It's never simple, is it?!

It's never simple, is it?!

I was planning to measure and dye paint several weaving warps for Linda @ Tabby Tree in Cicero, IN. The hurdles began immediately with my warping mill buried in my storage unit. I was able to borrow a warping board and measure out the first warp in Linda's shop, leaving the guide yarn (cotton) on the board to bring home. Being gone 6-7 days a week, I found a month or so later that not only had I not made time to measure out two more warps, let alone paint them, my cat ate most of the guide yarn off the warping board. She's weird that way. So I used acrylic yarn, made new guide lines and finished the other two warps.

A few days later, I set up all the supplies to begin dye painting. I soaked the warps and hung to remove excess moisture (but not totally dry). Meanwhile I began to mix up dyes and create colors only to discover I didn't have all the needed base colors. I was sure my large stash was in storage in my sisters basement 45 minutes away so I asked her to rummage through to confirm. A couple months later and the threat to tell on her to our Mom, who passed in '05, she finally looked and found them.

Now you would think all the glitches were behind me, so I hoped. NO. I realized, after a failure from earlier this summer, that for the first time in all my 28 years of dyeing, that dye power has a self life. I had a jar of yellow powder that was only a year old and it was totally dead.  So with my large stash of dyes from storage of 5.5 years, I certainly didn't want to dye paint these warps and the dye wash out.

I decided to test each dye needed (I'll test the other's later) by screening a grid on pfd cotton, mix up a small amount of dye needed for the warps, place a sample per square, record it's name&# on the fabric beside it, and wash the fabric to see what ones where still alive. NOTHING LIKE MAKING THINGS COMPLICATED.

So this is where I am in this 'simple' project. The grid has been drawn, made into a silk screen (btw, don't forget that part of my business is making custom thermofax screens for you), printed, set the fabric paint, and now the fabric is soaking in soda ash water. I will hang it to dry and be ready to start the next stage of laborious dye testing on it.

Will I ever get to dye paint these three warps? I certainly hope so. But not as soon as I or Linda would hope. The road to success sometimes takes more persistence and time than what we could foresee. Not giving up, is victory within itself.

 

So check in later, as Paul Harvey would say, for "the rest of the story."

 Bless and be blessed!

~Bobbie