You’ll need to forgive the way I look. There’s nothing glamorous about dye day. Or really dye week. Prepping fabric, dyeing fabric, washing up, washing out and ironing are all really blue collar fun. You sweat and get messy. Never mind that I’ve missed my last three hair cuts.
My friend Lauren Strach used to come to visit, partially for dye day, but mostly for the day I ironed. Because that was the day the fabric came out of the mangle.
Hand dyed fabric is pretty. But like all of us, it likes to dress up. It’s nice hanging out to dry. But you really get to see it when it comes through the mangle, pressed, starched and pretty. It rolls out like a beautiful woman floating down a staircase.
Of course the real moment is when you get to see it with hand-dyed thread
Lauren is a fabulous fiber artist, who explores a number of styles, in amazing ways. You’ll find her work on Instagram.
I’ve been privileged to watch her work grow. And she would come and drool with me over the freshly ironed new hand dye. She lives in Oregon now, and I in Galesburg, IL and all of that would take a lot of arranging to do again. But I treasure the memory of watching her face as the fabric would roll out, pressed and precious. And the things she would do with it.
You’ll want to see more of Lauren’s work. It’s a journey in color, texture and joy.
You might ask why I was mangling in the garage instead of the new glorious studio! We had misbehaving mangles. Don found me a lovely mangle that lasted just long enough to blow black smoke and powder on the floor immediately after it was plugged in. We took it out and found that new amazing IronRight. It stopped opening and closing about five minutes in.
I had a long cry, and we waited a day to plug in my old mangle from Porter and she worked like a charm. You bet I sang to her!
This is Don companionably sitting on his mower in the garage while I ironed my fabric. He had to sit somewhere. Did I mention I really like being married?
I do dye fabric for others as well as myself. This was a good dye run, and People regularly ask me to dye what they want for a particular project. But I do have some fabric from the last dye run I would be willing to sell if there’s an interest. Contact me and I’ll set up a video phone conference if you wish to pick some out for yourself.
