I've been dyeing

That's dyeing, not dying. Silk scarves, in fact. A few of these have even made it into my Etsy shop.  The ones I dyed today will make their way into the shop in the next few days.

Normally, I dye during the day so I can see the colors in natural light.  However, and this is a big however, I couldn't sleep last night so at midnight I got out my dyes and an piece of silk that I had sun dyed in cochinel a few years ago and ranged from deep red to pink.  It was kind of pretty but not precious.  In other words, an ideal candidate to experiment with.  I hauled out a handful of itty-bitty hair bands and randomly bound the scarf.  I wish I'd taken a picture because a bound piece of fabric is kind of cool looking.  I threw it into a basin to soak.  While it was soaking, I choose a lovely brown dye with a bit of a gold tone.  After mixing up the dye, I threw everything into the dye pot, everything that is but enough acid.

After all the dye exhausted, I pulled it out of the pot and rinsed it.  The dye was bleeding a bit, actually quite a lot.  But it was very late (or early depending on your point of view) and I released the bindings.  It was lovely, really lovely.  Except my hands, which were not; they were a weird gold-y brown.  It was then that the light bulb went off.  I needed to throw the silk back in the dye pot with enough acid to set the dye.  This changed the color of the areas that had been bound.  I was disappointed!  But it was very late and I was finally sleepy.

This morning this is what I saw.  I love it.  The red is there but is muted.  And the browns, they glow!  It's tie-dye but it's not TIE-DYE.  It would fit in at Hippy Hill but does not scream Hippy.  Bohemian, cool, different, wonderful.