not only music, but also wood

the linen stole aka raindrop stole has been steeping in brazilwood for 5 days now. i did a alum tannin alum  mordanting process with some required washing soda.

according to my reads the brazilwood is supposed to yield a clear red on alum and indeed the liquid from the alcohol extraction was almost annato orange. if you're familiar with latin cooking you know what i mean, almost phosphorescent. but i forgot that my water is extremely alkaline and didn't use bottled water.  the combination of water and  the washing soda still attached to the fibers gave me the dark raspberry above. 

at first i was mildly annoyed as it didn't meet my vision, but  after a day or two it grew on me and i started to like the color. it's still developing in the cold dye liquor and will remain there for the rest of the week.i'm not sure i'll try doing a color shift with an acid.

 

my environment limits me, can't go to the woods and gather windfalls branches and barks.
i depend on my good chemist around the corner for mordanting stuff and i'm thankful he's knowledgeable as well as well stocked. i got two choices for tannin. one which is chestnut brown, dissolves in water and for the love of dyeing i can't find the pack now. and the one on the right much lighter in color which dissolves in alcohol. evidently this is the one i used for the linen double mordanting. it does color the fibers a bit, but nothing dramatic. i've looked around for references and could not find any info about the alcohol tannin therefore i'm running some sort of blindfolded experimenting. until i find the other pack i'm going to keep on using this one.  it's a good thing i am a well known customer at the chemist because i'm going through liters of alcohol !

neki desu

too bad

 embedding is disabled for this historical tiny jewel. check out barry manilow at the piano!yes, he was there with the divine miss M, goddess of high camp.(more on camp: do read susan sontag's . notes on camp)

http://youtu.be/ydCudZmj2NA
 have a good weekend!

neki desu

first two inches

up and weaving. the first two inches are always the most exciting part. the linen stole aka raindrops is going through the mordanting process and there is not much to show.

this morning i woke up to a newspaper filled with good news, both national and international. don't remember when was the last time that happened.  on the other hand i received  a disquieting  notice from yahoo.

youtube co-founders chad hurley and steve chen have acquired delicious from yahoo

you won't believe the stir in cyberia. you are required to give permission to move your saved bookmarks to avos, the new company. so good for cloud computing! sounds great but you are always at the expense of someone else's whims with those wordy, obscure TOS and privacy policies. can't do anything except migrate (>o<)
after  i plant two coleus a red verbena and a lobelia it's back to the loom.and still working on the plastics.

neki desu