12 hour day

Before any of this started today, I dyed 4 veils for the A'kai Silks order that needs to go out ASAP. Rinsed the ones I dyed yesterday and hung them on the line.

Well it has been wild and wacky today. It started off like this: the silk comes on what is called a "rack". The picture above shows how it is ultimately supposed to work. These steel prongs are sharp and hook the selvage edge on the bolt so that it doesn't slip and slide all over the place. Theoretically.

Here is the rack once the silk has been removed. It is one of the rare ones that survived shipping. 9 times out of 10 they break or crack or fall apart. This one tried to eat me.

Very sharp. It just wouldn't stop bleeding. I didn't even know I has injured until some habotai silk I was cutting for an order showed spots of red...a few and then a LOT! Well for heaven's sake! I had to stop and put on a band aid. Lost about a yard of habotai to that incident.


Once I got the order packed, I started to cut the silk velvet for today's marathon. Here are 15 sections cut and ready to go.


Water in the bucket.

Mix up the dyes.

Three panels in the sink to pre-soak.

Dye into the tub.


Fabric into the dye.

Stir until well covered.



It's reallyreallyreallyreally important to have a game plan when you are dyeing this much stuff so that you don't lose your mind somewhere along the way. Here is my agenda for the next 4 hours.



Next batch pre-soaked, mixed the dyes, into the tub.

First batch out and into the machine to rinse and third batch goes into the tub.



Second batch out and fourth batch into the tub.

Third batch out and fifth and final batch into the tub. New dyes each time, by the way. What you see floating in the third tub is a favorite shirt of mine that got dye slopped on it. I was soooo mad but decided to just go with it and dye the whole thing. It was a big pain anyway trying to keep that thing white.

Came out GREAT! I like it even better now! Anyway...what you don't see is me hanging the rinsed pieces on the line in the sun or when my band aid came off in the dye bath when I took off the rubber gloves and then it started bleeding again onto some more fabric- gurrrr! Also not pictured is my husband throwing me a grilled cheese sandwich as I ran by or me running to the post office, the bank and back in time to get one batch out and another in. You also do not see me answering email, processing orders or the 20 minutes I took to sit down and figure out what I have to do tomorrow.
I also sewed 3 more panels and will be able to send 12 off tomorrow. Yay me.
It is now 8:30. 12 hours. A good day for Fabric Designs.
Tomorrow- more sewing and sending veils to Mexico, Australia, Canada, Hawaii, and perhaps time to clean up some of the messes I have left behind me in the wake of the tsunami.
See you then.