Processing

This post comes with a disclaimer at the beginning, I absolutely do not know anything about fabric dyeing. I don't know anything about the preservation of fabric for future generations. For this project I absolutely do not care about any of that. I did this to see what would happen. I did this because I couldn't get to my LNS to purchase a really cool piece of fabric so I used basic, inexpensive 28ct white Monaco. This is fun for me, this is not about creating an heirloom, it's playing around. So please don' t feel the need to educate me about fabrics, the dangers of dyes and why this piece won't last 100 years. I DON'T CARE. Now with that out of the way--let me state please don't try this on anything you really would like to pass down to the heirs OK? Before dyeing your own fabric for an heirloom project do some research.



The picture above is Blackbird Designs First Offerings. It's a complimentary design from 2002. You can't tell but the fabric is white, it looks kind of blue on my monitor so I'm not sure what you might be seeing but it's white. 28ct white Monaco by Charles Craft to be exact. The thread is DMC 310. I decided early on to coffee stain this piece.

Here it is crammed in a small bowl. I was hoping to create some puddles in the folds to make the fabric blotchy.

Since I'm not a fabric dyeing expert, I was disappointed. It just looks light brown. Which is fine but I wanted an old, been in a leaky attic kind of effect.

I pull out a bottle of RIT Dye in Tan. I open it, pour drops, ok a bit of a puddle, directly on to the fabric. I then smoosh it in to the fabric, smearing it, spreading the dye around, decided I needed a little more, poured more on, shook it out, did a little more smooshing....

And this is the finished project. It's still a little damp and I didn't rinse it because I really love the way it looks and I didn't want to wash out any of my wonderful blotches.

The sky would not cooperate while I was taking pictures, cloudy, not cloudy, no consistency, but the beginning fabric was white, we all know white right? The finished product is above and the colors are pretty accurate.

Reading

Over the last week I read a few books:

At Home with Kate by Eileen Considine-Meara

Nice quick read by the daughter of Katherine Hepburns former maid. Sweet look into her private life.

Bare Bones and Cross Bones by Kathy Reichs

Both good, quick reads. I'm kind of over everyone doing the DaVinci Code knock off books, but Cross Bones wasn't bad.

The Last Jihad by ________ Rosenberg. I can't remember his first name.

This book could have been edited down by a 100 pages and read like, how to put this? There was a lot of product placement going on or so I felt. You know I don't mind knowing that someone ate at Burger King or sipped on some Constant Comment tea but for some reason I felt, I don't know, like I was reading a very long commercial. I did finish it, the story wasn't bad.

In the World of Blog

Recently while catching up on some blogs I started reading about some nastiness going on in the cross stitch blogworld-I don't know exactly what happened. I do know that it's a shame. It's so high school and you know people really need to get over themselves and be good to each other. For bloggers who may decide to stop blogging, please don't. I realize this nastiness leaves a bad taste in your mouth and seriously why put yourself out there if some people are going to try to tear you down? You know why? Because in general the cross stitch blogging community is a pretty happy place. I find so much inspiration from all of you. Don't let the bullies win. Keep stitching, keep taking pictures and for those of you who stitch an amazing amount of projects so fast, you know you start the piece when the chart comes out and finish it in a week? I think you are fabulous! Keep stitching and please keep writing about it.