pricing, sigh

How frustrating is it to see a version of what you make and sell on eBay for 60% of the price?

I set the prices on my dance veils based on what other people charge and based on how much time I put into them. Another silk artist spoke to me very firmly when I started selling about what selling this stuff at bargain-basement prices says about the value of what we do. Our time, skills, and vision are what make fiber art unique and desirable. If we were making things you could buy at Wal-Mart, who would care? Who would buy from us?

So when I see these auctions on eBay I feel quite depressed. There's obviously nothing I can do about it. I make pretty things. I try to sell them... that's pretty much it. I can't keep other people from doing what they want. But my veils will never be sold at those prices unless they are damaged or I go out of business.

the predicted uncommission part deux

I ran into the co-worker interested in tie-dyed shirts for his family... I've heard nothing new from them because they have a family member who is quite ill, so of course they are not thinking about funky clothing at the moment.

I inquired how old his daughter was: "Seven," he replied. So I suggested that perhaps I could bring over the supplies one day this summer and we could tie dye shirts together in their backyard. He agreed that this sounded like a lot of fun and said he'd fire up the grill, too! I thought this might be a good idea, because I've seen the art he's brought in for his office walls from his daughter's hand. It's quite unlike a lot of kid art I've seen. She's obviously really creative, and I think this is something she would enjoy. I'll refer to the True Tye Die webpage for some more info on dyeing with kids, and mix all the chemicals at home before going over; I bet her mom would enjoy it too.

question of the day

"Can you tie-dye a paisley?"

Uhhh...

1. Ever thought about how many kinds of paisley pattern there are? Little tiny paisleys on ties. Great big ones on rugs and wall hangings. Everything in between.

2. The paisley shape is really old, essentially a teardrop (or so I have read). It's much older than the name Paisley (from the Scottish town) would indicate. I associate it with India, myself -- recall that the English word "bandana" is probably from the Hindu bandhnu or something similar, and think about your dad's old red neckerchief with the little paisleys on it.

3. Paisleys can be really simple, but the ones I encounter tend to be quite complex, with many little decorations and flourishes. Emphasis on the many.

So, can I tie dye a paisley? Well, I guess the best answer is that I, personally, don't know how. I can see how you can get one with clamps and blocks, and one might get a generally paisley pattern by folding the fabric carefully and dripping dye on in the general shape of a paisley, and it might work to do shibori nui and run stitches in a paisley shape and draw them up... but would any of these look like a classic woven paisley? I reckon not.

Fury!

On refolding all the veils to take them to class on Monday, it dawned on me: I am missing one!

I had a beautiful bright blue peacock solid veil. And it is gone. I can only conclude that it was stolen at the UW Bellydance Club's event, while I was vending. I'm just kicking myself. I should obviously have arranged the veil rack more towards the corner, where it would have been easier to see people take them off the hangers. And I should have had one hanger per veil, to make it more obvious when one was missing.

This puts a whole new twist on the vending thing. Of course, I didn't have Darlene's horrid experience, where somebody managed to walk off with all her petty cash last year in Iowa; I'm only out one veil. But still! Arrrgh!

a predicted uncommission

Somebody I know saw the tie-dyed shirts I did for my boss's family and really liked them. He would like a set for his family.

step A: they want me to do the shirts. (check)

step B: his wife wants to buy the blank shirts herself so she can get the right sizes (check)

step C: I had to reveal where I buy shirts with cotton stitching (check)

Now I am waiting for...

step D: She decides to dye the shirts herself because it looks like fun.

No, you just watch, that's what will happen. I don't think I'm being that much of a pessimist -- I just know how much fun it is to tie-dye, and it's hard to resist. (Resist! You get it? Ar ar ar.)

I usually buy stuff to dye from Dharma Trading Company. I was paging through their new catalog last night (always dangerous) and was considering whether their crinkle-rayon clothing might not make rather good travel clothes. For example, a gypsy blouse and a long skirt, dyed to match, would make a semi-dressy and very comfortable outfit. They also have crinkly rayon pants. I'm quite tempted to dye some for myself (for myself! what a concept!) before our trip west next month.

25 yards of pure quandary

Over the weekend I got a very good deal on a skirt like this from Gypsy Magda. It's 25 yards of froofy lightweight cotton, and I bought it in white specifically so I could dye it. It's big and crinkly and swirly, and I look forward to wearing it.

However. How to dye it? My initial reaction was to solid-dye all of it and then dip just the lower edge in a darker color. While that would be cool, I'm not exactly sure if that's what I wish to achieve. I do already have a black skirt with blue trim. Maybe it would be nice to have something different.

I could solid-dye the skirt and then take advantage of its crinkliness by squishing it together and binding it with a spiral of twine.

Or, I could tie-dye the skirt in multiple colors.

Or, I could do sewn patterns on it and draw them up, as in some shibori techniques, and then dye the skirt.

Or... hmm!

Depressing sales at Madison bd event

I had such high hopes for the Madison bellydance event. I set a goal of $160 in sales... I thought I would sell at least three veils, several of the little zipper bags, and perhaps two scarves.

Well, I did sell three veils. And one scarf. And that was IT. I can't believe nobody wanted one of those cute little bags. I guess I won't be ordering more after all. For a moment I thought I had someone interested in the four-yarder... they were exclaiming over it, and did have it off the rack ("It looks like fire!") but... no.

Once again, though, the green patterned veil sold. (And come to think of it, the OTHER green pattered veil, the green and purple one, did too... and the blue veil that sold had green in it as an accent.) What is it with green lately? Interesting.

You know, it's not so much the money... it's the time. We spent hours and hours behind that table for not much reward. (And in fact, I might have not rushed down there had I known there would be no pre-workshop shoppers at all. I might have just set up before the lunch break, or something.) How many hours am I willing to waste doing absolutely nothing to pay myself back for my dye materials?

solving the squeezy bottle problem

While I like the control a squeeze bottle gives you while applying dye, the ones I bought from Dharma Trading just don't seal up very well. The dye leaks out through the threads of the cap and makes a big mess, thereby nullifying the control you thought you had.

I seem to have solved this problem without seeking pricier bottles. I really love it when visiting an apparently unrelated kind of store provides a solution... like going to the science surplus place for glass beakers to paste up in, or the kitchen place for bamboo skewers. In this instance, going to the hardware store netted me plumber's Teflon tape. You know, that white stuff that's used for sealing threads. Yeah! And I think it was less than a buck.

Teal and pale green zipper bag

Teal and pale green zipper bag
Originally uploaded by tigerb.

More Alter Ego work.

Red and yellow zipper bag

Red and yellow zipper bag
Originally uploaded by tigerb.

More Alter Ego madness.

Smoke and coral scarf

Smoke and coral scarf
Originally uploaded by tigerb.

This is the Alter Ego Accident scarf, with red rayon dye and turquoise/red silk dye mixed. No purple in the background. The scarf is a bit sheer, so the background is showing through a bit here. It actually has a blue tone.

alter ego, the full story

Experiment 1: Stovetop dyeing of veils and cut velvet bags using Procion MX dyes. Batch 1 was Peacock Blue, Batch 2 was Emerald Green. This was sort of two experiments in one. First of all I wanted to know whether I could get an even color on a 3-yd veil on the stove with Procion MX. The blue is not that great. It's not even enough, although I stirred quite often. For the green I
added 600 ml more water to the bath to improve the "swim freely" aspect, and the result is better, but it's just not as good an even color as with the Jacquard silk dyes. Brilliant colors though.

The other part of the experiment was the devore velvet zipper bags. I bought about ten bags in two sizes (sort of index-card-size and steno-pad-size) to dye up for the March 10 vending op at the UW Bellydance workshop. (They'd be great for finger cymbals.) The interesting thing about their fabric is that the backing fabric is silk and the pile is rayon. This means they pick up dye differently, so dyeing them in one color produces interesting tonal qualities. These turned out quite prettily.


Experiment 2 was with Alter Ego dyes. Alter Ego dyes are from a French company who have isolated a silk dye that is not much picked up by rayon and a rayon dye that is not much picked up by silk. You put these in a pot with water, vinegar, fixative, and salt (it's rather like doing very strange baking), throw in your devore velvet, and voila! The pile is one color and the backing is a totally different color. I did dark blue on a yellow back and red on a yellow back. They are extremely cool, I must say! If the little bags sell at the workshop, I will definitely dye up more with this stuff.

Major, major drawback, however: the starter kit comes with silk colors of yellow, red, and turquoise, and rayon colors of yellow, red, and dark blue. While I do want to make a shot of mixing them (I want to try purple on red or vice versa, for example), there's no black! I think you could get some GORGEOUS effects with black pile designs on a colored background. I looked up to see how much a bottle of black would cost me: $18!! Geez. Just not sure if I want to drop that kind of money.

If you want to see what these cool little bags look like, go here: http://www.dharmatrading.com/html/eng/2046-AA.shtml
There's even a picture of a dyed one. I hope to have photos up here soon.

Alter Ego wackiness

Tried out the Alter Ego dyes on some cut-velvet silk/rayon bags from Dharma. Worked pretty good... there is some cross-staining between the silk color and the rayon color, but the red/yellow and blue/yellow combinations were still very attractive.

Then I tried putting red and turquoise silk dyes in and red rayon. Yikes! The background was a smokey blue gray and the foreground was brilliant coral! Not... quite what I wanted. Alter Ego remains a mystery, and it's too expensive to play around with.