Planned dyeing unplanned

The previous post describes the three days before the two-day dyeing session with Pat. This is a continuation of how dyeing went from two days to two weeks.

Neither of us are experienced dyers but Monday started out well with set up, making dye and soda ash solutions and mixing our first set of colors.

The first set of five should have been a set of ten but we forgot to split up the solutions to get two values. Oh well. Lesson learned. So we ended up with five rich deep colors.

We didn't forget to split the second set. But we soon realized the solution alone was inadequate to wet the cloth. After this second lesson, we were sailing until the folding table suddenly collapsed! No spilled dye though.  Whew! Containers were all capped. Just some spilled soda ash solution. We were dyeing outside on Pat's deck so no real harm done. Lesson no. 3: lock those table legs!

By the time we finished the second set, it was late afternoon. We left the cloths to batch and called it quits for the day.

Tuesday we were to finish up with the third set and proceed with wash out and christen Pat's new cute washer. Unfortunately, Pat caught a viral infection that knocked her off her feet. So I trudged on in my laundry room.

While the first two sets were soaking in cold water, I prepared the third set. After it started batching, I took a break and dropped by my neighbors with some lemons. I walked right into a medical emergency. I drove one to the emergency room where the paramedics took the other one.

You know there's no such thing as a short visit to the emergency room. Much later, I smoosh the batching cloths anyway before going to bed. The end of day five. What will be will be.

36 dyed yards after two weeks