HomeWork

I’ve made plans to spend this weekend in Vancouver with my mother sewing my cape with the felt blanket I scrounged from Goodwill a few weeks ago. Beautiful beige that it is, I thought it would be perfect for dyeing a bright color using food coloring. I’ve tried Kool-Aid and was only moderately pleased with the results. Food coloring sold as a paste, used by Melissa the Baker, gave me much better results, with the exception of the purple shades.  

Exhibit A: the freshly dyed hanks of Lamb’s Pride dripping dry outside

Exhibit B: a fulled bag that spent five weeks pool side last summer; by the end of Sophie’s swimming lessons, the vibrant magenta and purple tones had all but disappeared, though the turquoise stayed true and the green color was started out pretty subdued.

With that experience under my belt, I’m approaching the process of dyeing my wool blanket with trepidation. I want to make sure that the color is even and that it doesn’t fade. In the past, I dyed the wool on the stovetop in the biggest canning pot I could find. However, I need to leave the blanket in fairly large pieces because of the pattern I’m going to use, so I’m tempted to try dyeing it in the washing machine. Will the hot water that comes out of the faucet be hot enough? Will the dye bath cool off before the dye has set? How much vinegar do I add to a large load in a conventional washing machine? On Pat Sparks’ list, I read a recommendation to add 1/4 cup of vinegar for a quart of water, but how many quarts does my washing machine hold? I’m looking for some feedback and suggestions.

Cross another WIP off my list: Owen’s tie-dye duvet cover is complete.

Front

Back

This project gives me more satisfaction than most of my other projects because it was such a deparature from my comfort zone. I am not comfortable driving a sewing machine; when I was seven, my mother helped me to sew a dress for my doll; it was the ugliest piece of work I’d ever seen. I promptly discarded the doll with her ugly dress, never to touch them again. Clearly, I come by my perfectionist streak honestly; it started way down in the depths of my being. My mother has always been a talented seamstress, sewing her first suit and her wedding outfit. She continues to make fantastic outfits for Sophie and Owen.

For that reason, I’ve left the sewing to my mother and tried out other creative pursuits. I have sewn over the years, but it was always through clenched teeth and with a lot of swearing thrown in for good measure.

Owen’s duvet cover was a little different. My mother recently gave me her old sewing machine since she upgraded to a professional model, and I approached this project with an enthusiasm I hadn’t felt before. Don’t get me wrong; there was a moment when I needed to calculate some measurements that I started to vent a little frustration because I couldn’t just plunk down at the machine. Lance started to question why I was tackling yet another new project, but I explained that beauty can not exist without a little pain. I knew the pride of completing something so large and so functional would be worth it in the end.

When I finally sat down in front of the machine, the sewing went smoothly; the machine operated without a hitch and I actually enjoyed it. Good thing I did, because the pieces for Sophie’s duvet cover are ironed, cut, measured and folded in our dining room waiting for their turn at the machine.

Don’t we have enough projects? Why are we doing this?

Lance was skeptical when I told him I wanted to tie-dye flannel instead of buying fabric to sew a duvet cover for Sophie and Owen. Then I told him I wanted to perfect my technique on some old white t-shirts; well, that changed everything. It wasn’t long before we were both stained with dye up to our elbows.

After we had tied up all the clean t-shirts, jogging bras, underwear and sports socks we could find, we started to hunt around the house for new material. My bathrobe was thelargest canvas we could find. It really looks great here. We left it sitting for four hours; actually it was doing more dripping than sitting; the dark shapes seeped in every direction making the edges pretty blurry. The turquoise and green faded in the rinse, but the reds and pinks stayed bright and the unpainted spots didn’t end up tinged with pink.

Sophie had so much fun she wants to have a tie-dye party in the backyard for her birthday. I love the idea of buying white t-shirts for everyone instead of cheap, plastic goodie-bag toys.