My friend Jerry (hi Jerry) asked me to make him two flags out of habotai silk. They were to be 4 yards long and 22" wide and I was to dye them by wiping up my spills and slops as I work today. Here they are. Like them? I want to add some vivid, deep red and then they will be done. They will be flying over his camp at Burning Man this August. Do you know about Burning Man? It's interesting that some of my best work is done unintentionally like this. Luscious.
What else did I do today? It seemed very chopped up with this and that. I rinsed 17 veils and dyed 9 panels for a total of 12 dyed and 15 left to cut and dye. That translates into 48 yards done; 6o yards left to dye. About 5 veils left to dye when the silk arrives.
I think that tomorrow rather than dye I will sew the 12 panels. I am kind of dyed out at the moment.
My camera battery pooped out on me so when I dye the next set of panels on Monday, I will show you how I do that.
Because the panels are very heavy, I only dye 3 at a time. This is not the best use of my time, so I dye 3 buckets of 3 at the same time for a total of 9 panels per dyeing session.
I rinse only 3 panels per load in the machine. I stagger the time the panels go into the dye bath according to how long the machine's rinse cycle is. For example the first set goes into the dye bath at 1 p.m. At 1:40, the second set goes into the next dye bath. At 2:00 the first set comes out and goes into the washing machine to rinse. The third set goes into the waiting dye bath at 2:20. The first set is done and gets quickly hung up at the same time the second set is done dyeing at 2: 40 and ready to go into the machine. The second set finishes rinsing at 3:20 and goes out on the line while the third batch goes into the machine and are finished at 4:00 and they go out on the line as well. Do you see how this is done to maximize my time and my energy?
So already I have changed up my own schedule. I am looking forward to sewing tomorrow. That will be a nice break.
Off to sleep. See you tomorrow.
5 comments:
Absolutely luscious colours!! How lucky you are to be surroundered by that colour every day! Thankyou for showing us all and including us in your day!
Karen
Hey, thank you Karen! I'm so glad you are enjoying the process.
Beautiful, Marjie! You've been so busy and productive lately, and all your fabric is just wonderful.
hey i ran into the country of Africa today..will email you later hehehehe wanna pic?
I appreciate the enthusiasm everyone! I am feeling the fatigue set in so hooray for the weekend.
As for you "finding Africa", A'kai, I am very relieved to hear that. Not as relieved as you are though. I hear it's called The Dark Continent. Can you confirm?Hahahahhahahhahaa.
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