Semi-success

It turns out that supermarkets sell fabric dye. Well, black fabric dye. I went to four different shops on Friday before I found some bottles of Rit navy blue and dark green. I got up early on Saturday to go home and try again with a whole bottle of navy blue and half a bottle of green, and pick up my linen and silk. I found a couple of yards of pre-washed white linen that I'd totally forgotten about, and my wool ended up coming out of the machine a slightly darker colour. Still not really what I wanted, but useable. I've come to the conclusion that my wool has taken in as much dye as it possibly could, because that last dye bath was so dark it was almost black. I think that if I'd used that colour dye bath first, I would have really super dark fabric. None of the green came through either, but that's ok.

Yay! Finally some success! I raced home to do some chores before Spoh and Rosie came over. We had a lovely afternoon making a mess cutting out fabric and stuff. Rosie needed some help with a cotehardie sleeve pattern, so I gave her mine and she worked off that. I cut out my wool and my linen lining, and now I am going to start sewing it all up. Since I'm short on time, I think I'll machine sew the seams and hand finish them. It's an overdress so it won't be doing any supporting and (hopefully) will be looser so it won't matter so much if I'm not exact with the seams and seam allowance, which i won't be with the machine because I'm impatient and isn't the point of machine sewing to be quicker than hand sewing? :P

I also found that even though I'd hung the fabric out on a straight line, it still stretched on the edges, making them all wibbly and difficult to cut out. I also discovered that the house I'm staying in doesn't seem to have an iron. So I just did the best I could, and hopefully since wool is sort of stretchy anyway it'll end up all dropping into place.

This surcote will be eight panels, half lined with linen with some gold silk lining the sleeves and tippets. Progress photos to come!

Another Dye Fail :(

I put my fabric through the wash again, this time with a packet of blue and half a packet of green. It came out... dun dun dunnnn.... the same colour as before. There is literally no difference whatsoever, it's still a boring as batshit plain light blue colour. [insert impressive swear chain here]. My underdress is crimson red, and if I wear it with this colour I'm guessing it'll come out looking a lot like that time I wore it with my green surcote

Not the best photo, but not the best outfit. In my defence I was wearing the red cote on its own all day, at Rowany Festival, and it suddenly got cold, as it does there, so I just threew on my warmest thing over the top. It was dark, no one was supposed to look too closely :P Anyway, the red is just too bright for the demure green, and I think the same think will happen with this very un-vibrant blue.

So, I was planning to make this fabric into a surcote to wear to the Midwinter feast next Saturday. I could still do that, but it would require a whole new underdress, because I don't think the gold one will go either. I could find a different brand of dye from the nearby shopping centre RIGHT NOW and use the house's washing machine, hoping that I don't somehow wreck it and also that it will have an effect on the colour. OR I could use some maroon wool that I pulled out of my stash and make a surcote from that, and wear it with my gold underdress. I need to go the the shops anyway, so I might see what sort of dye I can find and how much it will cost me, then if that plan fails I'll go with the maroon.

Except... I've just realised I've left my linen at home, the linen I was going to use to line the surcote, and if I use the maroon I'll need some fabric to line the sleeves with.... UGH FAIL

Dyeing Adventures #2 (Epic Fail)

There is only two weeks left of holidays. There is no way I'm going to get my list of THINGS done in the next two weeks. Work keeps wanting me to work. I've been working between 30 and 36 hours every week, which is awesome because I get to save up a whole bunch of monies for the proposed Pennsic 2013 trip, but not so awesome in that I have barely any free time and when I do I just feel like sitting and not doing anything.

ANYWAY I have done some things. Sort of. I made a set of arrows :) I wanted them for the Vallon d'Or IKAC since I only had 7 arrows left and you need 6, but my carefully planned plans were thrown off when I went to Achenfeld A&S to borrow the fletching jig and get working on them, but there was no taper tool except an old pencil sharpener that was way too small for my sticks. No taper tool, no nocks, and nocks are kind of essential for using the fletching jig. I really should've been more organised and checked that everything I needed was with the jig instead of just assuming, but there you go. I ended up just going to Vallon d'Or with my seven arrows, and promptly broke one in the first end. Luckily no more broke, not that it would've made any difference at all to my absolutely woeful score of 81. I made my new set of arrows the day after the IKAC :P. I shot in my man-cote with the slightly too-small sleeves because I didn't find time to make new ones.

However, I did make some adjustments to my green surcote. I detached the sleeves, opened up both side seems down to the gores, added in an extra inch-wide panel on both sides, then attached the sleeves again. I didn't get time to finish any of the seams, but that's ok because when I wore it to the feast I realised I would need some more adjustments. It's still too tight around the hips below where the gores start, so I'm going to take out the seams of the gores as much as I can to give myself a bit more room. It's also still too tight at the top above the armpit, where the new panel ends. After consulting with Catherine she suggested that I just cut the neckline down by one button, and since I have room to do so I think I will try it. That also means I can replace one of my lost buttons :P

Today I am dyeing my wool. Last time my selvedge didn't shrink, while the rest of the fabric did, so this time I cut the selvedge off

I'm also going to hang it on the hill's hoist in the sun, because the lines are straight. Last time I didn't want to hang it in the sun because I've had bad experiences with natural fabrics shrinking, fading and turning all stiff because our sun is a bit violent. Instead, I hung it under the verandah on some ropes that have been strung up, which sagged and stretched the fabric in places so it didn't lie flat. Anyway, it's winter now so the sun isn't so harsh, and I'd rather have fabric that wasn't stretched funny. It makes it a bit difficult to cut out and make into things if it's all stretched :P

The next step was to experiment with colours. You may remember I was pondering adding green to my blue dye to get a teal colour? Well, I decided to boil a little saucepan of water on the stove and add a tiny bit of dye to test the colours.

First try kind of failed. I meant to test the blue, then add green and test that, but I forgot my intentions almost instanlty and just added both blue and green. A little bit too much blue and green. This is a piece of selvedge that came out blotchy because of the weird selvedge weave thing it has going on. So I tipped that lot down the sink and tried again

I cut some bits of actual fabric instead of using the selvedge. The blue came out quite a nice blue, but as soon as I added the teeniest bit of green, the whole thing turned aqua. I decided I liked the blue, so I went with just using two packets of blue, and stuck it all in the washing machine. This is what I ended up with:

The strip on top is the colour I wanted. Underneath is the colour I got. I got the same colour as some wool I already have. Guh! I've hung it out to dry, and I think I might buy another packet of blue and run it through again with that to make it darker. I wanted that teal blue, but the next best thing would be dark blue rather than light blue. So frustrating! It means I need to get some more dye, then find a time to come home to use mum's machine because I'm housesitting from Monday and don't want to use their machine in case it all goes horribly wrong. It's a front loader as well, which is a different technique to the top loader, and besides, mum's machine is an industrial one which is a lot more efficient than these dumb water saver machines :P

The other thing I've done is order some silk! I've bought a skein if green and a skein of purple from Treenway Silks, and they should be finished dyeing in three weeks, then posted to me. I've been slowly pottering through Ecclesistical Pomp, and I've been developing an idea in my mind for my belt. I'd like it to have a ground weave of purple and green stripes, then I think I'd like to get hold of some metallic thread to brocade some sort of heraldic bits along it. I've been looking at getting actual gold wrapped thread from here, but so far I can't figure out how to order, or how much I'll need. I figure since I'm using proper good expensive silk for the ground weave, I should really use something of equal quality for the brocade. That reel is $14 for five metres, but I'm not sure if I'll need more than that. Any weavers out there know how much weft they use for a belt about a metre and a half long?

Tonight I'm intending to work on my geen surcote. I'll at least do the neckline and move that button. I want to wear it to the tournament that's on tomorrow because it's my warmest garb and it's generally pretty cold down at Wandi :P