Weekend dyeing part 2

20 yards of fabric dyed and in the process of wash out. This is half of them. No one said dyeing wasn't hard work! Once they have all sat in the first washout in their own little tubs, I move similar colors to buckets. I know some people throw all the colors together, but I am an untrusting soul and prefer to work slower and not have to redo due to backstaining.

Tubs of yummy color batching

The male members of my family call me "Adolphia". They are not being affectionate. They say that they built me a perfectly good sewing room in the basement, which is true. I still remember the complaining that went on when I explained how many closets I needed, and they whined about what a pain they were to frame! But then my son moved out and his basement bedroom became a guest room, which meant it was just fine for storing batting when there were no guests. Batting takes up a lot of space. Some now call that room "Czechoslovakia".

At first I ironed my hand-dyed fabric upstairs, but I don't always finish right away and we have a very open plan house, so I started ironing in the basement living area. TV alleviates the tedium, right? And the chairs are useful for draping ironed cloth over. Somehow the cloth doesn't get put away very quickly, and the table in there is really useful for holding fusing supplies in process. My cutting table is always cluttered somehow, so a second table really frees things up. I always have a lot of things in process. Some now call that room "Poland".

When I started dyeing I was terrified of the powder, and did all the mixing in the garage. Until the winter day when I came inside and couldn't feel my feet for about 10 minutes. My hh (handy hubby) put up some serious lights over the basement sink for my birthday last year. Dyers have odd birthday and Christmas requests! However, the sink is in the unfinished section of the basement, where the boy toys live. When I moved the dye in there, and the box for measuring the dyes, and the jars for holding dyestock, and the table to hold the box for measuring the dyes, and the racks to store my batik and surface design tools, and took over the bar fridge for dyestock, and the coat rack for dried soda soaked fabric for screen printing, eyebrows started to rise and the name Adolphia was born. Boys are mean...

It is not an invasion, just a wise use of resources, including space. Dye drips on concrete are less of a train smash than in the laundry room, where I managed to get fuchsia splashes on the wall, despite my best efforts.

The basement bathroom is a perfect batching room. I live in Ohio. Batching outside occurs about 1.1% of the time. It's more of a snow dyeing region...A space heater keeps the bathroom at a toasty 75 degrees, as long as everyone remembers to keep the door shut. I make sure there is a path through the piles of tubs with fabric batching, should anyone need to use the facilities. I don't know why someone has put a label with "France" on the basement bathroom door...