It's a mystery!

It's the first dyefest of the season here at the Lawrenceville Frankenstein Dyeworx and new mysteries are afoot! I've had a batch of vintage damask napkins, a length of coarse linen, and a swanky 600ct stripey bedsheet from Goodwill soaking in soda as since, umm, Sunday (I think)

 There was no kosher salt in the cupboard and I couldn't justify wasting any sugar with hummingbird season about to open. Lurking in the back of the pantry was an old box of COW complete with mealy bugs - a charming protein boost that happens when you don't seal your flour and cereals in plastic. Is it just a southern thing or did I not notice them when we lived up north? It remains to be seen how the cream of wheat and bugs will interact with the soda ash, dye and cloth.

One thing is for sure, I won't be rinsing these in my washing machine. I'm out of time this morning so all of this will get to poach on the work table until this time tomorrow. We'll see what comes of all this mess.

Stitch heroics

Sometimes I sit with needle poised and wonder "Now what?"

Gerdiary continues to remind me that stitch really doesn't need to do much more than hold things together quietly. No heroics or gyrations are really called for.

juggling

I was relieved to find this one still hanging up at the office where I left it.

A notice was recently sent out instructing people about NOT  klepping  lunches from our shared refrigerators in the break room. Imagine having to write a politically correct interoffice memo about the moral issues surrounding BEING A THIEF! (read the bold letters in Sam Kinison's voice). There are no fast food joints within a reasonable distance from the office so if you don't bring something to eat, you go hungry, unless you eat something from the overpriced and under-serviced vending machines. Enough on that.

A few days away from it and now I'm pingponging back and forth between the two of them. Cousins, no doubt. Winter and Spring.  Do not wish for that which you can conjure for yourself through either hard work or deep imagination.

sweater weather

I'll even get to wear it today - it was snowing sporadically this morning! This is Georgia - and not the mountains - the weather has lost it's tiny mind.  I bought three of these cotton sweaters at Kohls years ago and wore two of them to death.

This one was originally cream colored and has been through several color changes - this being the only successful one.  it was really, really bad before.
That scrap of folded cloth is a half yard of muslin that was blue with soy resisted white spots, now burgundy and purple and wildly interesting.

rainy Sunday

In addition to leaving the current WIP at the office Friday night, when I tossed my stuff in the car I tore my right thumbnail to the quick and all day Saturday I kept banging it into things making it worse.

Last night it was all I could do to manager seven feet of a simple running stitch joining these two rayons scarves lengthwise. Why didn't I run it up on the machine in 15 seconds instead of taking most of "Lawrence of Arabia" to get this much done? It will be finished when I can cross each of those blue stitches in orange. Maybe later  this evening.

(Something new too)

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      It was so beautiful out yesterday I brewed a new tub of soda ash and submerged a large batch of cloths that I've been collecting all winter in anticipation of the first dye fest of the season. Did I check the weather report? Not.

There were a handful of bottles of dye stock that have been out on the deck since the fall, mostly blues, so I overdyed a cotton sweater that's been too horrible to wear in public (a combination of reds, browns and greens resembling road kill)      to see if the dyes still had some kick. Poor sweater spent today hanging over the deck rail getting rinsed in the rain all day long.