Out,… Out, I Say!

May 2, 2016 by curvylou 7 Comments

I could not stop taking pictures, and I could not decide which of these to not show you. So I included them all.

Ah, curvylou. You live up to your tagline once again.

It started out all right. In fact, it started out great. I was so happy with my earlier oxalis-dyeing series that I decided to try some more. I went out back and harvested a dye-pot-full of oxalis, including as many yellow flowers as I could find.

I didn’t wash it beforehand, or cut it up into bits, just pulled it up by the roots—it’s a hardy weed; the world will never run out of oxalis—shook out the leaves, removed anything that wasn’t oxalis, and threw it in the pot.

And when I say a dye-pot full, I really mean it. This pot was crammed full of oxalis. I couldn’t have fit much more in there if I had tried. Once harvested, I added about half a pot of water, and simmered gently for about ninety minutes, stirring occasionally, until the oxalis looked like cooked spaghetti.

And of course, while that was going on, you know I was setting up some ad-hoc something or other. Because I’m good/lame like that.

And eventually, I started dyeing these two wools. One is a heavy-weight plain weave, the other a light-weight wool.

My plan was to dip-dye one large, rectangular piece on each end, and I set up my brilliant [cough] ad-hoc dipping station with that in mind. The second piece was going to be a small experiment when the larger experiment was finished.

So far, everything was working out great. I wrapped my wool around my dowel and was successfully dipping the ends into the dye. Every fifteen minutes I rolled the dowel and let another inch or two of fabric dip down into my dye.

The problem started when I couldn’t make my fabric stay where I put it. So I resorted to these, and innocently proceeded on my way. [cue the gory music]

Imagine my horror when I finished dyeing. And took them off.

Yeah, that’s a grease stain.

In the immortal words of my sister Wendy when she lifted the Thanksgiving turkey by its handle and went to flip it over only to be sprayed from boobs to hairline with juice and stuffing when the handle came out, “Fuck Me!”