alas poor butterfly

Well, the technique I planned to use to create the mourning cloak butterfly - inspired veil is not going to work. I intended to use a shibori "capping" method to protect circular/oval areas of the veil, but the best way to draw up these areas accurately is by using a running stitch around them and pulling them up. I tried this on a sample of my veil fabric... while I was able to protect the area as planned, pulling up the stitches on that featherweight fabric damaged it considerably! Despite using quite a fine thread, there were obvious holes left behind. Yuck. So much for that plan.

I also played around more with the Colorhue dyes today, trying to see if I could get a reasonable black on silk. Their initial recommendation was 12-15 drops in a half cup of water. This turned out to be about 1/4t. For black I tried 1/2t, which gave me a sort of dark gray/blue color. I doubled again to 1 t. Still not a very black black -- a pleasant very dark blue/gray, but just not black. Now, supposing that I need to immerse a whole veil... that would probably take at least four cups of water at a bare minimum... with a little math that means 8t of the black dye would be needed to obtain a not quite black color. That's about 1 1/4 ounces per black dye bath.

Did I mention that the Colorhue dye is $30 for 8 ounces?

I believe I'll just be using up the rest of my sample set. It was a lovely idea, having an "instant" dye that requires no heat on silk, but... it just doesn't work quite well enough.

(And, incidentally, DO NOT SPILL this dye on anything you care about. It's very very hard to clean up.)

veil inspiration

I want to make a veil out of this:

butterfly

coming off hiatus

I haven't done much dye work lately due to a nasty cold I picked up -- got sick around June 8 and I'm still coughing "residually" now. It was a real energy killer because it was so hard to get any sleep with that cough. I did manage to make a few pieces of jewelry... nice to have a hobby that can be done whilst half-reclined on one's couch.

Of course this means I'm behind on dye work for my next vending opportunity -- Isidora Bushkovski will be teaching here in town at the end of July, and I've got a sales table. I need to make blue and "fire" veils madly since I was cleaned out of those in LaCrosse in April. I'm not going to try to both vend and take the workshop this year... it's just so hard to do that. Not to mention it means I have to have my husband's help... he's incredibly sweet about helping me, but I know he has other things to do with his time.

Well, since time is at a premium, it's time to try out those Colorhue "instant set" dyes. It's just me and the shibori pole in my spare time for a week or two... wish me luck.

half circle ombre 2

half circle ombre 2
Originally uploaded by tigerb.

I'm still fooling around with these color-to-color (or as I think of them, bucket to bucket) ombre dyes. I'm doing the math and timing things carefully, but although they are pretty they are not quite as smooth as I'd like. I'd love to make gradations as smooth as the items here, but I'm not quite sure how.

shibori detail

shibori detail
Originally uploaded by tigerb.

Here's just a corner of the silver & black veil I made for K. I won't post a photo of the whole thing... it's still on its way to her in the mail... but here's a little preview. I just love how it looks marbled.

how it all went

It's been way too crazy around here to write an update!

Sales at the LaCrosse show were okay, but not spectacular. I sold six veils -- including every blue thing I had on the table. Some shows it's green; some shows it's purple... this show it was blue.

I've also gotten a two-veil commission out of that show; have to finish them up this weekend and pop them in the mail. In addition I need to finish my black-on-silver shibori piece, a commission/birthday present. Having a cold last weekend put me behind on just about everything.

And tomorrow... a garage sale. Scarves, wraps, and little odds and ends that haven't sold at a show will all go on a table next to the knickknacks and old videos, hoping to find a home.

down to the wire

Well, I have around 20 veils to take to La Crosse this weekend. They're all ironed... but none got photographed. Boo! I wish there was a more time-efficient way to take the photos -- but to snap them all would take an entire evening, and I just did not have one to spare this week. Sunday was taken up with frenzied cleaning of the house, as friend KB came over to help out. (Then we collapsed and ate Indian food.) I had to put in some long days at work this week as well.

All things considered I'm just pleased I have enough stock to take north, but it really doesn't help my portfolio to dye-and-sell!

Here's hoping people will want to buy my pretties tomorrow....