh well. I just reminded myself there were seven years with NO heat or AC, so all things are in balance.
All this to say, I lost track of timing and finishing on half of the cloth I was working on. Cloth and thread can get overcooked resulting in a lot of murky-looking, unhappy crap.
Oh, I know tastes vary, but I'm still doing this to please my eye first, and if I open the washing machine and yell "FUCK ME", you know I'm not looking for a date.
But, there are lessons, always lessons. Besides setting a reminder, don't forget that the heavy vinyl cover on the table lets liquid pool under cloth and thread. Instead of a quick drain and dry, the stuff is stewing in its juices. And the biggie. A little black goes a very long way, especially when overdyeing.
The saving grace? Discharging. And if I get really arty-farty, some soy wax resist. I'm exhausted just thinking about the soy wax games. Picture the crone standing over a bubbling cauldron lifting lengths of steaming cloth out of the broth with a gnarly stick. Maybe I'll do it over the firepit in the front yard. That will be something for the new neighbors to write home about.
On the other hand, discharging with bleach is quick, dirty, and satisfying. Phone booth sex.
Guess you know which way I'm leaning.
2 comments:
Hey Deb, could you share what discharging with soy wax resist means? And BTW, the dirty threads looks amazeballs!
Two separate things. Discharge is removing dye with bleach. I use Softscrub. It happens fast so checking on the process and stopping it with AquaSafe which is the ONLY thing that stops the chlorine action.
Soy wax resist is a way of preserving a color as is when overdyeing (adding color) or discharging (removing color) it's messy and time consuming but can give some stunning results.
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