more budleja- coda

on wool, with alum and  cot mordants. i was too lazy to test the water for ph and to get bottled water for dyeing.

it gave me a dirty yellow, but i am quite content after not dyeing for such a long time. i also need to be more scientific and weight the plant matter i just dumped my bounty in a pot with water.

on cotton the color was much more clearer perhaps because i put the scoured yarn in the bucket, no heat and forgot of its existence.to dye cotton it needs to be treated with a tannin and then alum.

michel garcia says to think of of this as friendships:the friends of my friends are also my friends;cotton is friends with tannin, tannin with the mordant and the mordant friends with the dye!

usually tannin gives a beige- browny tone, but i tried liles recommendation to use soda ash instead because it makes alum less acidic.

happy to report that the dye clinged to the cotton just the excess washed off.

i can say i got good colors from budleja and given the abundance of it i am going to keep using it with modifiers to get a variety of colors . 

and i need to test the  ph of the water   ಠ ಠ

neki desu
 

color blanket

still waiting for the yarn to arrive, but testing similar dark blue with other possibles.

hate the magenta with everything!! like the blue with plum, it's the possible candidate.

the PITA is that i changed the face of the  liftplan to get easier lifts and it is  very hard to visualize the back with less weft and more warp. the pattern looks very delicate on the painted warp, sometimes on the dark burgundy warp it almost disappear and on the orange it shows contrasty and lively. this is fabric for a top so i want it to be more on the calm side and . i don't want to get tired of wearing

riotous colors for that i have scarves!

think i'll bite the dust and do the heavy lifts just for mental sanity.

neki desu 

 

at last

this babe has come around.i bought this pattern on my 014 trip to japan. i have already made the muslin to check the fit, but had width issues with the fabric i wove for it. it was liying around getting shuffled from one table to another if you know what i mean.
on this last trip to japan i went actively searching for fabric that i could use for it and came back home with a couple of candidates all knits, some double knits which are easier to work with.

here we go!  last week after i got the last 

parcel from japan i could begin to seriously

get to it.i had found the same fabric in tokyo  which was very cool because i needed an extra meter. going on the safe side i got two!

going to use the back  a nice denim like knit

to make the  neck facing as an outside band and turned hems at the sleeves.

it's going to be for spring and fall wear, those intermediate months too warm for  wool too cool for just a long sleeved top.

trembling nonetheless because cutting and sewing with knits is not easy.

neki desu