email to my DIL

I ordered two sarongs, one silk and one cotton gauze. I mixed up burgundy and dark green dyes and tested them for strength of color. All good. I tied lots of little resists to the cotton sarong and tossed it into the dye pot for three days. It just wasn't getting dark enough so I mixed up a stronger dye solution and put the sarong in the dye bath. Meanwhile I tried a new technique to me called shabori and wrapped the silk around a pvc pipe and tied the cloth with string, gathering each wrap. I then put dye on the piece and let it steam. The next day I untied the piece. The dye only penetrated about 1 foot of the 4. The design was beautiful, but the rest was blank. I put the silk in a discharge for removing the dye. Sigh. When the silk was dry I rewet it in vinegar and tied resists and painted sections burgundy and green. This is a tried and true technique, easy-peasy as it were. Didn't like it at all. Colors were good, but design lousy. I retied and added more dye here and there. Nope. Nice but not great. Retied, threw it into a discharge hoping for an interesting textural look. The color turned to navy and deep rose. Not bad, but would you wear those colors? You're firm about what you'll wear and not wear. I washed the green cotton, still not dark enough, and untied the resists. Excellent! But....some burgundy somehow migrated from one dye pot to the all green dye pot. About a dozen splatters, though small, glared at me. I tried a bit of discharge paste to get rid of the splatters. Didn't work. Do I leave it as is (as in no one will see it when you're wearing it, but you'll know it's there ; call it a design element?; put more splatters on (ie., use an artists brush and attempt to play Picasso). I think I'll try adding burgundy.

My lazy, crazy days of dyeing summer has fallen flat on it's face.