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More of what I’ve been doing…
One of the members on one of my e-lists is going through a rough year, recently diagnosed with not one but TWO serious illnesses at the same time. So, another group member is going to put together a snuggly quilt for her, and I made this block. The stitching around it reads: fabric, friends, health, hugs, thread, these things I wish for you, fabric, friends, health, hugs:
Then I FINALLY, after five months, got the squares cut from my BlauViolett dyed cottons and silks so I can do some tests for lightfastness (as in, will it fade a lot or not?) for this dye, procion MX-RX-7 known as BlauViolett. You may (dimly, in your distant memory) recall reading this blogpost about my December dyeing adventures. Well, I didn’t want glue to be a factor in any lightfastness testing, so I cut sorta-square pieces about 3 1/2 inches on a side and stitched them to some stabilizer (a sewing product used to prevent fabric from behaving badly when doing dense stitchery). Here is what the fabrics looked like in December up on my work table:
Here are the stitched up groups. There is a VERY wiggly sheer silk at the top, followed by the cotton (the dye is reputed to be very unstable on cotton exposed to light), silk dupioni, a silk jacquard (with a mystery fiber that is clearly neither silk nor cellulose fiber as it stayed white), and the delectable, want to roll naked in it wear it next to my body sandwashed silk . One source has told me that on silk, the dye is stable and retains its GLORIOUS color, but that on cotton it fades horribly. The two vertical strips on the left are going into the dark. The far left one is inside a manila envelope inside a cupboard, the short strip is on top of the envelope in the cupboard (which is opened fairly regularly but not subject to intense light exposure).
The other four strips are dated with the date they went up on the window. I will, I hope
remember to take them down at one-month intervals. This window faces east-southeast, and gets some of the best sunlight / exposure in our house. We don’t have any windows without the sashings, so this is the best testing spot I can find (the only other option would be pinned to the screen on the back porch, subject to the elements…nah!). At the end of summer we’ll compare the six strips side by side!