Overdyeing

Today I did the overdyeing for Accident-2.  Since I was doing this on the cloth alone (no screen stretched over the top), I realized I could do this step on my large padded work table, rather than on the floor.  The photo below shows the top edge of the quilt pinned to the table.  (Ignore the messy splotches on the drop cloth under the piece--it's been through the wash.)  The rest of the piece is hanging over the table and resting on the floor.  After I finished each section (applying the four colors across, from right to left), I pulled the piece up and over the back of the table.  I put a sheet on the basement floor to protect it.

I ran a line of thread loosely down in the turquoise section, to mark where I wanted to extend the royal blue.   (I removed the thread as I worked--otherwise it would have served as a resist and left a line in the fabric.)

The next photo shows me at about 2/3 down the piece.  Here I'm finishing up scraping on the new layer of black dye, and am using a narrow strip of a cut up (expired) credit card to scrape the black dye carefully on the edge of the ochre shape; the larger areas are scraped with a whole credit card--a great tool!  In my left hand, I'm holding a foam tray with a puddle of thickened dye.  I know this looks like I've made the black area totally solid, but once the dye is washed out, the letters will be gray, against the black background.

I feel cautiously optimistic about how the piece will turn out.  There is a certain amount of fixing I can do after I see how this overdye turned out.  I can't make anything revert to white, but I can add further color to areas, if I decide that's needed.  Now I wait about 10 days for the dye to batch.  I may do a little screen printing on cloth napkins with some of the thickened dye I have left over.  And perhaps I'll get back to the hourglass quilt--the top is done, but I still have to figure out how to finish it into a tablecloth.