dye

Movement was pitiful last week.  But I am moving now.  I even pulled silk out of dye pots.  The silk on the left in the picture is alkanet with iron and the right piece is avocado.  It has been raining since Saturday so I should not be surprised they are hanging in the rain currently.  Maybe the will dry soon so I will know what they will actually look like?  Especially after I wash them.  I find that changes the colors.

This is the washed piece of silk dyed with alkanet.  It is a very soft pink.  A grey pink?  I would say somewhere between pink and lavender.  It is always interesting how a piece of fabric comes out of the pot.  I was reading a dyer's writings about how no piece of fabric is every quite the same.  I would have to say that is very true.  She does much more dramatic things then I do.  She will even dump bundles of fabric in the ocean.  I wish.  

Yes, there is science here.  There is the use of acid and base.  Temperatures.  But plants are not the same across years and across a field.  Maybe I should say that the other way around.  Plants are not the same across a field let alone across years.  Each time a piece of fabric goes into the pot, it will be a discovery when the fabric comes out.

For me it is like baking bread.  Every time I make bread, there is something lovely to eat.  But that does not mean it is exactly the same or the process is the same.  Similar but not identical.  

Life is interesting.