Woolly Mutts

Tie and dye

One of the real joys of my job is all the amazing people I have had the chance to meet and the most special of those is my lovely friend Michelle.  Michelle is being married in September (SO excited) and I decided to throw her a bridal shower for the staff at JustGoods.  As are most of the JG family, Michelle is very eco conscious so I'm doing my best to keep the shower from being overly wasteful.  We will be avoiding all the usual throw away items like plates and cups since the store has a large supply of pottery and glass  available to us.  Napkins, though...what to do about napkins? 

While walking through our local Old Tyme Pottery I came upon packages of white restaurant quality cotton napkins for a pretty fair price and the thought hit me.....tie dye them!  YAY!  After the shower the guests can take them home, or give them to Michelle.  Since it appears that we now live in the rain forest (90+ temps with humidity to match) we spent last weekend indoors and had a little dye party!

Napkins, dye, rubber gloves and rubber bands....check!  It was my intention to use the old standby, Rit, but while standing in the aisle at JoAnn's I saw the Dylon brand and decided to give that a try.  My original idea was to stick with two colors, but as usual, (ask my yarn stash) I was romanced by all the color and ended up with 7.  Dark brown, amazon green, terracotta, tulip red, sunflower yellow, intense violet, and bahama blue. 

As per package instruction I dampened the fabric and then rubber banded them into happy little bundles.  I have to admit that by the time I had done this over 20 times my level of banding creativity started to take a dive.  While I banded, AH prepared the dye.  We had three workable containers, so we did three colors at a time.

As before, we followed package instructions and stirred occasionally while letting them soak in the dye for about an hour.  We were pretty casual about the timing.  After they soaked in the dye bath we removed them, clipped the rubber bands and then sent them through a short rinse/spin cycle in the washing machine.  (After all the colors were completed we ran some bleach through a full cycle to clean out any dye residue that might have been remaining in the washer tub.) 

After rinsing we hung them on the basement line to dry.  Package suggested we keep them out of direct sunlight or dryer heat until set.  In the end, I threw them into the dryer on air dry and it did a nice job of taking the band wrinkles out.

TA DA!  An example of each color.  I now have 36 cool napkins and one bobble head cat.  Frank just got a new do and was insistent on having his picture taken.  Silly kitty.

I am super excited at how this project turned out and now I want to dye a set for us to use at home.  Fun and functional. 

In other news, my boss quit on Saturday and the whole place is in a bit of an uproar.  Michelle (xo) and I are doing our best to step in, but what  a mess.   It's a complicated business with lots of sad and shock and reorganization.  Keep your fingers crossed that I am up to the challenge.

Spring

This is "Spring" by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema.  I know it's huge and my apologies to my dial-up friends.  The original is hanging in The Getty museum in LA.  (The Getty Center, not The Villa.)  If you ever get the chance to visit LA, The Getty is well worth the time.  The place is honestly and truly amazing.  I first visited The Getty in the late summer of 1998.  It was the end of a difficult time for me, and though I did not know it at the time, the beginning of a whole new life.  As with many major museums, you have the option of renting a box of sound that will tell you the story of many of the paintings living there.  The very sweet, retired gentleman that rented me my set looked me right in the eye, smiled, put his hands on each side of my face and said, "enjoy them.  Just see each piece and let it speak to you."  This exchange was significant in so many ways.  Yeah, I know, he touched me, but it wasn't weird or strange at all. 

Anyway, back to Spring.  This painting is very, very large; 70 1/4 in by 30 1/2 in and in this huge ornate frame that resembles the door of a Greek temple.  The description is here.  Of all the magical and wonderful pieces I saw that day, this one followed me home.  If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you'll know that my attempts at drawing were somewhat abysmal, but in my drawing class I did learn to appreciate the glory of the masters.  In this painting, each face tells a story.  Each and every one.  Do you see over on the left there is a woman with her head turned gazing at the man next to her.  Does he know she loves him?  And the woman with the cala lilies in her hair, she is completely enraptured by the events in the street.  Each child is portrayed in her pride and excitement.  And the colors, the colors are magnificent.  Sir Alma-Tadema was fascinated by the ancient world and often painted modern (1890's modern) events and traditions in ancient form.  It was almost as if he took the trussed up proper residents of the 1890's and set them free. 

Spring, a time of rebirth.  A chance to put Winter back in her sleeping place and see the world again with fresh eyes, new excitement, and simple joy.