Monday 8 June 2015

Instructions Are For....OOoohhhhhhhh, I Get It.

So even though my first attempts at making things to wear didn't go all that spectacularly, this weekend felt like a "making things" kind of weekend.

Yes, despite the absolutely glorious weather, I just wanted time to myself, in my space, and to catch up on the things that have been waiting for me to give them a try.

Like, dyeing a shirt that a friend gave me.   She didn't want it any more and thought it was summery enough that I might want to wear it in the desert, and hey, it's my Spring of experimenting apparently, so I said yes please, and thanks!

It was a cotton sort of longer sleeveless shirt thing and I figured although it wasn't particularly my shape and might be too warm for most of the day in the desert, maybe I would try dyeing it.

Went to the store and bought some of that fabric dye stuff and read over the "do it in your sink/bucket" instructions.

Seemed pretty straightforward and I even had new (non latex!) rubber gloves to help.  The instructions said to stir it for ten minutes at least, or up to half an hour "or until the desired colour is achieved" and because I wanted the top portion to be white, and the bottom portion to be darkest, I had to hold up one end.  As I was watching the colour soak in, I didn't really see why they said ten minutes or half an hour, it was good to go super fast, yay!

I rinsed and washed it and hung it to dry as per instructions, rather proud of my first attempt at dyeing something.

Woke up the next morning to take a look at it, and realized WHY the instructions say to have it stirring in the dye for so long... it had dried super duper pale.

Whoops.

Guess a good portion of the darkness I was seeing was from the water, not the dye itself.  Hmm... instructions... right. 

Went back and got another box of dye and am going to give the bottom portion another soak and see how it goes.

I keep reminding myself that everyone has to start somewhere.  And maybe five years from now (or two!) I'll be looking back on the first outfits I made while wearing the super awesome looking ones I future me made.  (That makes sense in my head!)

So, yeah.  Another not so perfect Burning Man clothes making attempt.

By the way, I ended up cutting off one of the straps from the "shirt" I made.  I fixed the floppy strap and then the other strap started to flop so I said what the heck and lopped one off.

And then sat and picked out the sewing, because hey, it doesn't have to suck THAT much!

Oh, and I fixed the cool light up necklaces I bought last year that didn't work well due to the electrical conductive wire being constantly exposed and short circuiting!  Go me!

2 comments:

Happydog said...

I thought of you when I read this article.
http://davidduchemin.com/2015/06/stop-using-a-camera-start-making-photographs/

Victoria said...

Ooooh, thanks HD! :)