It has been crazy busy lately, and I just have not been sewing... but I have been thinking about the corset - mostly thinking that I will just never get it done! - and it's lead me down some new and interesting paths. One was that I should try dying my own fabric using a homemade vegetable dye. It took a couple of hours and then I left it under the boyfs' supervision for 20 minutes and it looks as though I might have to start again! Not that I'm going to completely give up on my efforts just yet, I'll wait and see how they dry out first.
I decided on red cabbage (and a red onion that would otherwise go to waste) which was chopped up to a medium dice and put on to simmer in a large casserole pot for about an hour. I then added my fabrics (a white cotton, a white linen and some cream canvas - all offcuts) to 4 parts water and 1 part white vinegar and brought them to simmer for an hour. Once the fabrics were done I rinsed them in cold water until they ran clear and squeezed out the excess water. I lifted the cabbage and onion out of the dye (it'll be a perfect treat for the chooks) and put the fabrics in to simmer for another hour under the watchful eye of the boyf... in theory... this is where it all went wrong? right? as 20 minutes later I came back to the smell of burning! The fabrics are probably now not a keeper, but I'm going to let them dry and see what comes of it all. In theory my mauves should be blues and the burnt areas (after I'd finished huffing and puffing) made me think of nebulas and galaxies. It's either that or the chooks will soon be eating a lot more cabbage!
We'll see....
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