Natural dyes

After tying up my bandhani project, I got impatient to see what it looked like and got out my natural dye supplies. I'd totally forgotten how amazingly gratifying it is to do.

Although I only have one kettle and no thermometer, scale, or measuring equipment, I decided to throw caution to the wind and eyeball it to the best of my ability. The result was not a disaster.

I know I got the ratios pretty accurately, but I didn't have any way to weigh the cloth and I overestimated - the result was a dark purple cloth (even though I used logwood grey) and a lot of extra pigment left over. The hand of the cloth isn't great, but it's not terrible and I'll definitely be able to make it work.

Now that I know that I can do this with a minimum amount of hassle, I will be dyeing more in the future. I'm in the process of collecting yarns and finished pieces that bore me with the intention of overdyeing them to see what the result will be.

Bandhani

Last night, the gang headed over to Kristine and Adrienne's to learn from her friends, Jabar and Jabbar, about their particular textile techniques. We had so much fun, and we weren't even drinking.

Jabar does a specific sort of block printing and I bought a cotton shawl from him that was very unique; its got a pattern of geometric birds (I call them ducks) printed in indigo. It wasn't that expensive and it was really unique so I had to cave in and buy it.

Jabbar showed us how to tie bandhani and as Kristine said, it is very addictive. I got through most of a shawl in a very simple design last night. Jabbar suggested that I dye the shawl twice; first in one color, take out the knots, re-tye them in a different pattern, then overdye. I'm pretty excited about that. We'll see if I can get my act together enough to actually pull it off.

Fear and Desire

There's a Buddhist belief that people are unhappy because they are ruled by fear and desire. Case in point:

I'm on a fiber diet, because my stash has gotten to unmanageable proportions and my beautiful fiber will be reduced to moth food if I don't spin it up as soon as possible. I also need to pay off my credit cards and buy a new bike, so new fiber acquisition is supposed to be a really low priority for the next several months.


Nevertheless, in a moment of weakness I went out to Etsy, which is where my problems usually start, and saw these:


- Silk and flax batt from Crystal Creek Fibers
- Shetland, alpaca, and angora roving from Spiderweb Specialties


...that just grabbed my by the limbic system and shook really hard, screaming, "You want us now! We won't be here when you can afford us!" over and over.

Now, I'm in a semi-foul mood. I should have never opened my web browser this morning.

Classic case of suffering directly caused by fear and desire.